an indispensable requisite
to fitness for universal suffrage. The most serious questions upon
which a free people can be called to vote are: A question of war,
a question of preparation for war, and a question of approval and
support, or disapproval and condemnation, of an administration on
account of the mode in which war has been conducted. Can this
highest duty of the citizen be intelligently performed without
military education? A sovereign _individual_ regards this as
demanding the highest education and the ablest counsel he can
possibly obtain. Can sovereign _millions_ do it wisely without
any education whatever? I believe no proposition could possibly
be plainer than that general military education is indispensable
to good citizenship in this country, and especially to all who may
be intrusted with high responsibilities in the legislative and
executive departments of the National Government. What would be
thought of a general of the army who tried to shield himself from
censure or punishment behind his ignorance of the law? Can a
legislator be excused because he knows nothing of the art and
science of war? If there is any one offense in this country which
ought never, under any circumstances, to be pardoned, it is ignorance
in those who are trusted by the people to manage the affairs of
their government. As in the military, so in the civil departments
of government, there a few greater crimes than that of seeking and
assuming the responsibilities of an office for which the man himself
knows he is not fit. It is nearly as great as that committed by
the appointing power under similar circumstances.

GENERAL MILITARY EDUCATION INDISPENSABLE

A system of general military education should of course include
elementary training in all the schools, public and private, so that
every boy, before he is sixteen years old, would know how to use
the rifled musket in ranks, and be familiar with the simple evolutions
of a company and battalion. Young men never forget such training
received when they are boys. The country would have in a few years
several millions of fairly well-trained young soldiers, requiring
only competent officers and a few days drill in regimental tactics
to make a reliable army for any service this country will probably
ever require of her volunteer soldiery. If it were a question of
the invasion of a foreign country against a modern veteran army,
the ca