Military education

“ They may indeed assist our military education, in a manner which the true sense of the term “sound general education” expresses, by encouraging preliminary tastes and studies, such as general history, mathematics, and modern languages, English included, to a greater extent than they do at present. But if there is such a thing as a science of war at all, it stands to reason that it can only be taught fully in cases where young officers have the passion and the capacity to begin it early, by its own teachers, and in its own place. ”

“ The lesson next in importance taught by our experience is the necessity of general military education in a country having popular government. No man can be fully qualified for the duties of a statesman until he has made a thorough study of the science of war in its broadest sense. He need not go to a military school, much less serve in the army or in the militia. ”

“ The military education aims at training the moral personality to independent thought and action, and at the same time rousing patriotic feelings among the men. Instruction in a sense of duty and in our national history thus takes a foremost place by the side of professional teaching. Great attention is given to educate each individual in logical reasoning and in the clear expression of his thoughts. ”

“ GENERAL MILITARY EDUCATION INDISPENSABLE A system of general military education should of course include elementary training in all the schools, public and private, so that every boy, before he is sixteen years old, would know how to use the rifled musket in ranks, and be familiar with the simple evolutions of a company and battalion. ”

“ Having arrived at the conclusion that professional military education as hitherto given in this country has been begun at too early an age, we are met by what may be called the extreme opposite view, which would suggest the desirableness of giving up altogether education in military colleges previously to entering the army, or to entering a purely practical class or college for the special corps of Artillery and Engineers. ”

“ I have examined these conditions closely because I attach great importance to the national school and the continuation school as a means to the military education of our people. I am convinced that only the army of a warlike and patriotic people can achieve anything really great. I understand, of course, that the school alone, however high its efficiency, could not develop that spirit in our people which we, in view of our great task in the future, must try to awaken by every means if we wish to accomplish something great. ”

“ Prior to 1900 an Army system of individual education did not exist; individual training was accomplished primarily within units. In most cases, Army schools were local in attendance and were designed to improve the academic education of the new officer as well as his professional military education. ”

“ Although a course of military training in the public schools would soon furnish our State with an intelligent class of soldiers and line officers, yet the art of war in many of its branches, such as artillery, engineering, &c., requires a scientific education, which can not be given in a private institution. ”

“ The objection here made to military education will hold with equal force against education in any other profession. We sometimes find men who have become eminent in the pulpit and at the bar, or in medicine and the sciences, without ever having enjoyed the advantages of an education in academic or collegiate halls, and perhaps even without that preliminary instruction usually deemed necessary for professional pursuits. ”

“ It is not mainly a question of military education. Early deficiencies in that respect may soon be overcome by the constant practice afforded by active service. The indispensable necessity is for education in general, and especially in those things which army officers are not habitually required to know, but which are of vital importance to those who must, in great emergencies, by intrusted with great responsibilities and with discretionary authority. ”

“ Can this highest duty of the citizen be intelligently performed without military education? A sovereign individual regards this as demanding the highest education and the ablest counsel he can possibly obtain. ”

“ Thorough military education must be provided, and in addition to the regulars the advantages of this education should be given to the officers of the National Guard and others in civil life who desire intelligently to fit themselves for possible military duty. ”

“ Elementary education has at last raised the intelligence of the British lower classes to a point when the prospect of fighting in distant lands under unsuitably educated British officers of means and gentility with a defective War Office equipment and inferior weapons has lost much of its romantic glamour. But an unofficial body that set itself to the establishment of a school of military science, to the sane organisation and criticism of military experiments in tactics and equipment, and to the raising for experimental purposes of volunteer companies and battalions, would find no lack of men. ”

“ Were such understanding possible, the expert conduct of war would be one of the easiest, instead of one of the most difficult, of human activities. It is only through a gradual assimilation of its fundamentals that the profession of arms is to be mastered. A process of true education is involved,—that of enlarging the viewpoint and broadening the basis of professional judgment (see page i) ,—and its essentials are the proper foundation for any system of self-improvement in the exercise of mental power. There is no easy road to the goal of military effort. ”

“ Then, again, our military training is in many respects superior to that of our adversaries. Our city is thrown open to the world; and we never expel a foreigner, or prevent him from seeing or learning any thing of which the secret, if revealed to an enemy, might profit him. We rely not upon management or trickery, but upon our own hearts and hands. And in the matter of education, whereas they from early youth are always undergoing laborious exercises which are to make them brave, we live at ease, and yet are equally ready to face the perils which they face. ”

“ His military education includes the Basic Leader's Course, Advanced Leader's Course, Senior Leader's Course, Air Assault School, Battle Staff Non-Commissioned Officer Course, and the M1A1 Master Gunner Course. ”

“ Unlettered themselves, they became daily more and more deeply impressed, through their military associations, and by contact with things that required knowledge, with the necessity of having an education. Each soldier felt that but for his illiteracy he might be a sergeant, company clerk, or quartermaster, and not a few, that if educated, they might be lieutenants and captains. ”

“ But thereafter his ‘Military Education’ should be provided for in two ways. First: Every Lieutenant should go through a military course of (say) two months during the first four years of his service. The course to be prepared by the Training Division of the War Staff; aim, thoroughness in a simple and strictly limited sphere. The course to conclude by a standard examination to test only what the pupil remembers of his instruction. It would be preferable to hold the courses at Greenwich continuously. ”

“ We had never thought of war as a possibility for us, and of course preparation for it had not been made, in the slightest degree, a part of the work of the schools. But when war, with all its horrors, was finally forced upon us and we needed statesmen and scientists and military leaders to guide and direct, they were at hand in the graduates of our colleges and universities—broadly trained men capable of assimilating, or learning, or in other ways gaining quickly, the specific form of efficiency needed in the particular activity assigned. ”

“ The institution of military exhibitions or scholarships at civil schools, and of military degrees at the Universities, has been also suggested. By some witnesses these proposals are advocated with the special view of inducing public schools to adopt a system of military instruction; by others with the more general object of holding out increased encouragement to enter the service to candidates who have had the advantage of a public school education. ”

“ Had military training to some extent been connected with the common school education of the land, we would have gained in health, and would have been provided with an able array of officers for our noble army of Volunteers. ”

“ So horrible a thing is war, and so dreadful are its inevitable miseries, that there is at first thought something shocking to many persons, in the idea of making military instruction a part of the system of public education—in cultivating the military spirit, and training the children and youth of a nation to [Pg 661] science and skill in the arts of carnage. ”

“ But not only should there be such special military schools—one in every State, but there should also be institutions where a sufficient number of young men can get the preliminary education necessary to fit them to enter the schools of officers—an education which, beside being as complete and thorough a literary one as officers ought to have, should also be such in point of military discipline and instruction as shall lay a good foundation for building themselves up and perfecting themselves as officers by subsequent instruction and experience. ”

“ Military academies, where the sciences practically essential to the professions are taught, must be the best situations for all young sailors and soldiers; strict institution is the best education for them. ”

“ The purpose of our schools has never been to produce soldiers at the [Pg 15] drop of the hat, and so they have never been blighted by military training. (May it never come!) Their task has been to produce men and women of character and purpose and ideals—men and women of initiative who could become anything called for by an emergency. ”

“ The study of military problems ought to form an essential part of the citizen's education in his political duties. Military history ought to be included in the curriculum of our public schools and Universities. It is a national disgrace that there is no Chair of Military History or of Strategy at either Oxford or Cambridge. ”

“ Training in Youth and Manhood: Results.—When a youth reached eighteen, he began the distinctive study of warfare. For two years he was trained in the use of arms and skirmishing, and every ten days had his courage and his physique tested by being whipped before the altar of Artemis. Then he regularly entered the army, Military training. ”

“ MY LORD:—In a military empire, ruled by a military despot, it is a necessary policy that the education of youth should also be military. In all our public schools or prytanees, a boy, from the moment of entering, is registered in a company, and regularly drilled, exercised, and reviewed, punished for neglect or fault according to martial law, and advanced if displaying genius or application. ”

“ Military science and instruction should constitute a part of the course of education.
The constitution of the United States has invested the military defense of the country in the great body of the people. ”

“ And in America a like fact appears in the military and naval service. If the naval officers could have their way, we would at once begin to discount the nations of Europe in building ruinous engines for killing our fellow-Christians; and the soldiers would likewise have an enormous standing army perpetually fighting the air on dress-parade. And now, to come to the immediate subject in hand, the same truth holds with regard to education. ”

“ The time when systematic instruction in military exercises and in the use of arms shall form part of every youth's education has not yet arrived, but the necessity for some such step looms already on the horizon. ”

“ Partridge, with a full course of literary, scientific, and military studies. Among those enumerated in the first prospectus were Military Law, Military Drawing, Civil and Military Engineering. “Military Science being considered an important appendage to the education of every American youth is taught theoretically in all departments of the University. The military exercises are attended at those hours of the day which are generally passed by students in idleness or devoted to useless amusements, for which they will be made a pleasing and healthful substitute.” ”

“ Although it is now possible to secure a commission through the ranks almost as quickly as through the military schools, a preliminary liberal education is absolutely necessary, especially in the cavalry and artillery, as most difficult examinations have to be passed, and the successful candidates must then spend one year in a special military school, as St. ”

“ And, perhaps, a wise foresight should induce our State to provide, that it should have within itself such military knowledge and skill as may be sufficient to organize, discipline, and command armies, by establishing a military academy or school of discipline. ”

“ Where are your free and compulsory schools? Does every one know how to read in the land of Dante and of Michael Angelo? Have you made public schools of your barracks? Have you not, like ourselves, an opulent war-budget and a paltry budget of education? Have not you also that passive obedience which is so easily converted into soldierly obedience? military establishment which pushes the regulations to the extreme of firing upon Garibaldi; that is to say, upon the living honor of Italy? ”