W E believe that the great bulk of the nation has
come to agree with the Spectator in the policy which it has advocated during the past four or five years in regard to physical training of a military character, including the use of the rifle, in all schools receiving Government grants and in all endowed schools. However much men may differ as to the need or wisdom of larger schemes, there is at any rate a substantial agreement in favour of our proposal. No doubt people have reached this agreement from many sides. To begin with, there are those who think that hitherto we have paid too little attention to the physical development of the children of the poorer classes, and that we are in great danger of our town-bred boys growing up with a poor physique, owing not merely to their insanitary surroundings, which unfortunately are often irremediable, but also to what is remediable,—to our neglect of physical education. By giving boys, and girls also, a sensible physical training a very great deal can be done to improve their bodily health. It has been said, and said truly, that among the many terrible disadvantages of uuiversal service there is one conspicuous advantage,—viz., that all who have to submit to it come some time in their lives under a strict medical inspection. But such medical inspection, though it is useful at eighteen or nineteen, would be still more useful if it were to take place at a much earlier age, and when the doctor would have the ally of growth to help him in his work of retrieving bodily defects. If we make physical training universal and compulsory, as we make literary training, it will obviously be necessary to have the children overhauled by a doctor before they begin that training, and at least once a year afterwards. To pass the whole of the children of the country under medical review in this way would, we believe, have immense advan- tages, and would greatly improve the health and physique of the next generation. How often do we find men with some physical defect which, it is obvious, could have been cured had the defect been detected at twelve or thirteen ? Under a proper plan for training the bodies as well as the minds of the rising generation such defects would in most cases have been detected early enough for cure.
But though almost everybody will agree that if it is worth while for the State to see for itself to the minds of the children, it is also worth while to train and develop their bodies, there are also a great number of people—many of them not in the least tainted by militarism—who go further and who feel that a man in order to be a complete man—that is, one capable of protecting his life, his country, and his civil and political rights—should acquire as a boy and youth the elements of military training,—that is, should be given a physical training of a military character, including the use of the rifle. They do not want to see him forced into barracks, or pledged to do any form of military service, but they do desire that he should be endowed with a training which, if he wills it, may later allow him with comparative ease to fit himself for what may turn out to be his supreme duty as a citizen,— the duty of defending himself and his country from attack. Such training of a military character is in no way inconsistent with the physical training desired by those who think first of the health of the community. On the contrary, it is safe to say that the best physical training can be expressed in military terms. Simple drill is good for the body, and is easier to do and to learn than the more elaborate forms of gymnastics ; and if it is coupled with the use of the rifle and the acquisition of a moderate degree of marksmanship, the eye and hand obtain a most 'valuable training, and the body is taught to submit itself to the direction of the brain. The boy who learns to be a fair shot will find the knowledge help him greatly in many forms of mechanical work. No man was ever the worse for having a straight eye and a steady hand, what- ever his employment.
It may be asked : "If the Spectator is so convinced that the British people generally are agreed that we ought to have universal physical training for boys and lads, and that this training should have a military character and should include the use of the rifle, why need we trouble any more about the matter ? " Our answer is simple. Parliamentary action is necessary ; and it has been again and. again proved that though the country may be convinced of the wisdom of taking a certain step, Parliamentary action does not follow unless the representatives of the people have been made to realise that it is the wish of their constituents that such action should be taken. Now there is only one way in which Members of Parliament can be made to feel that their constituents are interested in any particular matter, and that is by having that matter mentioned and discussed during the Parliamentaryelections. To put the thing in a concrete form, in spite of the general agreement upon which we have dwelt, there is little hope that the next Parliament will enforce universal physical training of a military character unless the question is brought to the notice of Parliamentary candidates, and is freely discussed during the Election. If it is so discussed, and if candidates on both sides thus become interested, and give assurances and. pledges in regard to it, we may feel pretty sure that some- thing will be done. If, on the other hand, the matter is put aside during the General Election, and no discussion takes place, it is certain that the next Parliament as a whole will not feel competent to deal with the subject. This being so, we would ask those readers of the Spectator who believe in the necessity of universal physical training of a military character to see to it that the question is raised throughout the United Kingdom. What we suggest is that such readers of the Spectator should take care that the candidates on both sides in the constituency in which they live have the matter brought to their notice, and are asked to give it proper attention. We do not suggest that any attempt should be made to obtain anything in the shape of a bard-and-fast pledge from candidates. The attempt to obtain such a pledge might do more harm than good, especially as no detailed scheme is before the country. All we want is that those of our readers who realise that if Britain is to maintain in the future a healthy people, and one capable of springing effectively to its own defence in a moment of peril, we must make physical training universal, should insist that the question be placed before the electorate, and that the great opportunity of a General Election shall not be missed for furthering the cause they have at heart.
To come to a practical proposal, what we suggest is this. Our Unionist readers should write to Unionist candidates, and our Liberal readers to Liberal candidates, appealing to them in some such terms as the following :—" Will you, if returned to Parliament, give your best attention to the question of improving the health of the nation, and of making its manhood more capable of defending their homes and their liberties, should need arise, by a system of universal physical training of a military character, including the use of the rifle, in all State-aided and endowed schools and also in continuation schools? We do not ask you to pledge yourself to any fixed scheme, but merely to -give the subject your sympathetic considera- tion whenever it is raised in Parliament." A better form of words may no doubt occur to many readers. All we desire to do is to give an illustration of our proposal. We have suggested writing a letter. An even better way is to raise the matter at "question time" at a public meeting. The majority of those who read these words will during the next month be at one or two public meetings. If they would take the opportunity to ask 'the candidate his opinion on the proposal in favour of universal physical training of a military character, including the use of the rifle, they would be doing a double service. They would not merely show the candidate that there are people in his con- stituency deeply interested in the matter, but would interest the general public. If the question is thus raised during the General Election in some six hundred constituencies, it will never be possible in the future for any one to say that it is not ripe for discussion, that though it may be very excellent in itself, the people of Britain know nothing about it, and that there- fore it is not practical politics. By being mentioned at every election meeting an impetus will be given to the proposal which may possibly carry it into practice during the next Parliament. There is nothing anti-Radical • or anti-democratic in it. On the contrary, it is essentially democratic. But democratic or not, it will, we are sure, be impossible to get any Government interested in it unless Members of Parliament have first been interested. In one respect all Governments are the same. They avoid taking up any question upon which they have not got an assurance that the country is instructed, and their rough-and-ready test of popular interest is whether the matter was talked about at the elections, and whether Members of Parliament tell them that when it was raised in their constituencies people seemed really keen about it.
We will end as we began, by appealing to the readers of the Spectator who go with us in this matter—we believe that they are a vast majority of our readers—to see to it that the question is not allowed to fall into the background during the Election. It is not, and cannot be, a party question in any sense. Whether we are Free-traders or Pro- tectionists, we all want a strong and healthy race, and not a population of physical degenerates ; and we must all desire also that the men of the nation, if they are ever called upon to face some great peril, shall be able to say : "Thank God, when a boy I learned my drill and how to handle a rifle and to hit a mark, and therefore when I respond to the call to arms I shall have something worth offering my country. I know that if the Government have got the officers and the organisation ready I can become a serviceable fighting man in a few weeks."
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