Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-11-24
ENGLAND's WAR SCHOOL
The System at Sandhurst Compared With
West Point.
The Course Lasts but n Year and Fits
Only for Cavalry and Infantry
Training Mt the stan College.
Poultney Bigelow in the New York World.

We are SO accustomed to West Point as
a national institution that we are apt to
regard it as quite natural to US. But this
| is by no means the case. 1t was the re-
markable foresight of George Washington
that gave us this institution, and it Is due
10 most fortunate combination of cir
eumstances following upon it's foundation
| that we have today training school for
officers free from political influence, and
producing better results over a given pc
| rod of time than any military school in the
world, not even excepting the schools of
Germany.
This train of thought was brought home
TO me while conversing with an eminent
war ofilcial OF the English government who
knew America well and was deeply inter-
eSted in military education. From him
learned that special commission had been
sent over TO us for the purpose of making
a study of West Point, with a view to the
reorganization of the English military col
| lese at Sandhurst. This college was found
| ed i'll 1893, and must not be COMPOUNDED
with the so-called Staff College, where
postgraduate instruction is given.
SandEurst is like West Point in the
beauty of it's immediate surroundings al
belt West Point is amid rocky hills, where
as the English school is in a rolling coun-
try, eXcellently adapted to cavalry and ar
tillery operations. 1t is close to Aldershot,
where large masses of troops are con-
stantly kept for purposes of drill, and thus
an English cadet has the opportunity of
seeing sometimes 10000 or 10000 soldiers
of all arms in the field where West
Pointer sees only a battalion or so.
The radical difference between West
Point and Sandhurst lies in the fact that
we pay our cadets from the start and sub
ject them to the discipline of non-commis-
stoned officers. We claim their whole time
for the four years of their course, only al
lowing a short holiday of barely two
months during the whole OF that time. The
o. ShrVoo fnr tic oin
would regard himself as most hardly
treated if he were not allowed to go home
once a week, to say nothing of having
much easier time of it in other respects.
Sandhurst fits only for cavalry and in
fantry, and the course is only for one year.
The cadets are admitted between the ages
of seventeen and twenty. West Point
catches her cadets younger and keeps them
longer. This is one secret of her success.
The Sandhurst candidate comes to that
institution with his habits already formed,
and these habits are apt to be bad from a
military point of view. He has not, as a
rule, been under the discipline of a military
school, but has usually gone through the
average public schools of England, which
are inferior for purposes of mental train
ing to such institutions as the New Haven
Grammar School, the Norwich Academy,
Andover or EaSthamDton. At these schools
he is taught a feeble smattering of Latin
and not much of anything else Alter
leaving school the candidates have to spend
a year or more under a professional filter.
called a coach or "crammer," whose bust
ness it is to stuff the would-be officer with
the answers to such questions as will pre-
Sumably be put to him.
The entrance examination at Sandhurst
is difficult, but not SO good a test of a boy
capacity as the first six months at West
Point. Our military authorities do not ask
a cadet. what do you know?' Their
question is, What are you capable of
learnng?'
and pays us the delicate compliment of
modelling upon our designs. 1t is not likely
that she will wholly succeed, because
young Englishmen of today are too accus-
toned to luxury and would as soon go into
a monastery as submit to the hard work
and confinement of the United States Mill
tary Academy.
The only practical means I can see for
England in this matter is that she should
send annually, by special arrangement
young men to West Point, who four years
thereafter should go to Sandhnrst as mill
tary instructors. They would then have
learned to appreciate all that is good in
the West Point system, and their knowl-
edge of England would enable them to
modify it in manner suitable to the needs
of their countrymen.
In return for this international courtesy
the United States might request that six
graduates of West Point annually be al
lowed to attend the so-called "Staff Col
lege," corresponding to the German War
College (Kriegsakademie), where officers of
special merit are sent to perfect themselves
in the higher branches of their calling
particularly in military history and staff
duties. This would be particularly valu-
able training for such of our officers as
contemplate becoming attached to embas-
sizes in military capacity. They would
here see great armies handled as though
in actual warfare, and in case of necessity
would be fitted to command large bodies
of troops. A young American officer at
the English Staff College, for instance
tlefelds. such as Waterloo or Metz and
would have the situation explained to him
on the spot in a manner to make a lasting
impression.