о Universal Military Education and Service The Swiss System for The United States By Lucien Howe Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine G. P. Putnam's Sons A PREFACE NY one looking at the title of this small book might ask why a student of medicine should presume to meddle with questions which at first glance seem to lie entirely in the field of pedagogy. Therefore, a word of explanation is in order. More than a third of a century ago, when my attention was called to the development of nearsightedness in early life, I examined the eyes of over a thousand public school pupils-finding then, as had been found before, that it was impossible to graduate half a dozen from the high schools without making one or more of them near-sighted. I therefore advocated "setting-up" exercises in the schools to assist in lessening the progress of this condition-for reasons which will be given later. About that time also I began to instruct the senior class in a medical school, and soon learned how much young men might be improved by a little systematic training in promptness, exactness, restraint, efficiency, and other soldierly qualities. These convictions grew, and early in 1914 I addressed a circular letter to some twenty or more of our larger colleges and universities, inquiring as to opportunities for training in certain directions. Part of the data then collected has been used here. Soon after that, the war began in Europe, and within a few months the question arose as to how America could defend itself if attacked. That gave an additional reason for stating certain conclusions concerning education which had been taking shape for many years. Accordingly, last year I published A Brief for Military Education in our Schools and Colleges. No apology is offered for repeating here some of the statements made then. It is probable that even now the accumulated observations and notes would still remain unclassified, were it not that a recent vacation was spent browsing among the libraries in Washington. There the book was dictated-corrections being made later to accord with more recent facts and figures. This small by-product of a teacher's work is not an hysterical attempt to deal theoretically with a subject which happens just now to be the fashion. Instead, it aims to be a condensed statement founded on long experience and on facts which seem to lead to the conclusion that some form of military education should be universal |