Military Training in the High School

Abstract

As a preliminary step to any discussion of the advisability of military training in secondary schools it is necessary to define the term, otherwise the expression will mean one thing to one person and a totally different thing to another. To one it means military drill in the same sense as it is used by the army officer, and includes training with a rifle, manual of arms, and close-order formation. This is a part of the type of training received by the United States regulars, or by the national guard, and has as its fundamental purpose the development of an efficient unit in a fighting machine. Others use the term in a broader sense, meaning such a development of a man's powers as shall make him capable of rendering efficient service to his country, either as a private citizen or, when this general training has been supplemented by technical drill, as an enlisted man. Those who accept the latter definition include in their interpretation of the phrase such a type of physical training as will produce healthy bodies and alert minds, with habits of obedience and self-control. Courage and patriotism are also included as essential products. As popularly employed, military training is restricted to the first of these two interpretations and suggests that narrow vocational instruction which prepares for the life of the professional soldier. Abundant justification for this definition of the term is found in the current discussion of the question and in the various bills that have been introduced both in state and in national legislature. During the autumn of 1916, the New York Times printed a series of letters from the heads of preparatory schools, in which the writers expressed their opinions of the value of preparedness instructionin the military interpretation of the term-in the various institutions which they represented. Such expressions as these abound: I desire universal military training which shall begin with the