The Press.
London, England, 1856-01-12 00:00:00

MILITARY EDUCATION.

How far is it expedient that an officer should
be highly born ? To what extent is it neces-
sary that he should be highly educated?
These are the two heads under which we
propose to consider the subject before us.
Not that the former, perhaps, strictly belongs
to it, but, as it is constantly dragged into the
discussion, we shall take this opportunity of
stating our views upon the question.
Some writers make altogether light of the
claims of blood. What has the accident of

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birth to do with a man's merits? Do we
choose our lawyer or our doctor because he is
of a good family ? Why is not Smith of Cam-
berwell us good a man as Too nley of Townley ?
This is the kind of plausible appeal to which
for the last twelvemonth we have been com-
pelled to listen. Let us repeat the argu-
ment. We do not choose a lawyer or a doctor
because he is a man of good family ; therefore
we ought not to make a man an officer be-
cause he is of a good family. Here, however,
there is only one premiss, and every logical
proposition requires, we know, two. Let us
supply the major; the syllogism will then
stand thus, and the fallacy be at once appa-
rent :—Nothing which is not a good grow.d
for choosing a doctor or lawyer, is a good
ground for choosing an officer. Birth is not
a good ground for choosing a lawyer or doctor;
therefore birth is not a good ground for
choosing an officer. The major premiss is, of
course, utterly false ; but it is, nevertheless,
the only one that will warrant the conclusion
drawn. The whole argument, indeed, is just
about us valid as if we should say that a man
who does not choose his cook because she has
blue eyes, ought not, therefore, to choose his
wife because she has blue eyes ; the truth
being that these are essential to neither, but
that, whereas we choose the one for qualities
with which blue eyes have no concern whatso-
ever, we choose the other for qualities with
which they have a great deal. The ignoring
of this distinction—the assumption that be-
cause two things agree in certain negative qua-
lities, they agree also in positive ones—is a
most seductive fallacy, and one of the most
fertile sources of human error.

But, in order to be satisfied that the
analogy is correct, we must ascertain, not
why a man doesn't choo;:e a lawyer, but
why he does. In the two professions of law
and medicine, a man is sought after for
qualities which any person may, in the main,
acquire for himself. Learning, and t-xper:ence
teaching him how to use that learning, are
the two possessions we desiderate in a physi-
cian or an advocate. But the case of the
army is widely different. It is a pro-
fession in which the exercise of a certain
moral power is imperatively demanded ;
one in which a man's real character is con-
stantly before the eyes of those whom it is his
duty to influence. It is not enough for
an officer to be a master of military science, if
he is not one whom his soldiers respect.
Kindheartedness, suavity mingle:l with deci-
sion, abstinence from the habitual practice
of degrading vices, and freedom, generally,
from anything approaching what is sordid or
mean, are only some of the qualities which are
more decidedly necessary to the formation of a
good officer than any amount of mathematicul
or engineering knowledge. Now, we are not
going to insult our readers by contending that
these said virtues are to be found in great% r
perfection in the higher classes than in tl.e
lower or middle. But we do contend that ho
who has all his life been accustomed to have
servants under him, to know that many eyes
are upon him, to practise those hundred little
nameless acts of self-restraint in their pre-
sence which every gentleman does practise,
to feel that obedience is a matter of course,
neither to be enforced by severity nor coaxed
by indulgence, to whom command is no
novelty, and, consequently, no temptation—
mat such a man is, a priori, better fitted to
command soldiers, and especially British
soldiers, than one who has not had these
idvantages; and that the higher you ascend
in the scale of society, the more are these
advantages diffused. The Marshals of NAPC-
LEON, it is said, were roturiers, yet they were at
least as good men of wain as those of Lot. s
XIV. It may be so. But it is odd that tl e
Marshals of the Empire were beaten by
every English General with whom they came
in contact, while every English General,
except MARLBOROUGH, was beaten by those • f
the Monarchy. And it is only necessary to
dance at any memoirs of the Empire to ob-
serve the scandalous! corruption and instil -
ordination of these celebrated Marshals. To
say that BI.UCHER and SUWARROW were coal' e
is really very futile. Will any one say tit, t
gentlemen, as a rule, are coarser than
other people? and if he does not say this, he

says nothing. MAnumouou, whatever his
faults, did not exhibit them to his soldiery.
Lord CLIVE was, we believe, a gentleman by
birth ; and if at one period of his life he was
sneered at as a parvenu, it only shows that
there were people then, as now, who knew
not what his origin was.

We must hasten, however, to assure our
readers that we are far from being opposed to
the educational movement which is at present
going on in the army. English subalterns can
no longer be permitted to enjoy an exclusive
immunity from the small drudgeries of their
profession, or to revel in au exclusive igno-
rance of its scientific requirements Why
fhould not an officer in the army he examined
or his promotion as well as an officer iu the
navy? The Tittles has, long ago, set this part
of the question in its proper light. Let us
grant, it is said, that there are certain military
qualities which no examination can elicit,—
why should not the matt who passes a good
examination be as likely to possess these as
the man who doesn't? So far this is un-
answerable. All we demand is that candi-
dates shall be taken, as a rule, from such a
class as will insure their possession, as far as
it can be insured, of thoap other qualities
which no schooling can confer. It is no use
to blink the truth. The aristocracy have cer-
tain advantages, and why should not the na-
tion turn them to the best account? Our
rural population will never follow any other
class with the same enthusiasm as they will
the gentry. Let it be the business of the
latter to Wake themselves worthy of the senti-
thaent; let them study their profession, 41-
stead of playing billisirds and flirting with
pastry-cooks ; and they may yet despise all that
the ignorance of bagmen, or the jealousy of a
class which is not at ease in their society, can
say to discredit them.