FOREIGN WAR-SCHOOLS.

IN a recent paper we claimed attention to the state of military education in England as compared with the great Continental monarchies. We contrasted the comparative absence of education here, with the plenitude of education there ; and we endeavoured. to impress upon the reader the necessity of placing our educational institutions for the Army, above all for the Staff, on a footing of greater equality with those of the Continent.

Since that date, a General Order from the Horse Guards has been published, setting forth the qualifications which will be exacted from all Staff-officers after the 1st of January 1858. That such an order has been issued, shows that the military authorities, however reluctant they may be to meddle with the subject, cannot wholly neglect it; but it also shows that they are not yet prepared for measures of radical reform in the Army. For although notice has publicly been given that Staff-officers will be examined to test their fitness, it is not stated where they are to acquire the requisite theoretical and practical knowledge, nor stated that the proposed examination will be competitive. The question is, shall we have a Staff School ; and shall admission to and. exit from that school be by competition ? With the evidence before them, we cannot imagine a Government earnestly bent on reform adopting definitively any plan short of that which has long been the crown of the military schools of the Continent. In France, Austria, and Prussia, it will be found that the greatest captains and military administrators have founded, cherished, and perfected the great military schools. In France, we find a Carnet, a Fourcroy, a Napoleon. In Austria, to use the words of Frederick, " a woman ()arnica out designs worthy of a great man " ; the woman being Maria Theresa, the design being a military school, whereby "the military service in that country attained a degree of perfection which it had never reached under the Emperors of the house of Austria." In Prussia, it was Frederick himself who founded the war school. He says of the officers, in a letter to Fouque—" I have ordered them to receive instruotion in the art of war, and they will be obliged to give reasons for all they do." Although he felt that the plan would not do for all, yet out of the whole, he writes, "we shall certainly form some men and officers who will not merely have their patent as generals to show, but some capacity for the office as well." And what Frederick began, Scharnhorst, at a time of Prussian misfortune, completed. Such examples as these ought not to be without effect on England. But it is not on any model furnished by the experience of the Continent that the late general order was framed. We shall still have a search for officers who can " give a reason for all they do," and for generals who can show capacity for their work as well as their patent of appointment. The Horse Guards must try its hand upon another general order, having for its object the creation of a Staff and of Staff-education worthy of the fighting fame of a British army. And the only way to do this is to establish a Staff School, animated by the living principle of competition, and to make that School the main if not the only entrance to the Staff Corps. But it is not in Staff alone that we are deficient. Compared

with foreign nations, our army, above the grade of sergeant, is the least professional in Europe except that of Turkey. That other nations have what we lack, it will be our business to show ; taking as highest authority the report of our own Commissioners.

In France, the principle of all military education is "active competition." Ample care has been taken, while rewarding valour and conduct when they are shown in her ranks, to give the brains of the army a careful training. Thus, "one-third. of the officers of the Line, two-thirds of those in the Scientific Corps, and the whole of the Staff, receive a careful professional education." How easeful, may be inferred from the fact that the offioers who rise from the ranks, and who have the disadvantage of neglected education, do not often attain any higher grade than that of captain. Nor is the professional education alluded to obtained on the voluntary principle. The State provides institutions; the State dictates the programmes of study ; the State inuires into the fitness of its pupils ; and. the pupils compete for priority on the examination-lists. At all the schools, the intellect of the pupils is stimulated by intense competition and the earnest method of teaching, perhaps to excess. All who can win their war into the great schools, and who are too poor to pay the

attendant expenses, are educated at the expense of the tate, some partially, some wholly. A good professional education for the Line is given at St. Cyr ; and here all the able young men strive for the score of places in the Staff School practically re served for the best pupils. At the Polytechnic, the officers of the Artillery and Engineers receive a preparatory education of "the highest scientific character," which is completed in the School of Application at Metz, and by the practical training they receive after they enter the service. The Staff College is a high school officered by thirteen military and five civilian professors. None gain admission without winning it by a competitive examination, none go from it into the Staff without undergoing the same strict ordeal. As a consequence of the great requirements demanded from officers in the military schools, the general tone of education throughout France is raised ; and our Commissioners of Military Education remark, that "the best preparation for the military schools is found to be that general education which is supplied by the ordinary schools of the country." Thus military teaching in France is a serious business, a State department. The army attracts talent by rewarding talent. The provision for promoting men from the ranks secures the rise of born soldiers whose education has been neglected in youth. In its fullest sense, "ha earriere est °avert° aux talents," and the brave and gifted are not slow to enter the lists. With this we have nothing to compare. It is the same in Austria. Since the Revolution of 1648, Austria has extended and improved her military institutions. Here the army, although not so completely open to all—although not so well provided with thoroughly-educated. officers—has a very large share. The army is more exclusive than that of France, less exclusive than that of Prussia. The education pierces more deeply than in either country—that is, it reaches the noncommissioned officers ; but it is not so all-pervading among the officers as either in Prussia or France. Not more than one in twenty of the officers have been specially trained, if trained at all. But, so far as it goes, the education given is of a very high order. First, there are the numerous schools for noncommissioned officers, which supply all arms with able men. This is a peculiar institution, and well worth consideration. The Austrian noncommissioned officer who passes through the various schools receives an education of "a very solid character," and "the most talented and deserving pupils" are sent to the Officers' Schools, where they may, if they can, win commissions. In the Officers' Schools, "the studies appear to be pursued with great care." In the Academies for the Artillery and Engineers, "an unusually large number of pupils obtain high marks." In the Staff School, where entrance is obtained only by competition, there is the most careful teaching : "the subjects are few in number, but well chosen, and what is done seemed to be done thoroughly." This school has a peculiarity that deserves special remark. When they enter the school, the pupils are placed in the order fixed by the test of examination ; when they leave it, their places are assigned them "not by marks, nor by any minute system of testing intellectual qualifications, but an estimate is formed [by the officers who are instructors in the school] upon the whole work of the two years, both on the studies in the school and the work in the field—of the student's cotnparative fitness as an officer for the work of the Staff." This process, performed by sound judges, must be preferable to that of any other examination-test ; and it appears to be a natural corrective for the evils of the French system of determining the merit of the pupil by proficiencyin intellectual gymnastics alone. Another peculiarity as regards the Staff is, that generals are permitted to select their own personal aides-de-camp, but they are prohibited from selecting their relations ; a provision that, if' adopted in England, would create a small insurrection. As regards the general Staff, it is provided that no officer shall obtain an appointment unless he have pressed through the Staff School. On the whole, the Austrian Staff School is "remarkable for its thorough and open competitive character from first to last." And observe the effects, as stated by our Commissioners. "The consequence is, that every officer knows distinctly, from the time that he first competes for admission until his final examination on leaving, that the order in which he will enter the Staff depends entirely on his own exertions and success at the school. It seemed to us that this open competition produced a spirit of confidence and energy in the students, as great, if not greater, than any we met with elsewhere."

In the military institutions of Prussia, much of the old spirit remains, that in the days of Frederick exacted a proof of noble birth as a condition precedent to the grant of a commission. Noble birth is no longer essential ; but before a young man is admitted to a regiment the consent of its officers must be obtained ; the free places in the Cadet Houses are given to the sons of officers and State servants simply because they are such : our Commissioners found it "impossible not to be struck by the strong class indeed, of • prevailing in the Prussian army." The principle, of Prussian military education, is appointment through two examinations; but this principle is not earned out so consistently as it is in France. The teaching is neither of a high order nor conspicuous for efficiency in the Division Schools for Officers. But the schools for the Scientific Corps are good ; and the Staff School is a distinguished institution among its European rivals. It will be seen, however, that Prussia does not neglect military education, but has far more of it, and of a higher and more complete order, than we have.

What all these countries have in common is the Staff School; institutions for the education of officers of all arms; and more or

1 less of the principle of competition in active operation among the aspirants for military employment. The officers of the Stall and the Scientific Corps are those most rigorously educated; more

being properly demanded 'from them than from those of the Infantry or Cavalry. Is it necessary to repeat the lesson taught by these facts ? We can no more afford to be behind the world in military than in manufacturing skill. War is the best school for a soldier ; but wars are now happily rare and of short duration. Next to the means afforded by war are those afforded by peace—strict and comprehensive training; the acquisition of "knowledge and professional ability." In short, we must stamp "profession" deeply on our Army. And, since it becomes us, as the first of free nations, to do everything at least as well as despotic nations, to neglect military education is no longer consistent with the dignity of the country, nor, we may add, with its safety..

" CONSOLIDATION " OF THE STATUTE LAW.--No, V. Excut.rxur workmanship, admirable skill in the details of execution, are often misspent upon designs of every degree of unworthiness, and even upon plans impossible of realization. It has, perhaps, been abundantly shown that the Lord Chancellor's "Criminal Law Consolidations" are incapable of realization as "Consolidations "—that the "success" which he expects of them is in that character a simple impossibility ; and yet it may still be possible that some improvement in details may have been effected by them as ree,-,ards the substance, form, collocation, and expression of particular provisions, and some such partial connexions of the matter as may facilitate access to it, and a better general intelligence of its detailed effects. The public is reminded incessantly in Lord Cranworth's speeches, and in the panegyrics and apologies of the upholders of these measures, that eminent lawyers, such as Lord Wensleydale, the late Sir John Jervis, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, and Mr. Greaves, Q.C., have specially devoted themselves to their preparation, revision, and settlement ; and when Sir Fitzroy Kelly and Lord Cranworth assert unconditionally that the " Consolidations " are "successful," it must be understood that they mean at least this, that these bills present in detail an expression, order, and effect, which are improvements on the existing statutes in which the matter has been hitherto found. If this prove to be so in fact, although the result would fall far short of the expectations excited by the large professions and promises of the Lord Chancellor and his Commissioners, and the hopes justly grounded on our sacrifices of time, money, and opportunity, it would still be something which the public should not reject, even if they could not accept it with gratitude.

Unfortunately, the most moderate of the earnest advocates of improvement of the law can find nothing even of this minute kind of merit in these "Consolidation Acts "—can find no instance of more accurate or more intelligible expression, no instance of a more lucid order, not even where these consolidations necessarily bring together from a series of amending acts their various dispersed provisions, and in no instance (what perhaps was not to be expected in measures that only professed to be consolidations and not amendments of the law) improvements of the practical effects or substance of provisions. The proper proof of this universal failure, even in the details of these consolidations, is to be had by inspection by any one who will compare any of them with the same matter in the statutes themselves, or, what is much easier, as it is found collected in any one of the many manuals or text-books in which the same matter is exhibited. To those who will not or cannot do this, the proof of the worthlessness in detail of these measures labours under the great evil of superabundance of evidence—Pembarras des richesses. Above eight hundred noted objections, all irrefragable, most of them irresistible even on the Commissioners' own showing or their necessary hypotheses, all of considerable importance, and involving nearly every form of objection.of which the work is susceptible, constitute of themselves by their mere number and accidental and capricious variety, a:difficulty to the critic bound to make an exposition of them. But the simpler and more intelligible way of dealing with them,—the collection of the kinds of the defects into groups or classes, and the exemplification of each kind of objection by specimens taken from the whole range of these eight consolidations,—has been found in actual discussion so unsatisfactory in this respect, that a suspicion is begotten in the hearer that the objections have an a priori and doctrinal, character, and that the proofs and examples produced have been industriously selected by the critic, and may, after all, be only partial exceptions to the general tenour and character of the bills. The more decisive and satisfactory process is the more tedious and less systematic course of beginning with the first line of every bill and proceeding without selection or omission through as much of it as is sufficient to assay and test its quality. As in this course it is Manifest that nothing is chosen or rejected for the purposes or at the pleasure of the critic, and as in everycase the most carefully elaborated part of these eight "consolidations" is at their beginning, the examination though tedious, and disconnected exactly. as is the subject matter examined, leaves no lurking doubt in the reader of the perfect impartiality with which it is brought into discussion.

To begin, then, in this disorderly order of examination—The first of these eight Consolidations is intituled "An Act for Consolidating the Statute-law of England relating to Indictable Offences against the Person " ; and its preamble is, "Whereas it is expedient to consolidate the Statute-law of England relating to Indictable Offences against the Person." Observations have been already made (in number IV, pp. 229, 285) on this " expediency " of so consolidating the law of " indictable " offences ; and it has been shown that such consolidation is dissolidation, inasmuch as it divides exactly the same wrongs or offenoes when subject both of a summary and solemn jurisdiction, (and indeed again when of civil cognizanee,) and dissevers all analogous wrongs or offences subject to these several modes of legal intervention; and presently we shall have a practical example of this mischief in the first subdivision of this very bill.

This Act, No. 1, is subdivided into these heads as to Homicide: (8 sections) — as to Attempts to Murder : (2 sections) — as to Arts Causing, or Thultng to Cause, Danger to _Life or Bodily Harm : (17 sections) — as to Assaults (7 sections) — as to Rape, Abduction, or Defilement of 1Vonten : (8 sections) — as to Procuring Abortion, and as to Concealment of Birth : (2 sec

tions)

— as to Unnatural °fences : (2 sections) — as to Other Matters : (6 sections) Of which the incongruity is perhaps sufficiently apparent at first sight : "Homicide" separated as a different head from "Attempts at Homicide," and these from "Acts causing or tending to cause Danger to Life " ; and these from "Assaults.' Again the collocation in one sequence and as coordinate heads with the above, of " Rape of Women," which has little of the character of personal or bodily harm, and has preponderating characteristics of the moral order ; of "Abduction of Women," the whole champteristic of which is not the bodily violence but the property and status affected ; and of their " Defilement," which is wholly distinguished by the moral characteristic. Then back again to the bodily destruction of the person in the "Procuring Abortion," and the presumption of it in Concealment of Birth." Again a skip into the offences of the moral (diameter, in which the injury to the person goes for absolutely nothing, the " Unnatural Offenceii " ; and finally the °mai-comprehensive but insignificant and uncharacterized head of "Other Matters." The incongruity is hero merely hinted : this and other faults will be best examined in the subsequent detailed discussion of some or all of these several heads of offences; but even a glance at such a heterogeneous aggregation will to most minds settle the question whether Act No. 1 can possibly be, in any sense of the word, a "consolida tion." a. C.

(To be continued.)