Arms and the boy; military training in schools and colleges, its value in peace and its importance in war, with many practical suggestions for the course of training, and with brief descriptions of the most successful systems now in operation

Front matter

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Introduction

At the inauguration of President Wilson I was in Washington and attended a theatrical performance in the New !N'ational Theater. Just before the play began, the Culver cadets, who were in Washington in a body, marched into the theater and occupied a dozen rows of seats which had been reserved for them in front. Their behavior was so conspicuously considerate of the rights of others, their appearance so winsome and fine, and their courtesy so genuine, that I have ever since had a strong feeling that whatever might be true of military training for boys in some places, that given at Culver must be based upon a real understanding of the process by which boymaterial is fashioned into manhood. !N"ow I have been permitted to read the proof sheets of this book by Colonel L. R. Gignilliat on Arms and the Boy, and to say a word to introduce it to its readers.

Of all callings, it has sometimes seemed to me that thai of the headmaster of a secondary school for boys is at once the most responsible and the most delightful; delightful because the contact there is with the spirit of youth as it is beginning to measure itself against the task of life, and responsible because the problem is so subtle, requires so much understanding of personal variation and difference, and also because of the fact that a mistake made with a boy is so much more serious than a mistake made with a man.

Now, the value of this book, written by the headmaster of such a school, is that it does not start out to demonstrate a preconceived thesis, but gives the results of long-continued ob-

INTEODUCTION

servation and experience. Its conclusions are not militaristic, nor Have they, so far as I am able to judge them, the slightest tendency in that direction. They do, however, seem to show quite conclusively that military training on the honor system, and with all unreality and sham taken away from it, so that a boy who is undergoing it does not feel that he is attending a moot court, tends to give boys straight bodies, straight minds and straight morals. The only danger one hears urged against this form of education, properly given, is that expressed by those who fear that the habit of obedience is destructive of initiative, and is in some obscure way un-American. But I wonder whether the truth is not that we have so little of the habit of obedience in America that our danger really lies in the other direction, and whether it is not also true that obedience is really a fundamental virtue and does not involve a sacrifice of individuality. We obey the laws of nature, we obey the laws of man, we obey the laws of home and society, and the whole process of education is one for learning what things to obey and acquiring the discipline that enables us to give the necessary obedience.

Quite apart from any comment of my own upon this book, however, its merits will speak for themselves, and to those who want to know what the ideals are of a proper military training for boys, I am free to say that I know of no one to whom they could turn with greater confidence than the author of this book, no one whose experience is larger, whose own ideals for peace are higher, or whose success in applying military education would entitle him to speak with more authority. Such a reader will find the whole story told here with enthusiasm for those truths wliich the author believes demonstrated by his

INTRODUCTION

experience, yet witH a candid recognition of the arguments on! the other side and an attempt to account for the failures which seem sometimes to have attended military education. The book is clear and frank and helpful. It is, moreover^, especially timely Just now when we are all measuring the possible content of the universal obligation of citizenship an(3 considering what real preparedness may mean for America.

Newton D. Bakee.

War Department, "Washington, D. C, May, 1916.

Preface

Frederick Palmer tells a story of an Irish recruit, who, after the drill master had given him first right face and then left face, column right and column left, hy the right flanh and by the left flanJc, and right shoulder and left shoulder arms for an hour or so, threw down his rifle in disgust, saying, "Bedad, I won't work for a man who changes his mind so often."

With the very general lack of military information that exists on the part of most of our citizens there is a chance, perhaps, that some teachers and parents may likewise reach an adverse conclusion with regard to military drill without the opportunity of seeing very far into its real whys and wherefores.

In the hope, therefore, that it nuay prove helpful and suggestive to the many who are now interested in military training, but who have lacked experience in its coordination with educational work, I have attempted to bring together in this book some concrete information regarding the application of the military system to the various types of institutions, public high schools, strictly military boarding schools, and colleges with military departments.

In discussing the effects of military training in the schools and colleges, it is necessary to recognize the wide variation in the scope and character of such training in the various classes of institutions, to take into account the fact that some are

PBEFACE

required by law to give military instruction, tliat others are doing so voluntarily for what they believe to be its moral and physical value, that some, like "West Point, regulate the whole life of their cadets from 1-eveille to taps on a military basis, and that others rely on the drill hour alone to ^ the habits and develop the characteristics that military training is supposed to induce. Therefore, while there may be some slight overlapping, it has seemed best to discuss separately the applications of military instruction in the different types of schools and colleges.

Drill in the high schools has received attention particularly from the standpoint of the present discussion of the subject. An effort has been made to answer the objections that have been raised to such training, using material that has been generously furnished me by those with wide experience in this field. Some practical data has also been included which may prove helpful in the successful inauguration of such work in high schools that now have military training under consideration.

Military training in the colleges is more briefly covered in connection with the chapters on the utilization of military training in the educational institutions as a means of training reserve officers.

The essentially military schools are treated largely out of my own experience and in a more or less descriptive fashion.

This material is presented with the further hope that it may make some small contribution toward the preparation of our young men for a more coniplete discharge of the duties

PREFACE

of citizenship, whether in the few years in which the country

may need their services in its defense or in the much longer

periods in which more effective and patriotic discharge of the

normal civic duties of peace will also mean much to the

nation.

L. H. G.

Contents

CHAPTEE PAGE

/ I Some of the Pbos and Cons of Militaey Tbaininq . 1 Endorsements — Contrary Opinions — Results Depend on Methods Used — Insufficiency of Dogmatic Statements — A Test of Military Discipline — Something More Than Academic Discussion.

II Origin, Government Aid and Classification . . 8 Influence of West Point — First Schools — Origin of Land Grant Colleges — In the High Schools — Instructors and Equipment — Retired Officers — Issue of Arms to High Schools — Government Classification— Illustration of Classification — Distinguished Colleges and Honor Schools — Commission for Honor Graduates.

Appendix

I Suggestions fob Staktinq Deill in Schools Where Militaby Instbuction Has Not Pbeviously Been Given 209

To Begin the Work Preparation of Equipment — Starting the Instruction— Subsequent Instruction — Squad Movements — Special Drills for Squad Leaders — Issue of Rifles — Manual of Arms.

Indoor Instruction in Bad Weather Panoramic Sketching — Method of Drawing to Scale — Omit Foreground on First Sketch — Constructive Criticism Is Most Effective — Special Ruled Paper Should Be Used — Topographical Sketching— The Pace Scale— The Sand Table- Contour Lines — Permanent Sand Table Terrain — Signaling — Visual Signaling.

II The Wyoming Plan. A Detailed Description Not Heretofore Published of the Method of Selecting Competition Units and a General Outline of the Course of Instruction 224

Competition Units — Essence of the Wyoming

System — Intraschool Competition.

Report on the Wyoming Plan Good Citizenship — Military Preparation — Rifle Practise — Troop Leadership Competitions — Week-end Camps — Summer Camps — Discussion of

CONTENTS— Confiw«e(Z

APPENDIX PAGE

Course — Moral Preparation — Civic Preparation — Business Preparation.

Report of Superintendent of Cheyenne High School

Camp — Public Exhibitions — Uniforms — Benefits from Drill.

III An Ethical, Physical, Militaey System of Training FOB Boys 237

Instruction of Boys Not Sufficiently Developed to Drill With Rifles — Instruction After Pupil Has Reached Fourteenth Year — Instruction Beginning With Sixteenth Year — Historical Instruction — Providing Competent Instructors — Importance of Early Training.

IV Training and Discipline of the Salt Lake City High-School Cadets 243

V Issue of Rifles and Ammunition to High Schools and Other Institutions Not Having Officers of THE Army Detailed as Professors of Military Science 246

VI California Rules and Regulations fob the Government OF High-School Cadets 252

The Law of the State of California Authorizing High-School Cadet Organizations — Number in Cadet Companies; Age Limit; Authority of Principal — Permission to Use National Guard Ranges — Inspection by State Oflacers — Property Responsibility— Books and Forms — Commandant of Cadets — High-School Authority — Organization — Appointments and Promotions — Commissions for Cadet Officers— Seniority — Reductions — Registration — Uniform— Studies — Discipline — Method of Investigating Breaches of Discipline — Responsibility for Company Discipline — Merits — Demerits — Conduct and Deportment — Responsibility of Cadets for Enforcing Discipline — Cadet Oflicer of the Day — Restrictions Regarding Use of Arms and Ammunition— Disapproval of Official Action — Redress of Grievances — Religious Duties — Tobacco and Intoxicants — Comradeship — Jealousy — Sportsmanship— Neatness — Neglect of Studies — Politeness — Protection of Weak — Purity — Profane Language — The Cadet's Glory — Target Practise — Gallery Practise — Estimate Distances — Rifle Club — Junior Marksman — Inter-School Competition — Military Correspondence — Ignorance of Regulations no Excuse.

CONTENTS— Continued APPENDIX PAGE

Extracts from a Letter from the Adjutant General of the State of California

Appropriation by Legislature — Expense of Uniforms — Number of Companies — Teachers' Certificates and Remuneration.

VII Suggestions fob Rifle Practise in High Schools. By Captain W. R. Kennedy, Instructor of Rifle Practise, Culver Military Academy 270

Rifle Team Organization — Construction of Galleries and Purchase of Rifles — Purchasing Supplies from the Government.

VIII Instruction of High-School Boys in Rifle Shooting IN THE Public Schools of New York City . . 273

Marksmanship Badges and Qualifications — Practise In National Guard Armories — Number Qualifying — The Army Practise Rod.

Shooting at Peekshill State Bdnge

Range Practise — Conduct of Boys at Matches—* Value of Practise on Sub-target gun machine — Influence on clean and manly living — Value as a Guarantee of Peace.

Extract from Letter from General Wingate Regarding Additional Equipment for Rifle Practise and Introduction of Elementary Drill

Rifle Practise in Salt Lake City Eigh Schools

(125 Rifle Practise for High Schools of California . 281

Description of System

Range — Targets — Course — Back Stop — Method of Firing — Classification — Insignia — State Championship— Adjutant General's Cup, Gallery Shooting — Adjutant General's Cup, Record Practise Service Ammunition.

Individual Competitions X Summer Camps for High-School Students . . . 288 Organization — Interest in Work — Proficiency Acquired— Extent of Instruction — Method of Selecting Students and Value of Plan — Gain from Intensive Instruction.

XI Certificate Issued by the War Department to Graduates of Militaky Schools and Colleges to

CONTENTS— Coniiwwec?

Appendix page

Which Officers of the Army Are Detailed as Professors OF LIlLITARy SCIE2sCE AND TACTICS .... 295

XII Securing Military Instructors and Arms and Equipment from the Government — Purchasing Uniforms Economically 297

Securing an Army Officer as Military Instructor

Active Officers or Retired Officers With Full Pay from the Government — Retired Officers With Difference Between Active and Retired Pay Paid by School — Condition Under Which the Detail of an Officer May Be Secured — Detail of Retired Non-commissioned Officers — Choice of Institution in Matter of Officer to Be Detailed — List of Available Retired Officers from Adjutant General — Extra Pay — How Applications Are Made — Securing Arms and Equipment from the Government — Equipment — Ammunition — Buildings — Uniform.

XIII Table Showing Income of Land Grant Colleges FROM United States, Time Allotted to Military Instruction per Year and Money Allotted to Military Departments 305

XIV Condensed Tabulation of Answers to Questionnaire Sent to Land Grant Colleges 307

XV Making a Success of the Military Course in a University. Giving the Organization and Course of Instruction of a Successfully Conducted Military Department at the University of Illinois .... 313

Extracts from Report

Classification — Appropriation and Expenditures — Organization — Conditions of Service in Military Department; Pay for Cadet Officers — Military Credits Necessary for Graduation — Theoretical and Practical Instruction — Rifle Teams — Military Topography — Military Information Division — Duty of the College in Building up Reserve Force — National Guard Units Composed of Students.

XVI The Reserve Officers' Training Corps in England 320

XVII A Five-Year Co:vrBiNED Military and Classical or Technical Course for Colleges Suggested by President Edmund J. James of the University of Illinois . 324

KVIII Suggestions for Military Courses in Non-Military Educational Institutions, from a Circular Issued

CONTENTS— Continued

APPENDIX PAGE

FROM Headquarters Eastern Department by Direction OF Major General Leonard Wood, Department Commander 326

XIX Plan for Military Instruction at Harvard University 332

Schedule of Instruction — Credit Toward College Degree — Enrollment Agreement — Course in Military Science.

XX The Organization of Field Artilleby at Yale University 336

The Organization of the Yale Undergraduate Batteries

How the Movement Was Begun — ^Need for Field Artillery — Response from Students — Connection With National Guard — The War Department's Interest in This Work — Course of Instruction — Progress of the work.

XXI Military Instruction Camps fob Students. Prepared by Lieutenant* R. G. Sickles, Culver Military Academy. Lieutenant Sickles Was a Member of the Burlington Camp in 1914 341

History of Camps — Object of the Plan — Course of Instruction — Expense to Students — Provision for Future Camps — Success of the Project.

XXII CoMPULSOR'S Military Training for the Boys of

New York 347

The Military Commission — Time Given to Drill — Field Training — Use of State Property — Instructors— Compulsory Physical Training.

Chapter I Some Of The Pros And Cons Of Military Training

Professor Orton of Ohio State University has spoken of military training as **the most important tool in our whole educational kit," and President Thompson of the same institution, President James of Illinois, President Schurman of Cornell, and many other successful educators have gone on record with an endorsement of such training for students apart from its military value.

Endorsements. — ^There are others, however, who take quite the opposite view, and between the arguments of those who endorse military training and those who oppose it, parents and teachers are often left in the uncertain frame of mind of a jury that has just heard the two sides of a case presented by opposing counsel with what appears to be equal brilliancy and equal convincingness.

Contrary Opinions. — Parents and teachers are told, on the one hand, that military training will afford an effective discipHne that is much needed by our modem youth.

They are cautioned, on the other hand, by those who object to military training, that it provides discipline of the wrong type, discipline that destroys initiative and makes the boy wooden. Furthermore, they are warned that military drill will make the boy bloodthirsty, and will benumb the higher and finer elements in his mind.

If it is asserted that schoolboys need more muscle and better physiques as well as more effective discipline, and that military training will provide both effectively, the objectors reply that drill is of no value as an exercise; that, in fact, it is injurious; that it makes a boy so lopsided you can tell as far as you can see him that he has carried a rifle.

When the argument is advanced that it is desirable that the boy should have some training for the military service which every able-bodied citizen may at some time be called on to render in his country's defense, the reply is made either that such training should be given in mature years or that the smattering of drill a boy gets in school will do him more harm than good when it comes to actual service.

Results Depend on Methods Used. — In the midst of so much conflicting testimony it is not surprising that both parents and teachers are sorely puzzled to know who is right and who is wrong.

I should be inclined to say that both sides are right and both sides are wrong, that everything depends on how the training is given.

In my opinion, there are schools and colleges that have justified by their perfunctory work practically;

every criticism that has been raised against military training for schoolboys and college men, and, on the other hand, there are institutions in both classes that have proved conclusively that military training properly given means higher ideals of citizenship for the student, more effective discipline and a better physical basis for educational training and life.

Insufficiency of Dogmatic Statements. — It is easy enough for both sides to a controversy to make purely dogmatic statements, and with such statements settle the matter to their own satisfaction. But the thoughtful parent and the unbiased teacher want more than this.

I should like at this point to relate an incident which to my mind demonstrates the qualities which proper military training should induce; namely, service, courage, discipline and physical endurance.

I shall be pardoned, I am sure, for taking this illustration from the institution with which I am connected, for illustrations are always more convincing when they fall within one's own experience.

A Test of Military Discipline. — One of the most satisfying tests of military discipline that has come under my personal observation occurred during the floods of 1913. The city of Logansport, Indiana, is located at the junction of the Eel and Wabash Rivers. For a time it was in as desperate a plight as any city in the flooded district. Some hundred cadets went to the rescue, using man-of-war cutters that had been Joaned them by the national government for the purposes of naval instruction. The call for help came about midnight. The cutters, which are twenty-eight feet long, eight feet in beam and weigh three thousand pounds, were stored for the winter in boat houses. Working by the light of lanterns the cadets loaded these boats on flat cars, finishing the arduous task about three A. M.

Rations for a day were issued, and the cadets who were to man the boats clambered into the caboose and the train pulled out into the darkness, feeling its way over weakened bridges and culverts. It finally reached Logansport just as day was breaking.

The cadets skidded their boats off the cars and slid them down the street-car track for a couple of blocks until they floated. Then they manned their oars and pulled toward the sections in greatest distress, near the banks of the river.

The current grew more swift and, finally, in a great rushing swirl at a street crossing, the first boat was dashed against a telegraph pole, smashing two of its heavy fourteen-foot oars. Fortunately, extra oars had been supplied.

From then on, ensued a hard all-day battle with swift currents and foaming eddies, dangerously complicated with wires and treetops. Snatching a mouthful of coffee occasionally, as they came to shore, the cadets worked unceasingly.

During the afternoon they kept steadily on, although half blinded by a driving snow-storm and with hands so cold that they could with difficulty retain their

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Main Building — New Mexico Military Academy, Roswell, New Mexico

Cadets of St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland grasp of the oars. Women and children were tenderlyhelped down from roofs and windows; the sick, the hungry and the cold, the aged and infirm, were put into the boats and taken to places of safety without a slip or a mishap.

By the second evening fourteen hundred people had been taken from the inundated district by these boys in their four cutters. And then securing their boats because the waters had receded too far to make it possible to get them back to the railroad, they marched by a long detour back to the depot.

By all the laws of nature they should have been exhausted, but they went their way with a swinging step, singing, and occasionally giving a school yell.

I do not mean to say that boys of a civilian school would not have been just as anxious to lend the aid that these cadets did, but what I do mean to say is that they could not have done it.

Even if they had had the physical endurance they would have lacked the organization, the perfect coordination. Obedience had to be automatic; there were times when instant response to commands, absolute coolness and absence of confusion meant, perhaps, the lives of a boat load of people.

It was not the fact that these boys rendered this service but that they did it so effectively, without slip or accident and merely as a matter of course, that I consider such a fine demonstration of the effects of military discipline.

The people of Logansport have erected in commemoration of this service a handsome gate at the entrance of the school. It seems most fitting that the cadets of the institution as they enter and as they leave should have this reminder of the value of discipline and efficiency and of the ideals of service to their fellow men.

Once after this incident I was talking to a boy who wanted to give up in the face of some small discouragement. I had talked to him quite a while without effect. Finally I said to him : "Do you suppose when we took those cadets to Logansport that we would have dared to risk including a man who had ever shown the kind of spirit you are showing now, or a fellow we knew would be willing to quit under any circumstances ?"

The effect of that concrete illustration was immediate. 'T will stick it out, sir," he said, and he did.

Something More Than Academic Discussion. — I do not mean to imply that the incident which I have just described answers every objection to military training and proves every contention in its favor. It relates, of course, to a strictly military institution in which the cadet is under the soldier's rules and regulations twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four, and in which military discipline gets a better whack at him than is possible in the day school or in the college where military instruction is limited to a certain number of drills.

I have used it, however, in the very beginning because there has been a tendency to regard military Jraining in the schools as a new and startling innovation, and to discuss it largely from an academic standpoint. As a matter of fact, if one will examine the school advertisements in the magazines he will find that about one-fourth of the private schools there represented are military or quasi-military in character. Nor does that, by any means, represent the full extent to which military training is now being given, or has been given in the past.

Chapter II Origin, Government Aid And Classification

Military Training as an adjunct to education is no new thing. The greatest civilization the world has ever known, that of the ancient Greeks, was attained by a system of education under which every boy, for at least two years of his life, was given a course practically identical with that of our best military schools of to-day.

This training was given him not merely that he might be versed in the art of war, but that he might acquire the disciplined will, the power of endurance, the sturdy physique, and the moral qualities of loyalty, devotion to duty, and self-sacrifice that become the citizen no less than the soldier.

Influence of West Point. — ^In this country our first military school was naturally an expression of our military rather than our educational needs. Washington, obliged to look to Europe for the skill in military engineering required in our war of independence, felt very keenly the need for a national military academy, and in his message to Congress strongly advocated the establishment of such a school. Due primarily to his influence, the United States Military Academy was founded at West Point in 1802.

West Point not only supplied the needed instruction for officers, but also demonstrated that military training, when coupled with education, possessed some distinct advantages over the civilian school in the discipline of the moral character and the bodily development of the boy. Hence, West Point has become the inspiration in the United States for many schools that have used the military system primarily to train young men for well-rounded citizenship.

Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, Superintendent of West Point from 1817 to 1833, is perhaps more than any other man responsible for that blending of military, intellectual and moral training that has enabled the graduates of West Point to achieve distinction in civil no less than in military pursuits. To him, therefore, those schools that look to West Point for methods and ideals are especially indebted.

First Schools. — The first private military school in America was founded by Captain Alden M. Partridge in 1820. It was known as the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy, and is now Norwich University. Captain Partridge was a professor at West Point from 1806 to 1815, acting superintendent the greater part of the time from 1808 to 1815, and superintendent from 1815 to 1816.

It is fair to assume that even in those initial years of the National Military Academy, before its present ideals and methods were evolved, he saw to his satisfaction the benefit that boys destined for civil life might derive from military training.

Captain Partridge and the graduates of Norwich were instrumental in founding a number of other private military schools throughout the country.

In 1839 the first state military school came into existence, a school destined to achieve fame as the West Point of the Confederacy. In that year the Virginia Military Institute opened its gates to boys of the Old Dominion under the superintendency of Colonel Francis H. Smith, a graduate of West Point. This institution was conducted from the start on the West Point plan. South Carolina in 1842 established *The Citadel'' at Charleston, and in 1845 the Kentucky Military Institute was added to the list of state institutions.

Histories of West Point, of Norwich University and of the Virginia Military Institute have been published and will furnish interesting reading for those who wish to go more fully into the development in this country of military training in connection with education.

Origin of Land Grant Colleges. — In 1862 the Morrill Law was passed by Congress donating public lands for "the establishment of colleges where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agricultural and the mechanic arts." These institutions are now known as the land grant colleges. In most cases they are the state universities, though in some instances maintained as separate mechanical and agricultural colleges. These schools in general, have not interpreted the words ''including military tactics" which appear in the law as meaning that they shall become strictly military institutions, such as Norwich University and the Virginia Military Institute. Several have done so, but in the main the instruction in "military tactics" has been limited merely to several drills per week, the students appearing in uniform and being under military discipline only while the drills are in progress.

In the High Schools. — The Boston high schools have afforded military instruction for half a century, and the Washington, D. C. schools are now giving such training to a second generation.

The states of California and Wyoming have both had drill in many of their high schools for a period of years, and cities like Salt Lake City, Omaha and Fort Worth, have had high-school battalions that are known more than locally.

In 1914 only eighty-two of the eleven thousand pubhc high schools in the United States afforded military training in any form ; only nine thousand of the half million boys enrolled in these schools were being taught anything of the soldier's drill or duties.

This condition is rapidly changing. In 1915, according to the Bureau of Education, there was an increase of fifty per cent, over and above the figures for 1914, and from the present indications, the current year of 1916 will witness a mobilizing of high-school boys under military discipline that will make the really large increase in 1914 appear as small, by comparison, as the attendance at a football game between village high schools and the vast outpouring of adherents for the annual contest between two great universities.