MILITARY SCIENCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2719, 26 January 1910, Page 5

MILITARY SCIENCE.

DECISION OF THE UNIVERSITY SENATE. rJ ’mt PttKSH Association. | DUNEDIN, Jan. 25. At the University Senate to-day ; the question, of teaching military science was discussed. The Military Committee recommended tliat military science be included as an optional subject- in the course for the 13. A. and B.Sc. degrees, that the suTTject embrace the following: (1) elementary liistorv and strategy, (a) policy and peace strategy, (b) military lessons in the science of strategy; (2) Imperial defence; (3) tactics, topography, and military engineering; (4) .military administration and law. After discussion, a motion for the adoption of the report was carried, and the report was referred to the Statutes Committee.

The question of teaching military science at the- colleges of the New Zea. land University will l ,, be given greater prominence and importance by Lord Kitchener’s utterance at Sydney: “The country on its part should support the defenders by snowing pride in them; by insisting upon the abolition of’ all that savors of sham and uselessness, and by supplying the means to them to study thoroughly and ground themselves in military duties by the provision of carefully considered necessities to ensure an efficient equipment of training in readiness for,war.” The Military Committee of Victoria College drew up the following recommendations on tills subject, and submitted them to the four Professorial Boards: —

1. Military science to be an optional subject for the arts course. 2. A phair of Military Science to be established at each of the four university colleges. The Government to he approached to provide a sum not exceeding £3OOO per annum to cover salaries.

3. In 1907 the War Office brought liefore the colonial Premiers, then in England attending the Imperial Conference, the question of the advisabiltv of colonial universities affording facilities for the study of military science. A large pro portion of candidates offering for commissions in the Regular Army have for some years been drawn from Home universities, and the sunnly from this source is increasing.

4. Chairs of Military Science exist at Sydney Universt- and at McGill University.

5. A Professor of Military History has lately been appointed at Oxford, and a third of the subjects taken for the B.A. degree may he military subjects.

6. A suggestion was made to the New Zealand University Senate in 1908 that military drill and efficiency with the rifle he allowed to count as an optional subject for the arts course. This seems due to a misconception, and Is undesirable from an academic and educational point of view. What is required is facilities for obtaining tuition in the higher branches of military science, not in drill and other merely elementary branches. The syllabus should include military history, strategy, tactics, military geography, military engineering, adminstraton, organisaton, military law.