nsubordinate, and I was
constantly called upon by the industrial teachers, the master shoemaker,
and the master tailor, to coerce boys who were quite impudent, and who
would not obey readily. The moral tone of the school seemed to have fled
from the boys, and their whole behavior was altered, as displayed in the
dormitories as well as in the yards.'

"'During this time were the religious services and exercises and the
internal discipline of the school maintained as before?'

"'They were maintained as before; the business of the school was kept up
as before, but the order was by no means as good. I was not only called
in to correct the boys in the workshop, but in the school; and I was
under the disagreeable necessity of reverting to corporal punishment,
and of dismissing one incorrigible boy entirely. The chaplain joined
with me and the schoolmasters in urging the restoration of the drill.'

"'The drill having been restored, has order been restored?'

"'Yes, excellent order.'

"The present chaplain of the school, the Rev. Charles G. Vignoles, who
was present, expressed his entire concurrence in the description given
of the disorganization produced by the discontinuance of the military
drill, which was illustrated by entries in his own reports."

It is no exaggeration to say, that, by introducing such a system of
drill into our schools, we can obtain for the whole boy population some
of the most important advantages of the West-Point training,--the early
habit of obedience and of command, together with the alphabet of
military science.[G] The experiment has frequently been tried in
private schools, always with certain favorable results. It has had,
however, this drawback,--that, as the drill has been thus far a special
trait of certain particular seminaries, and hence a marketable quality,
there has been rather a temptation to neglect other things for its
sake,--an evil which will vanish when the practice becomes general. In
public schools, no satisfactory experiment seems to have been made
public, except in Brookline, Massachusetts,--always one of the foremost
towns in the State as to all educational improvements. It appears that
the local School Committee, in 1863, decided upon offering to all boys
above ten years of age the opportunity to learn military drill. There
was already a drill-master in the employ of the town, and a hall
appropriated for the purpose. The greater part of the school-boys
reported themselv