In another way, also, the war will prove a drawback upon forming an effective militia system. We shall have, for some years to come, no class disposed to take a very hearty part in it. For a returned soldier to find pleasure in drilling is as if a wood-sawyer, at the close of his week's work, should bring his tools into his sitting-room, and saw for fun. On the other hand, those who have not served in the army will feel some natural sensitiveness about playing soldier in presence of veterans, and being satirized, perhaps, as a mere home-guard. Thus experience and inexperience will equally tend to deplete the classes available for this form of service. These obstacles will be increased by the fact, that such duties, under any conceivable arrangement, must involve a sacrifice both in time and money. Reduce the period of annual service to its minimum, and it may still occur at such a time as to cost an employer his contract, or an _employé_ his place. Our young men are to meet the problem of increased taxes, crowded occupations, and great competition. Who shall make the needful sacrifice? The returned soldiers? But they have given precious years of time already. The inexperienced? But they will naturally reason, that they have already borne the immediate financial burden of the war, and that the drilling should be done by those to whom it will cost no additional time to learn it. Thus all will regard their days as being too valuable to be used in preparing for a contingency which may never arise: one half standing aloof because they have been soldiers, and the other half because they have not. A difficult problem seems, then, to lie before us: To find a class available for purposes of military training,--a class which shall claim exemption on grounds neither of experience nor of inexperience,--which shall be discouraged neither by the ennui of knowing too much, nor by the awkwardness of knowing too little,--and which, withal, can spare the time, without financial detriment to the community. Fortunately, the solution of the problem suggests itself, in part at least, almost as soon as the problem itself is stated. Train the school-boys. Every person who has taken any interest in athletic exercises knows the enormous advantage in their acquisition which the mere fact of youth confers. In gymnastics, swimming, skating, base-ball, cricket, it is the same thing. As a mere matter of economy, one half the time at least is saved in teaching children as compared with full-grown men. But more than this, it is for them not only no loss in time, but, if it can be taken out of their regular school-hours, it is a positive advantage. There is probably but one conceivable position in which all the physiologists agree, and that is, that the average time now given to study in our schools is at least one hour too long. Take this hour and devote it to military drill, and you benefit the whole rising generation doubly,--by what you take away, and by what you give.