MILITARY EDUCATION.

PUBLIC education should continue and complete what private instruction has prepared. If the pupil be properly taught at home, there will be nothing to be unlearned; there will not be any deficiencies to be supplied, when he goes to a well-conducted public seminary. There should be no incompatibility, no opposition between the habits and ideas which he has acquired and those which he is now to practise.

The same principles, which guided a judicious parent with respect to the diet, amusements, exercises, and studies of a son destined for the military profession, will necessarily direct a well-governed military or naval academy. On these subjects, therefore, what has been suggested in the preceding section must be recapitulated, extending the same principles on a larger scale, applying them with stronger powers, illustrating them by more impressive examples, and following their consequences in active life through the wide compass and complicated relations of social and military duties.

At a military school, the diet of the young soldiers should be such as will strengthen their bodies without injuring their minds. All disposition to epicurism, whether real or affected, should be discountenanced by ridicule. Epicurism is unworthy of a soldier, not only as being an effeminate, but a selfish vice. It is encouraged by the fashion of the times. It

should therefore be combated by the only power, which can be successfully opposed to fashion. Can it be believed, that a soldier, a general, at the head of an army, in the middle of a campaign, should send his aid-de-camp from the Crimea to Petersburgh for a tureen of sterlet soup? This epicurean barbarian was Potemkin". Young officers should be brought up to take a noble pride in sacrificing their luxuries, and comforts, to the higher pleasures of generosity, of self-approbation, to the sense of doing their duty, of supporting the character of their profession, and the honour of their country. These observations apply to all military schools and academies, whether for the sons of the higher or the lower classes of society: but to these general remarks it may be useful to add, that the diet and manner of life, to which young men are accustomed at academies, should be, as they usually are, adapted to what they are likely to meet with in their respective ranks and stations when they enter the world. Prince Henry of Prussia, a man not inferior in abilities to his renowned brother, said to one of the professors of the military school which Frederick had just formed, "This establishment is very well imagined, "and very grand; but the young men are brought up in too "much ease and comfort. Your academy should be open "only to the sons of the rich; yet often the sons of those, "who are not born to wealth, are sent to you: when they "leave you, they will be sub-lieutenants or lieutenants for thirty years perhaps; they will be obliged to submit to con"tinual privations, and they will be miserable from the re

66

m Tooke's Life of Catherine II. Vol. III.

"collection of that affluence, to which they were accustomed at the academy."

66

Prince Henry's prophecies were accomplished. After the death of Frederick, this institution fell into decay. The remote cause, perhaps, of the recent disasters in Prussia.

In all the British military academies, great care should be taken to encourage temperance, particularly in drinking. If possible, the national notions of conviviality, and patriotism, should be extended beyond the ideas of circulating the bottle, and drinking bumper-toasts with three times three. Vigilance on the part of masters of academies, to preserve their pupils from the opportunities and means of acquiring habits of intemperance, will not alone be sufficient: no external restric-tions or prohibitions can reach the mind. They will rather increase the desire for what is forbidden, unless the understanding be convinced, and the vicious taste be counteracted by reason, shame, and better example. The character of a drunkard should be held up to their detestation.. We need not intoxicate Helotes to show our youth the deformity of this vice; when among those of the highest birth, and most distinguished talents, its willing slaves are often seen exposing themselves publicly in every circumstance of disgusting degradation. To a military man, an argument immediately applicable to his profession should be used against intemperance: it is incompatible with any office of trust, or military command, in which secrecy is required. A venerable French general, who commanded a body of emigrants during our last

war in Flanders, said in confidence to an Englishman",

"No

thing was wanting but prudence and secrecy: We were conquered by punch."

It is also said, that the Russians were twice defeated in Switzerland, by the mere drunkenness and consequent want of secrecy of their leaders.

A young commanding officer in the service of the late king of Prussia was so much shocked, at finding that he had betrayed a political secret, while he was intoxicated, that he made a resolution against drinking wine, which he scrupulously kept during the remainder of his life. This is, however, a singular instance; for against a man's habits his resolutions are seldom of much avail. Young men should be convinced of this, and should be inspired with the desire to guard themselves from bad habits, instead of employing their ingenuity to ridicule the precepts, or evade the restrictions of their preceptors.

As to exercises and amusements for the pupils in a military academy, it is scarcely necessary to say, they should all be

"When this page was just written, the newspapers of the day announced, that an English colonel of militia was sentenced by a court-martial to be cashiered for having been drunk on duty. His majesty expressed his regret at being obliged to dismiss from his service an officer, to whose character so many general officers had borné testimony; but he said, that under all the circumstances of the case, it was not in his power to pay attention to the recommendation of the court; and that he was reluctantly obliged to confirm the sentence. This is the true way to preserve discipline in the army.

calculated to promote and sustain manly dispositions. The judicious Sully recommends, in the strongest manner, to military youth, those sports and exercises, which form a graceful carriage, and give strength to the limbs. "I was," says he, "always of the same opinion as Henry IV concerning these "exercises. He often asserted, that they were the most solid "foundation, not only of discipline and other military virtues, but also of those noble sentiments, and that elevation "of mind, which give one nation preeminence over every "other.

66

66

"I used to be present at them myself, when I could steal a moment from business, both because I had a taste for such amusements, and because I thought my presence would "excite a laudable emulation among the youth."

66

The example of Sully is worthy of imitation, and it would be advantageous, if among our nobility and gentry it were to become the fashion, to attend from time to time the public exercises of our military youth.

A military school should have annual competitions and prizes, for foot-races, leaping, wrestling, fencing, and firing at a target; for trials of fortitude, as well as of skill and exertion. For instance, the candidates for prizes might submit to some of the ordeals of the American Indians, previous to their admission into the select body of national warriors. Though the prizes need not be absolutely wreaths of oak or parsley, yet whatever they are, they should be more honorary than lucrative. The victors should be rewarded also with the ap