OUR BOY SOLDIERS.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 269, 22 November 1901, Page 2

OUR BOY SOLDIERS.

SIR HECTOR MACDONALD’S ADVICE.

By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, last night. A letter from Sir Hector Macdonald to the school cadets of Auckland w-as made public yesterday. It has done not a little to fan the flame of enthusiasm among the young (says a local journal). In it SitHector takes no count of the pastime of volunteering. He assumes that every little man has as distinct before his eyes tho serious end and purposes as tho recruit who takes His Majesty’s shilling. Every little man becomes a soldier in spirit on that assumption, if ho were not one before. He regards this schoolboy drill as a thing that is not to bo forgotten when school days aro over, or the rifle a toy that is to be laid aside. He takes it for granted that this cadet training is tho first step in tho evolution of the citizen soldier, and that it is not to be the last. These boys may qualify for one calling or another in life, he would say ; but in addition to that they must bo soldiers, ready when danger threatens to take up arms in tho defence of their country, and competent when occasion requires to use them efficiently. It should not be omitted to note that the encouragement and exhortation Sir Hector addressed to our boys aro quite as much calculated to make them good citizens as good soldiers. To quote his own words than which we have heard none more to the point: “ There is nothing more pleasing than well-dressed and well-set-up young fellow*, moving about with vigor and energy, with straight back and broad chest, alert and upright, .’glorying in their youthful strength.” In his advice as to how such habits of dress and bearing are to be attained the General lays so much stress on the use of tho gymnasium and attention to drill as almost to suggest neglect of other studies, a course only excusable where soldiering is to be tho main business of life.