Gen. G.-Pray explain this. Is there any thing peculiar and exclusive in the promotion of the artillery?

English Officer.-Yes: the radical error of entering youths into the Ordnance Academy with the professed intention of making them all officers of artillery or engineers, provided they use common diligence to qualify themselves, is refined upon in the ordnance corps; in which all cadets nominated to second lieutenancies are assured of equally becoming field and general officers in regular gradation, whether they do or do not use common diligence to qualify themselves for those high ranks.

This graduated and exclusive system of assured promotion is necessarily without any brilliant prizes to dazzle and gloss over its general slowness and deformity, and has rendered the ordnance service so decidedly inferior to the army service generally, that the clerk of the ordnance, in his evidence before the Finance Committee, in 1828, mistaking the effect for the cause, unhesitatingly gave as a reason why the country must necessarily bear the expense of two military colleges, that the ordnance cadets could not mix on equal terms with the cadets destined for the cavalry and line!!*

Gen. G.-Can it be, that, in your army, there is neither education in common, nor interchange between the officers of the artillery, engineers, and line? How do your generals then contrive to learn the proper use and employment of those arms?

English Officer.-Unhappily so. Thanks to gratuitous education and exclusive patronage, our generals are doomed to complete ignorance on those subjects; and dearly did England pay for it in every campaign, and in almost every operation of the late war.

Gen. G.-This leads me to mention an argument in favour of gratuitous and exclusive education frequently advanced in the House of Commons, which is, that certain acquirements are essential to the due performance of the professional duties of the artillery and engineer officers, and to them only. English Officer.-This argument is more plausible than just.

The education of all military men should be the same to a certain point; and that point is where theoretic studies should cease. Thenceforward the practical details of one or other of the several branches of the military profession require a more exclusive and undivided attention, as the student may be destined for the cavalry, infantry, artillery, or engineer service.

These exclusive details are taught to the engineers after quitting the academy, and were also taught to the artillery officers after receiving their commissions, till 1823; when, on the overflow of qualified candidates, it became necessary to create occupation for those who had finished their theoretical studies, and were still fed, lodged, and clothed at the public cost. Then, for the first time, the practical duties of the officers of artillery were taught to them as cadets; adding other six months to the duration of their gratuitous education.

Many argue that this arrangement must be made permanent: but surely it is a gross libel on the character of the artillery, to assume their discipline to be so feeble, or the spirit of our young officers so bad, that means cannot be devised to induce them to study the details of their own profession after the honour of receiving a commission shall have given them a little freedom of thought and action.

No: it is impossible it can be so. The artillery officer, if put to the test, will be found to learn his peculiar duties with the same zeal and success as

The promotion of the artillery has at length settled down to that degree of stagnation (many of the subalterns being forty years of age,) as will oblige some stimulus or remedy to be applied whenever war breaks out.

Surely it would be better for the country, and only justice to a most meritorious body of officers, to apply that relief immediately. Were an inquiry instituted, it might readily be made apparent, that the expenditure now wasted on a vicious and unnecessarily costly organization would suffice, if skilfully applied, to give due promotion and spread energy and happiness throughout every rank of officers.

the engineer, cavalry and infantry officer; and then nothing need be taught to the ordnance candidate which is not useful and desirable to be known by every well-educated soldier.

Gen. G. You astonish me more and more. How is it that England maintains two military academies, when one would answer every purpose, and gratuitously bestows education to the injury of those corps she proposes to foster and encourage? Do enlighten me.

English Officer. This is a difficult and delicate task you impose on me. It must be attributed partly to our departmental form of government, partly to the jealousy of patronage between men of the highest influence in the state, and partly to overpowering claims of Parliamentary electors.

When the Ordnance Academy at Woolwich was first established, it was intended as much for the instruction of the serjeants and corporals as of the cadets; indeed, at that period, the artillery service was in such low estimation, that qualified candidates for commissions could not be obtained without the bribe of previous gratuitous education, and the officers were most frequently raised from the ranks.

The expense of the academy was then very moderate, and it was filled with orphans and the sons of officers. As the artillery service, however, became better organized, better officered, and better paid, commissions in it became more in request, till at length they rose to be an object of general solicitation; from which period the academy sunk gradually into an instrument of private patronage and parliamentary influence, till at length the late master-general did not hesitate to rebuke and reprehend any professional officer who ventured to urge the claims of his own public services in furtherance of his child's obtaining admittance into the Ordnance Academy, as being an unbecoming attempt to interfere with his lordship's private patronage.*

*

Gen. G.-You do not mean to say, that a gentleman, paying largely to the taxes levied for the support of this institution, or a naval or military officer of long and faithful services, having a son of decided inclination and superior talents for the ordnance service, would not, on public grounds, readily obtain permission for the lad to compete for a commission in the artillery or engineers.

English Officer.-I mean to say, that neither the national interest nor the public service has any thing to do with an admittance into the Ordnance Academy. Were the master-general Patriotism personified, the very nature of the institution would forbid it. In a limited school, for a very limited service, where every boy admitted is to have a commission, provided he can be made to comprehend, in four years, that degree of science which a clever lad readily masters in two years, how can there possibly be any extended competition of talent or any general participation in the advantages of the institution?

Gen. G.-If I comprehend your statement, it would appear that, since the commencement of the late war, above one million sterling, and since the peace, above one fourth of that amount of the public money of the state has been expended for the exclusive military education of a very small branch of your army, and that to its positive detriment.

Surely amongst a rich, free, and high spirited people this ought not to be. Were the public allowed freely to participate in the benefits of the ordnance service, why should an education for the artillery and engineers cost the state more than for the legal, clerical, or diplomatic professions?

It is but justice, however, to Lord Beresford, to state, that notwithstanding this feeling, he greatly improved the discipline and the course of studies of the cadets, and did all in his power (though vainly), by means of probationary examinations and the appointment of à public examiner, to counteract the radical defect of the academy: viz. that of being a gratuitous, limited, and exclusive institution. . Further, his lordship, on quitting office, handed to his successor a list of ninetyseven young men to be educated by the public; which list contained the names of the sons of many meritorious officers previously rejected by him.

Did you not tell me that, at Sandhurst College, civilians willingly pay much more than the actual cost of the education of their sons, merely to obtain for them the benefit of moderately good military instruction?

Does not this afford convincing proof that a very perfect military education would be sought for with avidity by all classes of the public who have children destined for the army, under the greater advantages of only paying the price the education actually costs; and more particularly if the bonus were added of an equal competition for a gratuitous commission in the engineers and artillery corps?

English Officer.-This idea appears good: one college in common for the several branches of the army has been found to answer in America; but how could it possibly be arranged in our government of departments ?

Gen. G.-Let your military seminary, like your universities, be open to all classes of Englishmen who choose to conform to the laws and regulations established for its good government, on the fair and equal principle of all paying alike for the education of their children. Let that education be sufficiently general to fit the student for all the pursuits of active life, and be the very best possible for the military profession. Let it at the same time be at the lowest possible cost, compatible with defraying the entire expense of the institution.* Let every student, in conformity with established rules, be free to join, to remain, and to quit the institution, as his friends may find it convenient, he being subject, however, whilst on the books, to expulsion or dismissal, or such other punishment as may be attached to a breach of the laws and regulations of the institution.

Let the college be divided into many classes, each class rising above the other in general education and mathematics, till the students gradually arrive at and master all those branches of study which complete a good general and military education.

Beyond this, let such students as choose to remain and enter the upper classes be pushed forward to the utmost desirable attainments in the higher branches of the mathematics, the intricate and scientific details of fortification, and all other depths of knowledge necessary for the engineer's service.

Let the youths join the seminary without any promise or expectation of advantage beyond that of obtaining the very best military and general education at the cheapest possible rate; but, as the boon and prize for attracting talent, and inducing its exertion, let every commission which may become vacant in the artillery and engineers be awarded gratuitously at the end of every year, or other fixed period, to those cadets, who, on a public examination of the upper classes, shall be judged most worthy of them, from superiority of conduct, of talents, and of attainments.

As a secondary boon and prize for the further attraction of talent to the college, and for an additional inducement for clever youths to remain and study in the upper classes, let ten, fifteen, or twenty commissions in the infantry or cavalry be gratuitously awarded, after each yearly examination of the upper classes, to the cadets judged next best qualified to those selected for the artillery and engineers.

Let this be done, and the youth of the finest talents and most industrious habits will flock to the college, and the vacancies in the corps of engineers and artillery be filled altogether with the most industrious, most talented, and best educated young men in England-and that without costing the country one penny for their instruction. Then all restriction might be taken away from the artillery and engineer services. Those officers might freely pass into the line or staff, and participate in the general advantages of the army, and the army participate in the still greater advantages of their professional knowledge and talents; and both, but above all the country, benefit by the interchange.

This is calculated at 807. a year for each student, if the number be limited to 400, and 707. a year if the number be extended to 500, and in a similar proportion less for a greater number of students.

English Officer.-But, my friend, you have forgotten the orphan and the soldier's child.

Gen. G.-No: theirs is a national claim, and should be openly canvassed and provided for. Let Parliament sanction the number to be educated, and vote the cost of each, at the same rate as the parents of the other cadets pay for their sons.

A slight calculation will show that a very small annual sum would extend the benefit of gratuitous education to a far greater number of orphans, and the sons of officers, than now obtain admittance into the Ordnance Academy, as made known by the recent return presented to Parliament.

English Officer.-Good: one condition, however, I must, in common fairness, stipulate for the country-which is, that the cadets thus gratuitously educated should not, as at present, have assurance of commissions in the artillery and engineers, on contriving to get through a prescribed course of studies, whether they be deemed young men of superior talent or otherwise; but that the calibre of their talents, and the quantum of their acquirements, shall be measured in general comparison with those of the other cadets; if found of inferior worth, the gratuitous cadet may be provided for in the line, but no one should be admitted into the artillery and engineers unless he gave undoubted proofs of possessing superior talents, as well as superior scientific and general attainments.

Gen. G.-Then you assent to the generally received opinion, that every artillery officer should be a good mathematician?

English Officer.-On the contrary, I consider it a popular error, which ought to be dissipated.

A few good mathematicians, to remain at Woolwich, are perhaps desirable for the advancement of the theory of gunnery; but no artillery officer, in the performance of his practical duties, can ever require the aid of the higher branches of the mathematics beyond the use of established formulæ for given calculations.

General science, however, is of infinite value to every artillery officer, and more particularly to every engineer officer. These, serving in all parts of the world, and constantly thrown on their own resources, require its daily aid-of geology and mineralogy, that they may know where to seek for, and how to use and appreciate the productions of the surface and the bowels of the earth of astronomy, that they may accurately fix the latitude and longitude of places, and form correct maps and charts :-of chemistry, that they may preserve their stores and equipments; or, if they fail, manufacture and substitute the productions of the country-of languages, that they may read foreign authors on their profession, and converse with the natives of the countries where they serve, and take advantage of their local knowledge:-and so of the other general sciences and acquirements-all of which, in the Ordnance Academy, are sacrificed to mathematics. Gen. G.-Hold, hold, my friend, or you will make me think that common sense is banished from England.

I admit the justice of your reasoning, that the attempt to make every lad who enters the Ordnance Academy a good mathematician, must, from the various constitutions of the human mind and intellect, necessarily fail to a very great degree; but when you tell me that, in the obstinate pursuit of this moral impracticability, all other branches of knowledge are neglected, or made altogether secondary, it startles my belief; for what is it but to declare that England annually expends from fifteen to twenty thousand pounds in keeping up a second and exclusive military academy, merely to insure the majority of the officers of her scientific corps being neither good mathematicians nor good general scholars!

If there were only one military seminary on the system proposed by Gen. G. the expense of Sandhurst would be equally saved with the expense of Woolwich; and that saving must be intended to be included in the amount here specified.

U. S. JOURN. No. 35. Oct., 1831.

R

FIELD-MARSHAL COUNT GNEISENAU.

Ir the peace and independence of Europe were rescued from impending destruction by the overthrow of its herald on the field of Waterloo, surely that man is entitled to a record in our pages, by whose skill the antecedent conflict at Ligny was stripped of its most disastrous consequences, and a discomfited host led back to redeem their claim to the admiration and gratitude of the millions, whose cause their temerity had endangered. Under recollections like these, which will be cherished by so many of our military readers, we can feel no hesitation in devoting a brief space to the memory of the late Field-Marshal Gneisenau.

AUGUSTUS, COUNT NEIDHARD of GNEISENAU, the son of a captain in the Austrian service, was born at Schilda, between Troppau and Leipzig in Saxony, on the 28th of October 1760; his father's regiment having halted in that town whilst engaged in shifting its quarters. The early decease of his parents consigned him to the care of his grandfather, who was a lieutenant-colonel in the Austrian artillery, and resided at Würtzburg; whence young Gneisenau, after acquiring the first rudiments of education under his roof, was removed to the University of Erfurth. His academical career at that school was such as to gain him high commendation from those who directed it; upon its completion, he entered into the service of the Margrave of Anspach Baireuth, and in the year 1782, by which time he had risen to a lieutenantcy, he was sent to America with four hundred recruits to join the German auxiliaries in the pay of the British crown. From this bootless expedition, for peace was established between the contending parties soon after he had landed at Halifax, he returned the following year to Europe. In 1785, the succession to the Margraviate falling to the share of Prussia, he accepted a lieutenant's commission in the service of the latter power, and from that time until the decease of Frederick the Second, did duty with the household-troops in the garrison of Potsdam, ardently devoting his hours of relaxation to such pursuits as were calculated to bring him better acquainted with the duties of his profession. In fact, he was acknowledged by his brethren in arms to be the best informed man in his regiment, whether as an officer or a private individual. He had entered the Silesian Fusileers; he was promoted to a captaincy in that corps in the year 1789; and took part in the Polish campaign in 1793 and 1794. In November 1806, a major's commission was conferred upon him, as the reward of his distinguished services; he was next employed to form a reserve brigade in Lithuania; was then dispatched to Dantzig, and, in the following year, was selected to supersede Gen. Lucadon in the command of the fortress of Colberg, then invested by the French. His talent and bravery here baffled the repeated assaults of the besiegers, though assisted by the inefficient state of its defences, and he maintained it for the Prussian crown until the peace of Tilsit in 1807. This occasion established him in the favour of his Sovereign, who immediately posted him to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, made him a member of the board for remodelling the army, and, shortly afterwards, gave him the command of the corps of engineers, and appointed him inspector of the Prussian fortresses. It was at this time, and after he had been called