ittle effort would at least secure buttoned
jackets, which are quite needful for a good _alignement_, and hence for
good drill. This being attained, anything further is matter of taste,
not of necessity. As to guns and equipments, they should of course be
provided by the State or national authorities, probably by the former.
There should be a State superintendent of drill, and a thorough
application of his authority.

This is not the place to work out the details of the system; it is
sufficient to indicate its general principles. Supposing all obstacles
conquered, and this introduction of military drill into grammar-schools
to be successful, it may be still objected that this does not give us a
militia. Certainly not; but it gives us the materials for a militia,
needing only to be put together. Given a hundred young men, of whom
seventy-five have already been taught a uniform drill, and the saving
of time in their final training will be prodigious. Any officer, with
such recruits, can do in a week what could not be done in a month with
men utterly untrained. Here also the English observations come in, to
corroborate those often repeated, but less accurately, in our own army.

Mr. William Baker, drill-master at St. Olave's Grammar School, stated,
that, "Whilst he was in the army, and having to drill recruits, he has
occasionally met with individuals to each of whom, from his bearing and
action, he has said at once, 'In what regiment have you been?' The
answer was, 'In none; I was taught the drill at school.' He found the
individuals almost ready drilled; they would be more complete for
service in a quarter of the time of the previously undrilled.

"The first infantry drill-master [in the Richmond Military College] said
he had had experience of boys from the Duke of York's and the Royal
Hibernian Schools, and that they made excellent soldiers, and required
little or no additional drill, and that they were promoted to be
non-commissioned officers in large proportion.

"Mr. S. B. Orchard, drill-master, has been sergeant in the 3d Light
Dragoons. Whilst in the army, has had to drill, as recruits, boys who
had been in the Duke of York's School, at Chelsea, and at the Royal
Hibernian School, where they had been taught the drill. He found that
they took the drill in one third the time that it was usually taken by
other recruits who had been previously undrilled, and took it
better,--that is to say, the horse as well as the f