engineering, architectural, and other works of professional character, accom panied by one of the instructing officers of the establishment.

Of the various constructions and processes seen during these tours they make notes and drawings, which are embodied in the form of reports to the director, and are subsequently bound up with the other parts of the course. General Note.-Further explanations of the mode of filling up the details of the course, and of the forms for the notes and drawings, are given in the special instructions.

(f.) Demolitions.

The ignition of gunpowder or other explosives by powder hose and Bickford's fuze as well as by electricity, both on land and submerged under water, is taught to all officers.

In order that the best methods of using gunpowder or other explosives for the demolition of works and buildings by mining may be thoroughly understood, each officer is required to make projects for the following demolitions, viz.:

1. A front of fortification, or some similar work, exhibiting various sorts of revetments, and requiring the simultaneous explosion of a large number of mines.

2. A casemate, powder magazine, or other substantial military building under two suppositions: 1st, that there is plenty of time, that sufficient men and tools are available, and that it is required to effect complete demolition without wasting gunpowder unnecessarily; 2d, that time presses, and that the demolition must be effected in the most expeditious manner possible.

3. A bridge or viaduct under two different suppositions, as in No. 2. The mines in some cases are directed to be fired by powder hose, and in others by electricity.

Each of these projects consists of a memoir and explanatory drawings. The memoir comprises,

1st. A description of the building, or work to be destroyed, in all points which may influence the mode of demolition.

2d. A general description of the proposed mode of demolition.

3d. The calculations for the charges of the mines.

4th. The mode of preparing and firing the mines.

5th. An estimate of the men, tools, and materials required and of the time necessary for the operation.

6th. An estimate of the gunpowder.

7th. When electricity is to be employed for firing the mines, a full description of the batteries, etc., is given, with calculations of the number of cells,

etc.

The drawings include a plan and such sections as may be required to explain clearly the situations of the various charges of gunpowder, and of the shafts and galleries.

(g.) Submarine Mines.

All officers and a certain number of men are practised in the use of submarine mines.

The course consists of,

1. The nature and construction of case.

2. Mode of mooring.

3. Mode of arranging and laying insulated cables.

4. Mode of testing fuzes, also testing cables for conductivity and insulation and for the detection of faults.

5. Modes of firing at will and by self-acting arrangements.

PROFESSIONAL INSTRUCTION FOR COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.

HISTORICAL NOTICE.

ALTHOUGH examinations preparatory to promotion had been instituted by the Duke of Wellington in 1850, no attempt was made to provide any general machinery for affording to officers of the army means of instruction, even in those subjects a knowledge of which was by the regulations of the service required of them. The Department of Artillery studies at Woolwich, originally instituted on a small scale in 1850, and the Royal Engineer Establishment at Chatham, supplied to the officers of the scientific corps, though to a much more limited extent than at the present day, opportunities of carrying on their professional studies after entering the army. But to officers of other branches of the service no means of instruction were afforded in any subjects beyond the mere routine of drill and regimental duties, except by the Senior Department at Sandhurst and the School of Musketry at Hythe. The state of the former institution, the advantages of which extended only to a very small proportion of the officers of the army, is described in the accounts of the Royal Military College and of the Staff College. The school at Hythe was first established in the year 1853, for the purpose of training a certain number of officers and soldiers in the new system of musketry, which was adopted on the introduction of rifled arms into the service.

The first official suggestion, with the object of remedying the deficiency of professional knowledge among the officers of the army, was made by Mr. Sidney Herbert, when Secretary at War, in 1854. The outline of the plan proposed by him at this time was sketched out in a letter addressed to Lord Hardinge, then Commander-in-Chief, and its details were subsequently more fully explained in speeches in the House of Commons. The scheme contemplated a general reorganization of the system of military education,-the improvement

of the examinations instituted by the Duke of Wellington for admission to the army and for promotion,-the conversion of the Senior Department at Sandhurst into a special school for the staff, and the introduction of a system of professional instruction for officers after entering the service. With the view of carrying out the latter part of the scheme, it was proposed, in 1854, to appoint garrison instructors at certain large stations both at home and in the colonies. It was not intended to make attendance at the instruction thus given compulsory, but a stringent examination in the subjects which entered into the course was to be a necessary condition of promotion to the ranks of lieutenant and captain respectively.

The scheme of garrison instruction proposed by Mr. Sidney Herbert met with the approval of Lord Hardinge, and obtained the sanction of the Treasury. A sum of 2,000l., for the purpose of making a commencement in carrying it out, was inserted in the estimates for 1854-5, and the plan, as explained by Mr. Herbert in moving the army estimates, met with the entire approval of the House of Commons.

The outbreak of the Crimean war, however, in the first instance, interfered with the practical realization of the scheme, although it appears that some of the instructors had been actually selected for their posts, and that it was intended to send them out to the Crimea to acquire a practical acquaintance with such of the minor operations of war as would fall within the intended course of instruction. This latter intention was not carried out, and after the resignation of Mr. Sidney Herbert, which took place in the beginning of 1855, no further steps appear to have been taken in the matter. At the same time money continued to be voted for the purpose of carrying out the scheme (although no application of the funds was made), until the general reduction in the estimates which took place on the conclusion of peace in 1856; it appears also, from statements made by the Under Secretary at War, in the House of Commons, that the Government had never abandoned the idea of adopting some measure for the professional instruction of officers.

In the debates in both Houses of Parliament, during the Crimean war, numerous discussions took place on the subject of military education; the failure of the existing examinations. for promotion, the lax mode in which they were carried out,

the want of acquaintance with many of the mere rudiments of military science displayed by the majority of officers, and the necessity of supplying them with some means of instruction in the practical duties devolving upon them on active service, formed frequent subjects of remark. On the 5th of June, 1856, after the termination of the war, Mr. Sidney Herbert, then a private member, again brought his proposal for the appointment of garrison instructors before the notice of the House of Commons, in connection with his more general scheme for the improvement of the education of officers; but, although the proposal again met with the approval of nearly every speaker who took part in the discussion, the Government declined to pledge themselves to the adoption of the scheme in its details, as the question of the reorganization of the whole system of military education was then under consideration.

During the latter part of the year 1856, as has been elsewhere stated, the attention of the military authorities was seriously directed to the question of improving the education of the army. Nearly all the plans submitted to Lord Panmure with this object included, as an essential feature, the adoption of some means of professional instruction for officers after entering the service; and the machinery suggested was, in almost every case, based in its general principles on Mr. Sidney Herbert's original proposal for the establishment of garrison instructors. The Commissioners appointed in the same year to visit the military schools of the continent, while their inquiries were chiefly confined to the improvement of the education of the scientific corps, recommended in their report that young officers of all branches of the service should, ⚫ after entering the army, go through some course of professional study; at the same time they suggested no machinery for carrying their recommendation into effect. The military witnesses examined, during the years 1856 and 1857, before the Royal Commission on the Purchase System, very generally concurred in the opinion that higher professional acquirements should be demanded from officers, and that means of instruction should be afforded to them; and the Commissioners, in their Report, endorsed this view in the following terms: "Nor can it be fairly said that the purchase system is the obstacle to introducing a better system of military edu

cation. A stricter examination before granting the first commission, an improved training afterward, and a further examination on promotion from ensign to lieutenant, are measures perfectly compatible with the system of purchase."

The system of garrison instruction suggested by Mr. Sidney Herbert appears to have found general favor at this period. The instructions issued to the Council of Military Education, on their appointment in 1857, directed them, in connection with the subject of the professional examination of officers up to the rank of captain, to consider the question "of the establishment of instructors at the large stations." The plan proposed by the Council, in 1857, did not contemplate the general appointment of either garrison or regimental instructors; its main feature was the establishment of officers' schools at depot battalion stations, through which all young officers, who were in the first instance to receive provisional commissions, should pass before joining their regiments and being permanently commissioned. This recommendation was supplemented by one for the partial establishment of district instructors at stations where classes of ten officers could be formed, for the more advanced instruction of those who had been some years in the service.

The great demand for officers occasioned by the Indian mutiny, combined with practical objections which were made to the Council's scheme, prevented their proposals from being carried into effect. The only immediate result of their recommendations was the establishment, in 1857, of a class at Aldershot for the instruction of officers quartered at the camp in military sketching. A full account of this institution, which has since been considerably developed, and is now called the Survey Class, will be found further on.

At a subsequent period the attention of the Council appears to have been directed more to the question of securing the professional competence of officers by a special military education before entering the service, than by compulsory instruction at a later period. The proposal, originally made in 1858, for requiring all candidates for commissions in the line to pass through Sandhurst, has been already described in connection with the Royal Military College. The Council have, however, never ceased to urge the expediency of providing offcers, after they have entered the service, with facilities for