The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-01 00:00:00

MILITARY EDUCATION.

A WELL-KNOWN anecdote of the Duke of
WELLINGTON has lately been going the round
of the papers containing an expression of his
opinion on the value of public school training
But it is useless to relate such anecdotes in a
merely sentimental or a merely jocose spirit.
It is worse than folly for a party of old public
schoolmen to dine together in celebration of a
system the effects of which they are doing
their best to stultify elsewhere—to pour
libations of claret to the honour of Latin
hexameters, and straight bowling at the
Thatched-house Tavern, and then to listen
quietly while the fruits of cricket and classics
are being sneered at in the Houses of
Lords and Commons. Noblemen and gentle-
men who have felt the benefit of the old Eng-
lish system of education must do something
better than sneer at the want of it in others if
they would not see it driven from the field.
And as we are in the number of those
who firmly believe in its excellence, we would
sincerely recommend our readers not to trust
merely to the via inertia, but to speak and act
boldly if they would save us from an army of
clerks, pedants, and prigs.
The argument that because lawyers, divines,
and doctors are specially educated therefore
officers should be so too, is all very well when
not pushed too far ; but, as usual in such
cases, it almost invariably is. Persons who
talk in this way are apt to forget that the
special training of the curate or barrister does
not begin till the general training of the
gentleman and man of the world is concluded.
He would be a madman who should grudge
to the ensign or cornet a course of engineering,
or strategy, or what not supplementary to his
general culture. Build whatever superstruc-
ture may be thought best, and as much of it
as the ground will bear, but lay your founda-
tions first. The priest who knows nothing
but the Fathers, the barrister who knows
nothing but law, can never succeed us either
advocates or preachers. Chamber counsel
may be content with knowledge alone, but
there are no such things as chamber captains or
colonels.

The point, then, to be kept steadily in view
is this—to preserve the earlier years of the
future subaltern from the dwarfing effects of
an exclusively professional training. But,
considering the early age at which our young
ensigns commence their career of glory, it is
difficult to see how both the man and the
soldier can each receive the culture he re•
quires. This is the problem to be solved. Is
it, we would ask, qiiite impossible that men
should obtain their commissions a year or two
later than is now the custom ?—we feel as if
we had given utterance to some frightful
heresy. But is it really impossible? At all
events, this, it appears to us, will be the main
difficulty to be con luered before " military
education " becomes popular with the British
people.
Those who object to our present system
may te divided roughly into two classes—
those who do so from want of knowledge, and
those who do so from want of sympathy. The
first consists of that numerous, influential,
and daily-increasing body who owe all their
prosperity in life to the modern diffusion of
education—self-made men, who, taking advan-
tage of the opportunities afforded them by
mechanics' institutes, libraries, and lectures,
have risen from a humble position to one of
wealth and power. Such persons naturally
look with distrust upon everything which a
man has not acquired for himself. Of the
peculiar qualities developed by good birth,
refinement, and the habit of superiority they
take no cognisant e, for they have had no
opportunity of estimating them. They only
feel that the phrase " an officer and a gentle-
man " points to certain qualities which they
can never hope to acquire for themselves, and
of which, of course, they are proportionably