question the merits of shortening the period between enlistment and the dismissal from recruit drill. It would not only lighten the work of instructors, but it would increase the number of men for duties, thus lightening the burden all round. But those advantages are small ones compared with the gain to the recruit himself. There is too much foundation for the distrust and dislike of the Army as a profession which prevail, with almost unvarying monotony in the classes whence the rank and file are drawn, from Land's End to John o' Groat's. It is true that there is less foundation than there was in the old flogging days for the Duke of Wellington's too celebrated dictum that British soldiers were the scum of the earth and that they enlisted for drink, and for drink alone. It is a pity that the Duke's almost intemperate zeal for the truth induced him to pronounce that sentence; still more so that it should have received currency through the pen of that enthusiastic, but not always discreet interviewer, Lord Mahon. It has been repeated from lip to lip, and has been echoed down to our day. It is time that an attempt were made to obliterate it.

When the scheme of these King Edward's Schools was submitted to one of our most energetic and best known bishops, he remarked: 'Parents of boys likely to do well are afraid of the Army. They don't like the idea of their leaving the country; but it is not that so much they are afraid of: what they really fear is that their boys will be corrupted. Your schools will certainly appeal to the parents, and your League will be a vast machinery to bring the advantages of these schools to the notice of the parents. I wish well to your scheme with all my heart.'

The reference to a league will be explained hereafter. Meanwhile, is there an employer of labour, a squire, or a parson in the country, acquainted with the feelings of his humbler neighbours, who will not endorse the bishop's judgment? Every one of these must be aware that the Army is looked upon as a most undesirable career for the sons of the working classes, and that it is generally considered a domestic calamity when the son of respectable parents enlists. It is best to face this unpalatable truth boldly, otherwise the evil influence will never be stemmed at its source. No recruiting officer must inquire too scrupulously into the character and antecedents of men presenting themselves for enlistment. Practically all that he must do--all that we can afford to let him do under the voluntary system-is to take reasonable precautions against fraudulent enlistment. We cannot hope to fill the ranks with the élite of the working classes; some of the 'scum' must be admitted and manufactured into good material. But we can surely make an attempt to protect respectable youths from the danger of contact at their most impressionable age from the inevitable evil communications which they must encounter if plunged straight into barrack-room life.

It would be absurd to claim for Captain Maitland's scheme that it will render young fellows immune from corruption by a kind of moral vaccination; but surely it is not too much to claim for it that it affords the means of considerable protection to the recruit, who will not be entirely raw when he enters the ranks, and will have acquired some, at least, of the steel of discipline and moral restraint so necessary before he is placed in a common sleeping and living room with comrades who are not all desirable. The establishment of King Edward's Schools will provide an intermediate step between the life of the lad and the life of the soldier. It will save numbers of young men from drifting into uselessness, and will tend, if anything can do so, to remove the prevalent repugnance which respectable parents certainly entertain against the Army as a profession for their boys.

I have explained above the circumstances which have prevented me from ascertaining from presumably the most competent authority the Inspector-General of Recruiting - the objections which may be raised against the foundation of these schools; but some of them are so obvious that they may be considered in advance. Probably the most obvious, as well as the most formidable, is that of expense. What is the value of any scheme, it may

be asked, which does not contain an estimate of the cost nor indicate the source whence that cost is to be defrayed? Well, the answer to that is contained partly in the nature of the proposal itself. It is not necessary to set on foot King Edward's Schools simultaneously in all regimental districts. The experiment might be tried at first by the establishment of one such school in each of the three kingdoms. The cost of each would not be formidable, and if the experiment proved a failure in result, the undertaking might be dropped after a fair period of trial. It would be necessary to give the lads a small sum as pocket-money to act as a retaining-fee—say 2d. or 3d. a day, in addition to their board, lodging, and clothing. It is believed that this trifling daily pay might be defrayed out of Army funds. The expense of school staff, clothing, and subsistence must be voted by Parliament, unless it can be met by means suggested by Captain Maitland, to be mentioned presently.

Assuming, meanwhile, that the expense of these schools were borne by the public, the objection will be raised that it is bad economy to keep boys for two years or two years and a half before they are fit for service. Setting aside the analogy of training-ships, which nobody considers a bad investment, it may be answered that the public is already paying for a large number of such lads who have enlisted under age. It is of the nature of the case that the exact number of these cannot be ascertained, but it is notorious that such is the fact, and must continue the fact in the absence of any power to call for certificates of birth. These immature recruits are the most costly of all the servants of the State, and enormously swell

the hospital returns both at home and on foreign service. Moreover, many and many a young soldier gets into the regimental defaulters' book through sheer inexperience and want of disciplinary habit. Initial blunders, which figure as 'crimes' after enlistment, would be got over during the preliminary training, and the recruit would start with a clean sheet, or, rather, with no sheet at all, and his eyes open. Strained through the meshes of a King Edward's School there would be small chance of recruits enlisting under a fictitious age.

I now come to part of Captain Maitland's scheme which I hesitate to endorse, and therefore give in his own words.

To find the boys I would call into play an agency which is ready to our hands and only waiting to be used. All over the country there are tens of thousands of people who would be glad to be shown a very definite way by which they could at once benefit the Army, and raise the tone of the young men in their respective neighbourhoods.

Take, for example, the regimental district of Somersetshire. The present recruiting system of one Recruiting Officer and so many Sergeants seems to meet with qualified success. With the new method the local Recruiting Officer puts himself in communication with and invites the cordial co-operation of every individual in the district-town and country-who may be interested in soldiering. Every man of title, every Member of Parliament, every magistrate, local magnate, every parish minister, every minister indeed of every denomination, the heads of Lads' Brigades and Church Brigades, every Rifle Association, and those interested in shooting who may not belong to an Association, all rich people who (from whatever motive) have money or land to give, and all those of moderate or small incomes who, though they may have no money to give, may be interested in good work, all these different people form a Victoria Army League, to whom we will look for assistance, among other things, in the finding of recruits.

The Victoria Army League thus formed, of which the Lord Lieutenant of the County might be President, consists as we see of all sorts and conditions of people all over the regimental district, every parish containing at least one or two members. They all have one object: the finding of good recruits and the elevating of the tone of the Army.

When the recruit has once joined they will continue by their help, influence, and sympathy to be of incalculable benefit to him. The League will have funds which rich men will endow. These funds to be managed by the Victoria Army League Council, appointed by the members in each district. The Commandant of the local King Edward's School would point out in what direction the applying of these funds would most benefit the recruit-e.g., to meet the cost of the Recruits' Rifle Clubs, Game Clubs, &c.

My reason for refraining from advocating this part of Captain Maitland's proposal is founded upon disinclination to add to the large and perplexing number of leagues already existing. All over the country, in every county and in almost every parish of Great Britain, there is established the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. It is true that the object of this institution is to provide for the families of men who have served their country; but perhaps its constitution is elastic enough to be extended in order to induce young men to enter the Service under more promising auspices

than are possible at present. At all events, there is the machinery in working order, if it can be applied to the work under consideration.

Failing that Association there is the Army League and Imperial Defence Association, recently founded under the presidency of Lord Blythswood. Its aim and object were set forth in February in the first number of its monthly publication, Our Flag, from which the following is an extract:

Even if the Government be credited with an adequate comprehension of our military necessities, with knowledge of the means by which they may best be met and a determination to secure the object in view, it cannot be superfluous to show that the country is willing and anxious to co-operate by intelligent appreciation of its efforts, and by readiness to make the necessary sacrifices. So that whether we [the Army League] are called on to urge and stimulate, to criticise, or merely to endorse and support the action of the Executive, the expression of public opinion through the Army League cannot fail to be of service.

But in order that such opinion may have due weight, it is necessary that the public should be not merely aroused to a sense of our present insecurity, but informed, at least in general terms, of the conditions of Imperial Defence. It is in proportion to the intelligence of its suggestions that the popular desire, focussed in the Army League, will have authority and influence. We propose, then, to enter on our task without party bias, in no spirit of panic, with a desire to avoid hasty and immature suggestion or criticism; and to limit our advocacy to such expedients as may command the assent of all who are both thoughtful and wellinformed. The presence in our councils of military experts, men of experience and knowledge, should secure the League against ignorant and imprudent action. . . . Our enterprise, commenced in the great and beneficent reign of our lamented Queen, must be matured under a new monarch and in a new century. That both reign and century may prove for England worthy sequels to those that have preceded them must be the earnest wish of every patriotic Briton. The expansion of the Empire during the Victorian era has enormously increased our responsibilities. That it has also potentially enhanced our power to meet them has been recently shown in no doubtful manner. The greatest and most beneficent Empire the world has ever known' remains to us as a legacy from her who has now passed away as a monument to the sagacity, tact, and kindliness which won the loyalty of her subjects in every quarter of the globe, while they secured, more perhaps than can ever be known, the peace of the world, the essential condition of growth and development. That this legacy shall remain unimpaired, this monument prove imperishable, must be the earnest wish of all.

Brave words, and behind them no doubt there are the right spirit and an earnest desire to keep the obligations of all patriotic men constantly before the public. But more valuable than words, more effective than any advocacy, however eloquent, of 'such expedients as may command the assent of all who are both thoughtful and well-informed,' would be some direct aid of one such expedient. If the Army League confines its exertions to advocating a scheme which shall command unanimous assent from the 'thoughtful and well-informed,' it is not likely to find much scope for its energy. When was a new scheme launched with unanimous approval?

Lastly, there is the Association formed under the auspices of this Review for study and application of the lessons of the war. To

their consideration I venture to submit Captain Maitland's proposal, in the belief that it is worthy of careful examination, and in the strong hope that it may be submitted to such practical criticism and amendment as may render it capable of carrying out the intentions of its author.

In conclusion, it is natural that doubts should be expressed about the prospect of inducing lads voluntarily to join King Edward's Schools. It must surely be in the experience of every one who has taken any active interest in the fortunes of his neighbours of the working class or of the families of those in his own employment, how often an institution such as one of these schools would have proved a boon in the case either of some lad whose inclination lay towards a soldier's life, or of one whom it was expedient to remove from the example and influence of undesirable parents, or of one who, by some venial act of youthful indiscretion, such as poaching, had incurred a degree of discredit in his own neighbourhood. At present there exists no haven into which active lads beyond school age can be steered by a friendly hand without forfeit of reputation. How great the number of waifs who might be saved by timely and discreet intervention of this sort, and turned into material of which the State stands in urgent need, it would be vain to speculate. That can only be ascertained by experiment. Fortunately the experiment may be made on a small scale at first at a relatively trifling cost, and, if successful, is capable of almost indefinite expansion.

HERBERT MAXWELL.