encouragement of training corps in schools and for the issue of certificates to those who had undergone the discipline of these corps. The Bill was being discussed carefully, but without the smallest effort at obstruction, and Parliament adjourned for the summer recess in the expectation of finishing the discussion in the autumn. When the House reassembled urgent reasons for haste were put forward; a time limit was fixed; and drastic changes were made by Mr. Haldane in his own Bill, and were forced upon the House without discussion. The pressure from the Labour Party was strong enough to compel the War Minister to emasculate his scheme of training; and although an effort was made on Report to restore the expurgated clauses, the Government was able easily to defeat the proposal to revert to its own original plans. The clear thinking' which Mr. Haldane boasted to have been the parent of his Bill was abandoned at the dictate of his own extreme supporters.

Such was the position, and such it remained until the storm so often predicted broke suddenly upon us. The National Service League had carried on its propaganda diligently; and in spite of obtuseness and obstinacy in high places and violent prejudice in certain classes, its organisation had become more and more efficient. When the catastrophe came Lord Roberts did not hesitate for one moment, and his decision was promptly accepted by his executive committee. That decision was to cease the propaganda from that moment, and to place the whole of the organisation unreservedly in the hands of the War Office for recruiting purposes. A few weeks later, when the first epoch of the war was passing, and when Parliament came to realise that the question of compulsory service was rapidly coming to the front, I had a long talk with Lord Roberts, and asked him whether he did not think that some activity on our part might now be useful. His answer was decisive: 'No; there are now far greater forces at work than our own. We must wait quietly. Never let us adopt that most aggravating of all phrases, "I told you so." The last time I spoke to him was at the office of the League, just before he started for France on his last journey. He was then full of plans, but firmly as ever opposed to any renewal of our propaganda.

From that date, and throughout the war, the League fell into abeyance. It would serve no good purpose now to discuss the course which was afterwards adopted by the majority of the League. Some of us felt, whether rightly or wrongly, that our function was not ended and that the principle for which we stood had its permanent value, which ought to be kept before the eyes of the nation and pressed upon its attention. Those who had the best right to interpret what would have been the view of Lord Roberts felt a confidence in his probable opinion which some of us could not share. But, however that might be, the

dissolution of the League and the dispersal of its funds must render the task of those who may hereafter attempt to revive it very difficult, if not hopeless.

But it does not follow that in losing sight of this principle we are not depriving ourselves of a great national asset. It is needless now to repeat old and well-known arguments in its favour on the ground of national security. But apart from this, cannot even its opponents perceive how many irksome problems it would solve ? Nothing produced more internal irritation and more carping bitterness during the war than the jealous espionage which watched the exact comparative degree to which each member of the community rose to the standard of a citizen's duty. Each man felt the difficulties of his own situation, and overlooked those of his neighbour. Only those who counted themselves as nothing and were borne on by irresistible influence rose superior to this prevailing epidemic of censorious envy and backbiting. And all this was very largely due to there being no fixed and established standard of duty imposed upon every man who claims a citizen's privileges.

It is equally unnecessary to dwell on the enormous benefit which such universal training would confer on the youth of the nation in the contingency of a renewal of the fell catastrophe of war. What untold sufferings, what multiplication of casualties, what helpless flounderings until heroic effort had overcome the mistakes of ignorance, might have been avoided if the magic effect of disciplined habit had been able to operate on every youth throughout the land!

But, above and beyond all that, have we not an immeasurable gain to earn by the educational effect of such trained service? Those who are most earnest in their devotion to the cause of public education and most zealous in their efforts on its behalf cannot but feel the deepest misgivings as to the work it is achieving. An insane belief is apparently widely prevalent that the success of national education is to be measured by the amount of money spent on it, and that rational economy of expenditure means necessary curtailment of efficiency. Perpetual fussiness, the rampant activity of the faddist kaleidoscopic variety of curriculum, and the vagaries of eccentric empiricism-all these are taken to be the sure symptoms of educational achievement. We forget altogether two essentials which are obliterated under the dust of restless turmoil which fancies itself to be effective effort. These are, first, simplicity of curriculum, and, secondly, the Divine prerogative of discipline. It seems to be the special mission of our educational authorities' to banish both of these from our land. Their decree has gone forth, and, as we have learned, the faintest criticism of their procedure is nothing less than lèse-majesté. To entertain the smallest doubt of the wisdom of their pedagogic

ukases is a crime against the public welfare.

Unbounded reve

rence must be at their command. Implicit obedience must be rendered to their dictates. Education is to be interpreted according to their dogmas. Is it altogether wonderful that the plain man begins to grumble at this irksome and complacent tyranny?

It is not too much to say that the chief defect in our education is its conspicuous lack of the essential element of discipline. Only ignorance of human character can lead anyone to suppose that the gift of discipline derogates from energy or initiative. We prize at the highest estimate the exuberance of youth, and we willingly yield the profoundest homage to its possibilities and its achievements. But none the less we believe that it will receive a new spring of vivid energy when it has learned the secret of the ease and spontaneity bred of discipline and its vital importance in the training of every human faculty. We preach without ceasing the virtue of educational effort, and forget, all the time, the elixir without which it is valueless. The Labour Party applauds the pedagogue, and alternates its praise of education with denunciation of those who have had an unjust share in its advantages. The public schools should be made free to those whom they claim to represent. But have they ever given a thought to what the public schools really are? For efficiency in imparting information, for variety of curriculum, and for ingenuity of vocational' training, the schools which are already freely at their command are of a far superior pattern to those public schools which they deem to be now too exclusively the privilege of a more restricted class. If they and their elected educational authorities got possession of these schools, they would be bound to reconstruct them on their own better models, and to frame them upon the pattern of technical and continuation schools-those fertile subjects of pedagogic controversy. They would banish from them the only two qualities which make them really valuable: the simplicity of their curriculum and the atmosphere of discipline in which their pupils breathe. It is that atmosphere which gives them life and energy and sustains their courage, which makes them the object of carping criticism, and yet of involuntary envy, to those who, if they were once the masters of those schools, would rob them of that one privilege which they neither envy nor desire, because they cannot appreciate it: the heaven-sent inspiration of discipline.

It is that inspiration which a scheme of National Service, with all its other advantages of security, would add to that miscellaneous conglomeration of artificialities which we call education. For that reason alone it would well be worth while to revive the aim to which Lord Roberts devoted the last years of his life.

H. CRAIK.

AMERICA'S AIR DEFENCE

THE United States has been neglectful of aeronautics, broadly speaking, despite the fact that human flight was first achieved by Americans. The inertia about which enterprising British airmen complain as being a characteristic of their Government is much more pronounced in the United States Government. Congress has been niggardly in appropriations, and both the War and Navy Departments have stood stubbornly for obsolescent ideas, notwithstanding the frequent object-lessons that have driven the military and naval authorities from one entrenched position after another. The absence of apparent danger from any foreign enemy is responsible in part for the neglectfulness of the Government, but another reason for it is to be found in the popular reaction against the gigantic expenditures of the war. It is fashionable in Congress to oppose the appropriation of money for any war purpose.' Hence necessary allotments for legitimate national defence on a modest scale are difficult to obtain. Since aviation is an unexplored field, and seemingly useless to the Government except for 'war purposes' and the carrying of the mails, the holders of the purse-strings are easily persuaded by the reactionaries of the War and Navy Departments that it is unwise to spend money for flying experiments and for the construction of airplanes which quickly become useless.

Against this obstruction there is at work a spirit of combined enterprise and forethought which is making headway in providing at least the skeleton of a national air defence. With the small money allowance and with such reluctant co-operation as the military and naval authorities will give, the airmen are accomplishing creditable results, in research and invention as well as in strategic planning and actual manœuvres.

The problems which attend the creation of a suitable air defence for the United States are not deemed to be as difficult as those which confront British strategists. The United States is partly defended by wide oceans. For the time being this country

is not under the theoretical menace of massed air attack from overseas, although this menace grows more probable every day. The American theory of defence just now is the creation of air

forces that can assemble within twenty-four hours and take command of the air at any point extending as far as 200 miles offshore on either coast. The Canadian boundary line is treated as a coast-line for this purpose. The triangle formed by Hampton Roads, Bangor, Maine, and Chicago, Ill., encloses the industrial heart of the United States, and the plans of the airmen contemplate the creation of forces which can reach any point within this triangle within twenty-four hours and do battle against any air force that might appear, as well as against any surface vessels on the Atlantic.

Manoeuvres lately executed, in which the air forces sank two obsolete battleships off Cape Hatteras, were designed to bring out the points involved in the question of a landing of hostile airships on the sandy shores off Hatteras. It had been contended by the expert airmen that a hostile air fleet could land there and assemble for a massed attack on the mainland. This contention was disputed by both military and naval authorities. The airmen thereupon demonstrated that they were right by actually performing the feat. The spot was far beyond the reach of any coast defence guns. It was shown that a hostile naval force, if not checked, could approach within flying distance of the spot in question, say 200 or 300 miles at sea, and there release airplanes which could proceed toward the American coast, thoroughly equipped for a bombing raid, with the line of retreat safe against anything except a possible American counter-attack by air.

The plan of defence now taking on definite outlines will provide for coast stations, about 200 miles apart, connected by cable, telegraph and radio, and equipped with pursuit planes capable of long flights with the heaviest guns now used in air work. Bombs weighing up to 2000 lbs. are also to be provided for the sinking of surface vessels.

In the tests made on September 5, it was demonstrated that a battleship is no match for bombing planes. Anti-aircraft guns have not been developed to the point where they are a serious hindrance to fliers. The planes which sank the two battleships operated at a height of 11,200 feet in the principal tests. In spite of some unpreparedness because of the suddenness of the orders, the airplanes were equipped with bombs of various sizes, and from a point 175 miles distant they flew out to sea, sank both battleships within a few minutes, not exceeding half an hour, and flew back to their landing field, intact in every way. The battleships were at anchor. They were not as good targets as if they had been in motion. The bombs were dropped with great skill, and while some of them hit too far off to be counted as effective, others were bull's-eyes. The masts, smokestacks and forward works of one of the battleships were demolished by a single 1100 lb. bomb, and the vessel turned, nose up, and sank within three minutes. VOL. XCIV-No. 561

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