who have reached their full growth, there is justification for expecting still better results when military drill is made a serious part of daily school business with children whose nervous and muscular systems are growing and constantly forming new co-ordinations. A population which has enjoyed the physical and mental benefits of sound military drill in childhood will be stronger, more active, and handsomer than those who have had no such training. There is a drill-master within the breast, too, who will thank us for giving his little recruits such a training. The prompt response to the drillsergeant's word of command will not only secure more ready attention from a boy to his future master, and a smarter gait in obedience to the drill-master in his own brain; it will also help him to rule and co-ordinate his impulses and wayward desires when the time comes that shall call for their restraint by the great drill-master conscience, whose right it is to be his colonel. Military drill and singing should form part of the school routine from the day the child of the proletaire enters school at six years of age till the day he leaves it at thirteen. And it will form the proper basis for the training in the workshop, which should be given to all boys without exception from ten to thirteen years of age. It is

deplorable how much a man loses, and even suffers in the way of countless inconveniences, from not being trained to make a deft use of his hands in early youth. There are people, not far to seek, whose fingers go as awkwardly about the tying of a simple knot as a raw recruit performs the goose step. One would suppose there was no communication between their brain and the muscles of their hands. A black fellow of Australia, from being early necessitated to pick his living out of decayed tree trunks, will show a deftness of hand that would often put to shame a civilised Englishman. Proper training in a workshop in the use of a considerable variety of tools would make the fingers the nimble servants of their owner, which nature intended them to be; and would give us apt apprentices for the different trades.

"Now just as we have seen that military drill and training in the workshop should be complementary to each other in the elementary school, it is doubtful if a good programme for the proletaire past the age of thirteen can be drawn up without keeping military discipline and technical education in conjunction. Perhaps it is fortunate that it is so, when our highest military authorities are more than hinting at the expediency of adopting the conscription

in England. It would be a shock to English feeling to decree at once that all young men, say from twenty to twenty-three, shall be liable to serve in the army. It is a question if there exists any necessity for such a violent change. It would certainly be a serious disturbance of the business arrangements of the country. But it would not affect the business of the country otherwise than beneficially to introduce a modified conscription in the case of the young proletaire. Society has a right to expect that the young proletaire, within a reasonable time, say twelve months, after leaving school at thirteen years of age, where he will most likely have been taught at the public expense, shall be engaged in some useful employment. If from any cause, personal or other, he is not so employed within twelve months after leaving school, it would be for the good of all parties that he should be made to serve in a cadet force until he is seventeen years of age. Subject to the convenience of the time, he might be allowed a choice between the army and navy. The period of life from fourteen to seventeen years of age is perhaps the most suitable of any for a naval or military training. The growing lad has not yet lost the plasticity of childhood. He is strong enough to bear all the burden of naval or military

drill. He is at the very stage of physical development to profit most by them in his own person, and to form those habits of military precision which would make him an efficient soldier or sailor if the country required his services in manhood, and an active and useful civilian if it did not. And far more than that, how much might be expected in the way of moral reform by gathering into disciplined battalions the youthful idlers who at present are only serving an apprenticeship in crime on the streets of London and our other great cities? The difficulty of keeping observation of that class of lads should not be very great. At the time they leave school their places of abode will be known to the schoolmaster and the compulsory officer. A small staff of officials similar to the compulsory officers of School Boards would suffice to keep an eye upon the youths; and any one who could not show such an official a certificate properly authenticated by a magistrate that he was in regular useful employment, would be reported to the proper authority for conscription.

"Whether conscripts should in all cases serve the full three years in the cadet force, or should in certain contingencies be allowed to leave it for ordinary employment, might be left an open question in the first instance. Not much difficulty need be

anticipated from the reluctance of youths in poor homes who cannot get employment to enter the cadet force. The class who would prefer to be loafers on the street without any occupation would be much reduced by the previous training in school. And the conscription might be invested with such a character as to make it even an attraction to young lads. There would be no necessity, after the military drill of school, to make them devote their whole time in the cadet force to military duties. In all respects it would be wise to conjoin with military and naval discipline some form of technical education. The conscripts might be half-timers, giving one half of their working day to their naval or military duties, and the other half to some branch of technical instruction. In this way an apprenticeship to a trade, with far more effective supervision and training than is got at present in the workshop, might be associated with military service. Different regiments, battalions, or companies might be associated with distinct branches of technical instruction and distinct trades. If during the first year of service the conscript's working day was equally divided between military or naval duty and technical instruction, during the other two years he might give a gradually decreasing portion of his day to

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