having first attempted to satisfy this craving. So early as the winter of 1915-16 the experiment was tried of giving lectures on historical and scientific subjects in the Y.M.C.A. huts at the front; and the experiment proved so popular that these lectures were continued throughout the war. A few regular classes in French, history, etc., were also started in the Y.M.C.A. huts and proved exceedingly attractive. As the war dragged on, however, these occasional lectures and classes proved unsatisfying; and there grew up a demand for something more systematic in the way of instruction, especially among men who had served long and were becoming troubled about their future. The young men were losing the precious years of preparation for some trade or profession; the older men were losing their cunning as craftsmen or getting out of touch with the developments of their business. All felt that they were losing touch with their home interests and that their minds were being dulled by the wearisome routine of the trenches. In fact, to quote Mr Fisher again, 'the educational movement in the army did not come from above . . . it was the result of a spontaneous movement arising from the men themselves.' It was to meet the needs of this spontaneous movement that the army chiefs felt bound to supply a more systematic and satisfactory system of education.

The Canadians were the pioneers in supplying this need by their Khaki University, the organisation of which was entrusted to some of their leading university teachers; the Australians and New Zealanders soon followed suit. Our own army was not far behind, for in December 1917, an officer was appointed to G.H.Q. to co-ordinate and systematise the courses of lectures given to the troops. The choice of this officer, Captain Borden Turner, was singularly happy, for he proved to be one of those unconventional enthusiasts who, given the slightest chance, know how to carry all before them and to convince the most recalcitrant of the soundness of their views. With him later was associated Lord Gorell, another New Army officer. Between them, these two men have created the system of army education which Mr Fisher has described as 'the most surprising of all the inventions of the war.' But in recording their achievements it must be emphasised, as they themselves would

be the first to claim, that their task was imposed upon them by the men themselves, and that throughout they have received every support and encouragement from the Field-Marshal in France and from the Army Council at the War Office.

The scheme for co-ordinating lectures soon developed into a more ambitious educational programme. The particular needs of men desiring instruction were ascertained, and inquiries were made for instructors among officers and N.C.O.'s able to supply these needs. This was not difficult in the army of 1918, which was a microcosm of the nation and contained experts in every branch of learning and teachers born or trained to the task. Classes on almost every conceivable subject were rapidly established in almost every rest area; they were even held in the trenches. One artillery officer in the front line taught his battery French and gun-laying alternately, with no text-book or other equipment than the cover of an ammunition box for a black board. The best men set to the job were never at a loss for expedients. Another of these voluntary teachers, who had never taught before but in the course of an adventurous life had tried his hand at many jobs, found a class that was wanted in motor-engineering beyond him; nothing daunted, he persuaded his friend in charge of the neighbouring Military Transport Depôt to let his class pick up what they could in the depôt under the supervision of one of the motor-mechanics. A builders' class was needed in the same division, and at the very time some brick huts had to be put up. 'Let my class provide the fatigue party for building every day,' said the educational officer to the General, who agreed; and under the expert builder in charge the class learned at any rate the rudiments of building construction.

Naturally, these classes produced a great demand for books, but there were no funds available; however, money was advanced from canteen funds, and Captain Borden Turner was able to purchase enough books to start with. In his choice he showed an extraordinany breadth of mind; indeed, the list of books supplied to the soldiers in those early days would certainly startle people who regard the army as the preserve of stereotyped or reactionary opinion. The Y.M.C.A., which had

already done such public-spirited work, was enlisted in the movement, being given charge, as agents for the army, of all instruction on the Lines of Communication. The Y.M.C.A. rose to their opportunity and promptly appointed Sir Henry Hadow as Director to organise all their education in France. He inaugurated a system and a curriculum which was so well adapted to the peculiar circumstances that they were practically adopted for the whole army, when he had joined the War Office as Assistant Director and had developed them further. On his leaving France he was succeeded by Sir Graham Balfour, whose sympathetic and most successful administration only terminated in April 1919, when the War Office took over the whole work from the Y.M.C.A.

To supplement the somewhat irregular and ill-defined functions of the General Staff as purveyors of education to the army in France, it soon became evident that a department ought to be created at the War Office to co-ordinate all educational activities, and give education a recognised status in the army. Of the two friends, who were heart and soul in the movement, Lord Gorell was chosen to go over to the War Office; and on Aug. 29, 1918, after several months of conferences and negotiations, a separate section of the Staff Duties Directorate, with Lord Gorell at its head, was instituted to deal solely with education. The time, though late, was otherwise well chosen. Plans for demobilisation were being considered; and in that connexion many problems relating to the training of soldiers for civil life. Lord Milner, Sir Henry Wilson, and Sir A. Lynden Bell, Director of Staff Duties, were all sympathetic, and glad to find a man with the vision and knowledge of education possessed by Lord Gorell to undertake the work.

Lord Gorell, assisted at first by only six officers, had to create an organisation and a system to meet the educational needs of some five million soldiers. One of his first duties was to draft an Army Order defining the scope of the scheme. This order, dated Sept. 24, and the subsequent orders of Dec. 9, 1918, and May 13, 1919, are worthy of note among Army Orders for the engaging frankness and clearness with which those who have to administer or to benefit by the scheme are taken into Vol. 233.-No. 462.

D

confidence. The importance of education in the army is stated to be due to:

(a) Its bearing upon the present, i.e. upon the military efficiency and morale of the troops.

(b) Its bearing upon the future, i.e. upon the mental attitude and practical knowledge with which all ranks now serving will, when they come to be reabsorbed into the life of the nation, face the social conditions and industrial and economic problems which will be before the Empire as a whole after the war.'

In other words, the aim of army education was to establish a closer co-operation between the army and the rest of the nation,' or, in Jaurès' words, to find an expression for 'la vivante réalité sociale.' These aims have been constantly upheld in all the instructions sent forth and in the system set up by the education section at the War Office. A knowledge of English, history, civics, and geography, as well as elementary mathematics, is insisted upon as the necessary groundwork and as the preliminary to practical instruction in the trade or business which a man wishes to learn; while, in the valuable education circulars distributed from time to time throughout the army, information is given on all the social and trade activities which will affect a man as soon as he returns to civil life, and he is encouraged to continue the self-education which he has begun in the army, at the University, or in a Workers' Educational Association Centre.

The first ten weeks of the department's existence, before the armistice, were chiefly a period of preparation. The young soldiers had their four to six hours a week of instruction better organised, but educational facilities for the rest of the army still depended largely on the military situation and the good-will of commanding officers. But after the armistice the principle was laid down that educational training 'can no longer be regarded as a secondary consideration; and as much time as can be made available from the necessities of military service should now be devoted to it.' From that time the system came into full working order. At first only France and Great Britain had been included in the scheme; gradually all the other British army

areas were brought in-even the remote Murmansk peninsula. During the winter of 1918-19, when the soldier's military duties were comparatively light, and before the great rush of demobilisation had begun, it was estimated by Lord Gorell that at least 3,000,000 men were attending education classes and lectures.

Lions there were, no doubt, in the path, one of the chief of these being the hard-dying prejudice that, the less the soldier knows of anything outside his military work, the better. Military necessities,' which were safeguarded in all orders about time to be given to education, can always be made to loom large, if a battalion commander has made up his mind that it is a waste of time for his men to go to school. But by persistence this difficulty was overcome. The chiefs of the army, at home and on all fronts, were enthusiastic for the new education, and made it plain that they meant the scheme to be carried through. The army itself was so full of men in all ranks not imbued with the old army tradition and eager to improve their minds that the momentum towards education was great. In one unit, for example, where trouble had arisen after the armistice, the main grievance was discovered to be that no educational scheme had been formulated.

The teaching personnel was a more serious difficulty. After the armistice, the first to be demobilised were the qualified teachers in the army, who were urgently needed in civil life. Many of the experts, also, who had undertaken to teach special subjects, were called away to pressing duties elsewhere. Thus the ranks of capable teachers in the army were seriously depleted. This difficulty had, however, been foreseen and, so far as possible, obviated by the institution of two schools, one at Oxford, the other at Cambridge, for training officers and N.C.O.'s as instructors in the army, by the cooperation of the local education authorities at home, who were empowered to provide teachers and accommodation for soldiers requiring instruction, and, more recently, by drafting out civilian teachers to meet deficiencies in the teaching staff on the Rhine.

The provision of an adequate supply of text-books proved unexpectedly difficult at first. At the end of 1918 publishers' stocks were much reduced, and paper