ABSTRACT

Presenting his army estimates in 1909 Haldane again expressed his objection to compulsory military service. Having previously refrained from intruding into the province of the Board of Education, on the present occasion he bowed to temptation. He felt obliged to comment on the low levels of attainment of recruits to the army, three-quarters of whom entered the service with a level of education below that of a 10-year-old child (13 per cent were below even Standard 1, the level of a 7-year-old). To tackle this deficiency he advocated the need for compulsory continuation schools in which ex-elementary school children would continue their education on a part-time basis beyond the statutory school-leaving age. 1 By pressing for this educational provision he was incidentally giving encouragement to institutions in which a place might more readily be found for military training within the curriculum, though the idea may not necessarily have been uppermost in his mind.