William J. Stewart

“ Quite a crowd, for a continental city, is waiting on the wide Platz, and along the line by which they must pass. They are some time forming under the green acacia trees, but at last the drums roll out a brisk march, the bayonets are seen glistening through the murky air, and forward they march. ”

“ Concluding then that such a pastime for peace, which should be part of and fitly tend to a sterner exercise for war, would be beneficial to the physical welfare of all of us, of every class and age, but few words are necessary to convince our readers of its national importance. The present defensive movement, to become of real and lasting benefit to the state, must permeate through every class, and settle, finally, into a recognised pastime of peace. ”

“ That so little sympathy exists just now between class and class is owing less to un-English pride on the one side, or unmanly reserve on the other, than to a want of opportunities of intercourse and labour-fellowship from which appreciation and mutual dependence would surely spring. The pastime which we recommend would soon attract our youth from hall and cottage alike. Show us the true English lad of any class, who will be able to refrain from taking part in play of this nature, established as it should be on our country commons and village greens. ”

“ Physical labour by no means incapacitates for physical play. From the study of the most abstruse science the student turns for relief, and with redoubled zest, to the delights of poetry, although they, too, are mental, and call into action similar organs. So the wearied ploughman would gain rather than lose strength and freshness by the physical pastime of the evening, which would rouse into action qualities of hardihood, emulation, and endurance, seldom required in the daily labour of his life. ”

“ If we were to go so far as to advocate the regular military training of our lads, their early enrolment into bands, and their instruction in the use of the rifle, we should most probably injure a good cause by over zeal. But we will not deny that we regard such a development as probable and desirable, and we are prepared to show that it is not without good precedent. With the exception of America there is no nation which owes more to the individual skill of its citizens in the use of the rifle than Switzerland. The respect which a true Swiss has for that weapon dates from his youth. ”

“ PASTIMES OF PEACE AN EXERCISE FOR WAR.
The rapid and healthy growth of the volunteer movement in our land bids fair to restore to us an institution from the decay of which we have long suffered. Play—honest, physical, hard play—has been, of late, far too much neglected by our adult and youthful population, and with the inevitable results. ”

“ When such a time comes happily, if the nation does not disarm as rapidly and completely as she is now arming, it will, we firmly believe, be owing mainly to her having, in the meanwhile, made of the rifle a national toy, and of martial exercise a national pastime. ”

“ The youthful population of town and country would be more difficult of access, but if nothing dies quicker, nothing at least spreads faster than a martial spirit, and if we can but catch it at its red heat, and form it into an institution, the rest may be safely left to its own intrinsic charms. ”

“ Should he fail, he will learn to respect his victors as superior to him in some respects at least, while they will admire and appreciate his generous self-denial. Such a pastime of peace which shall be at the same time an exercise for war, will knit future squire and yeoman, apprentice, master, and man in an honest, hearty fellowship which would surely be a sufficient recommendation for its speedy adoption, were other and more important ones wanting. ”

“ We come now to consider how best this pastime of peace and exercise for war can be combined and cultivated among us. If, as we have before said, the volunteer movement is to be anything more than a temporary expedient, the pastime of our lads should be so directed that it should lead them naturally to, and fit them effectively for, the use of arms in later life. With our public schoolboys such a pastime would soon become most popular. ”

“ To the vast majority they are, of course, unattainable, and to such, physical pastime, consequent upon the martial duties we have voluntarily undertaken, has become an admirable substitute for the physical play which we have given up from necessity or neglect. In our hearing the other day a barrister, of mature age and considerable practice, was dwelling, with unmistakable relish, upon the benefit he was deriving from the evening-drill to which he was subjected as a conscientious effective of one of the metropolitan rifle-corps. ”

“ Mechanics Institutions, Young Men’s Associations, Scientific Clubs, all admirable in their way, may yet be injurious to the youth of our towns in inducing them to neglect the body’s weal, and so throw out the economy of that system the regularity of which depends so entirely upon the perfect well-being of all its component parts. ”

“ Stroll through any of its villages on a summer-evening and take note of the group of men and youths you may see lounging round the pump in awkward contortions of ease, or through the red-curtained windows of the public-house, smoking, drinking, gambling, breathing air morally and physically impure ”

“ And then these warriors prove to be the boys of Zurich and the neighbourhood, from sixteen years of age down perhaps to ten—dressed in a neat pretty uniform, armed with a rifle, proportioned to the bearer’s strength and age, and each wearing a sprig of green in his shako—who have been out for a day’s play on the lake’s border. ”

“ At thirty we are very apt to give up boating and cricketing, while a tramp over the brown stubbles after the partridges and a gallop over the breezy downs with the hounds, are luxuries obtainable but for a few months in the year, even when they come within the means of a working family man. ”

“ The progress of the age has been everywhere to substitute mechanical for manual labour; and while an almost perfect system of locomotion compels us to dispense with pedestrian exercise, the wondrous development of machinery almost as completely supersedes manual exertion. ”

“ The young gentleman will soon be piqued to owe his rank and position not so much to the accident of birth as to well-won superiority in physical pluck and strength. Should he succeed, a more willing and hearty respect will be conceded him. ”

“ So that, in addition to a vast and daily-growing increase of mental labour for business purposes, we tax the mind with the acquirement of that information which we need to elevate us intellectually to the level of the age. ”