2nd. All the details of the management and interior economy of his company should be thoroughly learnt by the young soldier, comprising arms, clothing, food, payment, punishments, rewards, &c., after which a knowledge of the management of a regiment will be easily acquired.

3rd. Orderly duty should be done conscientiously and with interest. A gentleman should consider it to be as disgraceful to sign his name at the bottom of a report of which the items are not strictly true, as to tell a deliberate falsehood. Every day on which an officer has performed his duty negligently he has morally obtained money (viz. his pay for that day) under false pretences.

4th. To command men worthily it is not sufficient to hold the Queen's commission in one's writing-desk. An officer should acquire such influence over his men that they will be eager to do his bidding and to follow him anywhere. The possession of that influence is the peculiar mark of a good officer; and it cannot be acquired without a knowledge of the names of the soldiers and the study of their individual characters. Some officers never even learn the names of the men of their own companies, much less study their dispositions. A knowledge of character, however, is indispensable to the proper management of men. If two men were framed like two locomotives, of precisely the same number of pistons and cranks urged by

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the same amount of steam, the same management might do for both; but since that is not the case, the same treatment will have a very different effect on different characters. In dealing with men, therefore, knowledge of human nature as well as discretion and temper are required. Some officers, from their peculiar temperament, work themselves up into a passion when ordering a punishment. An officer should never allow a soldier to think that he is punishing an offence against himself personally. Mildness of manner is quite compatible with inflexibility of action, and produces a far greater effect than violence in combination with it.

Officers should be most scrupulous in ceremoniously returning all salutes; their failing to do so is almost as great a military offence as the neglect to salute would be in a private soldier; it is moreover an offence against good taste and breeding. A soldier will be more likely to respect himself when he sees that his officer respects him.

5th. Life in quarters. The opportunity afforded by the leisure of peace should be employed in preparation for the natural condition of the soldier, which is active service. The young officer in a garrison is sorely tempted to a life of dissipation and idleness. Habits of employment acquired at an earlier period are invaluable in aid of good resolutions to withstand such temptations. But the

recruit who is really desirous of becoming a soldier has much to learn. As the basis of all military studies, he should make himself thoroughly acquainted with the principles of war, which are easily learnt and understood. From a want of this knowledge, many men go groping on in their profession in the dark; and there are many instances of officers having been thirty years in the service without their minds having ever opened to understand intelligently what they have been doing every day. Having first mastered the principles, let the student then proceed to details. There is no detail, however trifling, of military service, from the defence of a house, village, or outpost, to that of a city or a position, to which those principles do not apply; and the details will be more interesting and consequently more easily acquired, when referred intelligently to general rules previously understood. The student is referred to that most valuable work "Jervis' Manual of Field Operations" for full details of military service in the field. An officer An officer may teach himself the theory of field fortification by carefully reading Jebb's amusing treatise; and in all probability facilities will be afforded for becoming acquainted with the practical part also.

The young officer should learn to survey. buy a prismatic compass and set to work.

Let him

There is

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not a regiment in the army in which he will not find some officer able and willing to help him.*

He may employ half his time in reading standard military histories, beginning with "Napier; " but it will be comparatively useless to do so unless he has the principles of the art of war previously well fixed in his mind.

A recruit who employs his time as above indicated will become a good soldier, and capable, if he ever has the opportunity, of doing service to his country; but anything is better than listless idleness, which is driven to have recourse to one cigar after another as a resource and an excitement.

It is the bounden duty of all officers to set a good example to their men, not only as regards general military discipline, but as regards morality and sobriety of conduct, including regular attendance at church and devotion while there, avoidance of debt, and of everything in their habits which may create scandal.

Practical joking cannot for one moment be tolerated among gentlemen. Always foolish and beneath the dignity of a man, it is frequently malignant

* It would be beneficial to the army, if with every regiment there were a 66 captain-instructor" competent to teach the dif

ferent branches of military science.

A good library of standard military works is an indispensable accompaniment to a regiment in time of peace.

and hurtful. It is inconceivable that any youth who has been brought up as a gentleman should see any amusement or wit in destroying the property of a brother officer, a proceeding which is one of the practices of this senseless system. Whatever may be the nature of a practical joke, it almost always leads to quarrels, sometimes to death; and it is certain that no commanding officer is fit for the position he holds, if he does not instantly put a stop to the habit of such joking in his regiment when he knows it to exist. If such a habit should exist in his regiment without his knowledge, he is equally unfit for his command.

6th. When an officer is on active service in the field, everything connected with the daily life of his men should be an object of constant attention; no detail is beneath him. He must not think the arms and ammunition his most important charge, and that if they be in fighting order he need not trouble himself much about the rest.

The arms are the fighting weapons, but the soldier is the machine which wields them; and it is to him-to clothing his back and feeding his belly and looking after his health and comfort that the great attention is due. The arms and ammunition must of course be always in perfect order, but they are only required when in contact with an enemy. The

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