The Maine bugle ... campaign; 1-5 Jan. 1894-Oct. 1898 - Maine.gov

180 THE MAINE BUGLE.
the schools of the soldier and of the company, and in the man-
ual of arms, how much precious time would have been saved in
organizing the Union arm}' in 1861. We were in a very low
state, as a people, in a military knowledge and training when
the great civil war broke out. * * * It will not be safe to allow
war to come upon us again in that state, for war's pace has
great!}' quickened, and the arms of precision now in use call for
a trained soldier. Under our system we will never have a large
standing army, and our strength and safety are in a general
dissemination of military knowledge and training among the
people. What the man and citizen ought to know in order to
the full discharge of his duty to his country should be imparted
to the boy. Nothing will so much aid to enlarge our State
militia, and to give it efficiency and character, as the plan pro-
posed. The military taste and training acquired in the school
will carry our best young men into the militia organizations
and make those organizations reliable conservators of pul)lic
order, and ready and competent defenders of the national honor."
Henry T. Bartlett, whom the readers of the BUGLE will
remember from his contributions to its pages, writes: "Our
post have made it their business to get as near as may be con-
certed thought and action on this subject throughout the
country. Some thirty cities have adopted it. Recent efforts in
Rochester have been successful, and there is a fair jjrosj^ect of
the instruction being introduced in that city at an early day.
It is to be hoped that the legislature of each State will advise
it and i:)rovide for it; that the veterans and G. A. R. men will
assist so far as they are able, and where the instruction is
adopted, in any city or town, to have a fatherly oversight and
co-operation with the boards of education.
The census of 1880 gives a total of 12,682.577 pupils in the
elementar}' and secondary public schools, and in priwite and
parochial school i of the same class 1,30 [,623, a total of 13,984,-
200. The number of boys are slightly in excess of fifty per
cent, which would give 7,000000 boys attending school. Of
this number forty per cent could be given calisthenics and