Perhaps the English Army system will be best made clear by tracing it from its beginnings with the schoolboy age. In the first place, it has to be noted that there is no compulsory military service in England. Until quite recently it was possible to recruit for the militia (though not for the Regular Army) by a ballot, _i.e._ by the drawing of a lot to determine a certain number of recruits who were forced to join whether they liked it or not (this system is still in force in the Channel Islands). Now there is absolutely no compulsion in England to undertake any form of military service. It is not even compulsory that schoolboys should undertake cadet drill. The English boy can altogether neglect any training for the defence of his country if that is his wish and the wish of his parents. In the majority of cases he takes full advantage of that freedom. If, however, he has some stirring of a desire to equip himself for defence, he may join the Boy Scouts--a non-military, but a disciplined organisation recently set afoot by General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who was a very prominent figure during the last big war that Britain had. If the English boy is of a more marked martial inclination he can, whilst at school, usually join a cadet organisation or the Officer's Training Corps,--a body of cadets recruited from the higher schools. If it is intended that he should seek a career in the army as an officer, he will, as a very young boy, be sent to a preparatory school, and go from that to a military college, and from there, on passing his examinations, go into the commissioned ranks of the Army. So much for the boys. The adults may join the Territorial Force, a civilian army which makes slight demands on their leisure and does not interfere with them following civilian associations; or they may join the Regular Army. In every other great country of the world (except the United States) a certain proportion of adult men have to join the Regular Army for a term whether they wish to or not; in some countries almost every able-bodied man is thus passed through the military organisation. But in England the Army is recruited on a voluntary basis. It is sought to get men by offers of good pay and good conditions of service. Naturally this makes the British Army a far more expensive affair, regiment for regiment, than any other army of the world (again except the United States). Its friends claim, however, that this extra cost is compensated for by extra quality, and that the willing recruit will be a more "willing" fighter than any conscript soldier. [Illustration: CHANGING THE GUARD, ST. JAMES'S PALACE]