OUR ARMY AND MILITIA.

FIFTY years ago, when I was a cadet at West

Point, a bright young lad came from his fond parents, as fresh and innocent as a lamb, duly appointed to dedicate his life to the glorious cause of his country, and to receive the necessary instruction at that national school. He passed through the usual ordeal of admission, and at a suitable moment applied to the commandant of the new cadets with the question, "What must I do to excel in my profession?" He received the blunt answer, "Obey orders." The sequel was that he graduated in the following January, went back to his home, studied law, rose in his profession, and became a judge in one of the United States courts in a western territory.

There is no doubt that to "obey orders" is a large factor in the problem of military life, because subordination to lawful authority is the bond which

holds together the parts which compose all armies, and makes them powerful instruments for good deeds; but something more is required. There must be some to give orders; and it is for these that instruction is chiefly needed.

In every profession is found an epitome of the knowledge requisite for success. Every religious denomination furnishes a "vade mecum" which teaches the believer what he must do to be saved; but the military profession offers only the articles of war, which amount to "You'll be damned if you do, and you'll be damned if you don't"—nothing to answer my friend's inquiry what he should do to excel in his profession. The task is a difficult one; yet it must be undertaken, and military men should undertake it, because it is their exclusive business.

There can be no question that recorded history illustrates the science of war better than any abstract treatise, because what men have done in the past they may do again, and every army contemplates the use of physical force to achieve some result at the least cost of life and treasure and with the largest promise of success; but the study

of recorded history is too long, too complicated and massive, to be undertaken by the common officer or soldier; therefore condensation is necessary, if not imperative.

Say what you may of the immortal part, man is at best an intellectual and combative animal, and the history of the world is chiefly made up of wars-conflicts of self-interest or opinion. The Bible on which is founded modern religion—

"Peace on earth and good-will to men"-records the deeds of military heroes, of bloody battles and fearful slaughter; and subsequent histories are full of war, its deeds and alarms. Yet philosophy and experience teach that each century has brought about an amelioration. Statesmen, lawyers and doctors of all degrees find germs of the modern professions in the examples of Greece and Rome; while many good soldiers believe that brave men and skillful generals "lived before Agamemnon," and find in the Greek phalanx and Roman legion the counterparts of the modern battalion and corps d'armee.

My own reading and experience, however, convince me that modern governments and modern

armies have their origin in the so-called dark or middle ages, between the downfall of the Roman Empire and the discovery of America-a period of a thousand years of fermentation, resulting in great good to the masses of mankind. Students of the military profession may therefore safely begin with the chronicles of the middle ages, "England, France, Spain, and Adjoining Countries,” 1320-1461, by Sir John Froissart—a book of world-wide renown, which is filled with graphic accounts of the deeds of the knights-errrant, and from which Walter Scott has drawn largely in his "Ivanhoe" and "Quentin Durward." Froissart's 'Chronicles" are more valuable to the military student by reason of the faithful description of the habits, customs, and thoughts of that period than for the records of individual feats of arms; and from them can be traced many of the usages and customs which now prevail in all armies.

Gunpowder was known to the Chinese as early as the year 80 of the Christian era, and the knowledge of its destructive powers passed to India, Persia, and Africa, whence the Moors carried it into Spain and used it in sieges as early as 1238,

though the world generally gives to Berthold Schwartz, of Germany, the credit of its discovery about 1330.

The battle of Crécy, August, 1346, between the English and French, marks the first recorded use of gunpowder in a field battle; it enabled a few thousand English to rout and destroy four-fold their own number of valiant knights, and absolutely revolutionized the whole art of war as then practiced. Among the first instruments used were cannon, smooth-bores and breech-loaders, soon followed by the arquebus and rampart gun with a tripod, or "rest," fired from the shoulder, with a pad to distribute the shock. The bullets, or projectiles, were of stone, iron, lead, or some other metal, samples of which are common in the arsenals of Europe and America.

At all events, in that century the knight in steel armor, with bow, lance, and spear, gave place to the musketeer, and the barons with their retainers made way for the regular captains, lieutenants, sergeants, corporals, and privates, all bound by oath to serve their sovereign for, specific periods, and with regular pay and allowances.