Drawing on records of parliamentary debates, this paper investigates the first Commonwealth intervention in schooling. It reveals that compulsory provisions associated with formal schooling were employed to support a policy of compelling boys to undertake training. It shows how military training was positioned as a neglected aspect of ordinary education to enable the Commonwealth to deploy schools and teachers in the service of the scheme and to make schools subordinate to military authority. The paper points out that Commonwealth intervention in schooling articulated the nation-state as the intended beneficiary, a view of education alien to educationists at the time.