Show MILITARY INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS The Marsh bill which has been favorably fa-vorably reported from the House Committee Com-mittee on Military Affairs to extend military instruction to the public schools Is a good conception I is proposed that the work of instruction shall devolve upon retired officers and that the War department shall Issue ordnance stores to the public schools of any city which may adopt military I instruction as part of the public schools school-s stem and agree to meet the extra pay of the Instructors One of our serious problems is to organic ganic a military system that will avoid the evils of n largo standing army and that at the same time will provide D heavy contingent of conlncnt population popula-tion at least fairly Instructed in military mili-tary drill The discipline of the dri lRcplne public pub-lic schools goes far to explain the ready aptitude of the American citizen In the duties of the soldier The Potsdam guards could scarcely perform the evolutions evo-lutions of the manual with more exactness exact-ness than the little tots respond to the evolutions of the fire drill A little more than a year ago when a lire broke out in one of our East Side public pub-lic schools It was beautiful to sec how the tots at tho words of command camo to attention forward In flies atenton In f1e tho aisles file right and file left fe lef and march out to safety and the whole building emptied In less than four minutes min-utes I Is not ability to respond to the drill manual that makes the soldier all of that necessary on tho theater of war may be learned In four months But the habit of obedience that leads to instant response to the call of the officers takes time because it must become be-come a mental habit Tho plan is emi nently practicable as It could be ap plied to the boys of the upper and high school grades I is at the time of life when they have the time and also when habits take habis such root as never afterward to be eradicated We have three military systems the regular army the Stale mllllla and the olunteers For a great emergency tho regular army is entirely Inadequate and hardly affords even n nucleus The I State militia having n separate mill tary organization Is of onallzatcl novalue except ns In affording individuals aCCording to tho volunteer vol-unteer service who ure up in the manual I man-ual Hastilydrawn levies of citizen citzen volunteers under our present system must form our great resource In time tnle of danger and some time that lme that danger may confront us BO swiftly as to result in tligract I llufglaC3 consequences Extend ing tic Instruction to tho public schools I J it l would in time virtually transform the entire population Into at least man uallytrained soldier and It would only remain to form some skeleton scheme of permanent military organ ixntlon which could be Instantly expanded ex-panded to provide all the military forces we arc likely to require The Lodge bill was an attempt In the right direction We should have but and that should army organization one nle orallmlon I be the regular army The greatest problem In military organization Is the provision of an pfflclent corps of line officers West Point does this In a wuy and excellently too for the needs of our little regular army But It ails when considered on the largo scale we wore obliged to supply In the Civil war and on a large scale the system is opposed op-posed to American habits and Institutions Institu-tions and If applied would form C military I tary caste In time S A few modifications of the present I duodecimal system and expansion of the regular army to 100000 on the aclh I list of the rank and file would afford a skeleton army that In conjunction with the proposed school oyBtem could instantly be expanded to 400000 or even fiOOOOO l if I necessary Jta objectionable objec-tionable feature would lie in the number of regimental organizations and the necessity of keeping the entire regimental organization intact But It would be much less expensive than any other adequate military system wo I could provide nnd free from the objections objec-tions of the large standing army With I a system of promotions drawn from the line and not from the schools each regiment and company would always bo provided with experienced officers A great thorough technical military mili-tary school like West Point will always l al-ways have value as providing a line of I students In military art and holding the army organization up with the times But In the large sense it would r be an accessory and not the axis of an American military system |