62 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

proved that the organization of the new armies would
have been almost impossible had there not been this
reserve of public school men trained, and efficiently
trained too, to take their part as junior officers in His
Majesty's Forces,
The main value of the Officers Training Corps however,
 paradoxical it may seem, does not lie in its military
aims. For the majority of boys leaving a public school
success or failure in after life depends to a large extent
on their ability to control men. In no department of
school life is this taught except in the Officers Training
Corps, although it is acquired to a certain extent in other
spheres. A junior division Officers Training Corps with
an establishment of two companies, that is to say comprising
 480 cadets, has approximately fifty non-commissioned
 officers, who are employed not only in controlling
but in actually instructing squads, sections, or platoons.
The lance-corporal of, say, 16 years of age gains experience
 rapidly, and, as promotion ensues, his command
increases in size and importance. Long before a boy
attains a position as a dormitory or school prefect he has
acquired self-confidence and the power of control, and
house masters and tutors lock upon the school corps as
the most valuable training ground for their own lieutenants
of the future.
Discipline and Initiative in school life are to a large
degree antagonistic terms, and one of the most difficult
tasks a head master has to perform is to so adjust school
life as to preserve the necessary balance between the two.
The whole training of the Officers Training Corps from
the cadet officer down to the junior private is such as
most efficiently to combine these two, for the successful
soldier is the one in whom both these qualities are developed
 in the highest degree.
To quote from “ Infantry Training,” 1914 :—
“The objects in view in developing a soldierly spirit