EDUCATION OF OFFICERS OF THE ARMY.

HC Deb 05 June 1856 vol 142 cc980-1023

On the Order of the Day for going into Committee of Supply,

MR. SIDNEY HERBERT

, in rising to call the attention of the House to the Education and Instruction of officers in the Army, said: Sir, I have to thank my noble Friend the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) for allowing me precedence in bringing this subject under the notice of the House; and before I do so I may state, as shortly as I can, the reasons which have induced me to adopt the not strictly regular course of bringing forward on the Civil Estimates a Motion having reference to the army. The House will recollect that at the commencement of the Session, Estimates were laid upon the table, framed with a view to the expenditure of the year on the supposition that the war would continue, and upon those Estimates money was taken on account. Since that time we have had a Supplementary Estimate laid upon the table, stating the smaller amounts which will be required to be taken; but we have had no revised detailed Estimate, showing on what items reduction will be made, what will be altogether omitted, or what increased. I observe that there has disappeared from the Estimates which had been placed before us for the present year, an item not large in amount, but which, I think, and the majority of the House will think, of great importance—the Vote for the education and instruction of the officers of the army. I can understand, that while the war was at its height the Government should be unable to inaugurate any change or to establish any new system with respect to the education of officers; but I regretted extremely to find in the amended Estimates, which have been avowedly drawn up since the termination of the war, that this item has been withdrawn, for the first time since they were submitted to and received the approval of Parliament, when, as Secretary at War, I had the honour to propose the Army Estimates to the House. Now, I wish, by bringing forward the question this evening, to elicit some expression of opinion from the House as to the necessity of creating some means of affording facilities to officers of the army to perfect themselves in the higher branches of their profession—in the first place, to regimental officers, but still more to officers on the staff. My hope is, that if in the course of the debate I should meet from different Gentlemen that interest and that support which I trust I may obtain, the Government may be induced, previously to discussing the reduced Army Estimates, to produce a revised Estimate, in which provision may be made for the instruction of regimental and staff officers. We have, at this moment, an immense opportunity before us of creating, de novo, a peace establishment which shall be free from the errors and defects of that which was too hurriedly created at the commencement of the great peace. At that time there existed in the country the strongest feeling of hostility to the army. In 1816 the petition called the "London Petition" was presented to Parliament, protesting against the maintenance of the army—although that army had been reduced by a great amount—as incompatible with the constitution and prosperity of the country, and as sapping the foundation of the national liberties; and the strength of this feeling may be inferred from an opinion which the Duke of Wellington expressed to myself not many years ago, when I proposed that there should be an encampment of a large body of men for instruction in field duties. The Duk of Wellington declined to listen to that proposal, and founded his objection upon the feelings entertained by the country towards the army in the first years after the peace. He said, "Depend upon it, the only way to maintain an army in this country is to keep it out of sight." I think there is no doubt that the unpopularity of the army at the period in question arose from its having been used as a police force in the repression of political disturbances. At that time it was the custom of the Government to deal with grievances rather by repressing the symptoms than by removing the causes. At any rate, whatever the reason, the army was at that time very unpopular. Much of the change now observable in the feeling of the country towards the army, has arisen from the great improvement in the army itself, and from the increased good conduct of the officers and men. At no period of our history was the army more popular than it is at this moment, nor was there ever a warmer or more general sympathy with the army, or a greater desire to see it efficient; and therefore, in endeavouring to give increased facilities for study and instruction to officers, the House will have this immense advantage, that it will carry the opinion of the country with it. I apprehend that the new organisation of the army will greatly facilitate instruction in the higher branches of the service. I presume it is intended that the army shall no longer be scattered about the country in single regiments, much less in detachments of regiments dispersed as they have hitherto been; but that you desire to agglomerate, as it were, your forces together as much as possible, and have something worthy of the name of an army. I do not mean that you are to have an army of greater numbers than you have hitherto possessed; but I presume it is intended that, instead of being broken into isolated bodies, which remain perfectly ignorant of the functions appertaining to them in time of war, they shall be brought together in brigades and divisions; that they shall habitually be exercised together, and that the advantage which the troops in Dublin have hitherto alone possessed shall be extended to the whole force in England. With regard to the amount of the peace establishment, I do not presume to say what its numbers should be. The Government are the only persons to judge of that; but this I will say, that when we proceed to make the reduction to a peace establishment, we should take care not to make that reduction in those corps where the necessity for scientific education is the greatest, and where the amount of training required is the longest. You cannot expand upon a sudden a scientific or a highly-trained corps, but you can expand more rapidly the other corps of the army—the cavalry and the infantry of the line; the engineers and artillery are, therefore, the last corps upon which the hand of retrenchment ought to be placed. I believe we shall never have, and never ought to have, such an army as the great military nations of the Continent possess. The existence of such an army would be foreign to our habits and to our institutions, and I do not wish to see it; but we ought to compensate for our numerical inferiority by the highest possible training and efficiency in the force which we maintain.

It is to be presumed, then, that our army will be divided into divisions and brigades, for two reasons—first, because that is the only decision to which a Minister of War can come, that is compatible with common sense; and, secondly, because it has been announced that this plan will be carried out in the Colonies, and therefore, a fortiori, I presume it is intended to be carried out at home. Now, in asking the House to listen to a plan, I am acting contrary to the advice generally given to Members unconnected with the Government, never to expose any plan of their own, because, if the plan be bad, it will be pulled to pieces, while if it be good, the credit of it will be got by the Government that adopts it; my object is not to avoid criticism, but to put something tangible before the House which may assist them in forming a judgment upon this question. And, when I speak of giving greater facilities for the instruction of the army, I wish to be understood as casting no imputation upon the army as it is now constituted; that army has done wonderful things, and if there have been any failures, or rather any drawbacks to our successes, they are not the fault either of the officers or the men. It has been customary to say that this House has been guilty of parsimony towards the army; that we are blameable for these shortcomings. That is true in one sense, but not in the sense in which it is usually understood. I have seen calculations, the object of which is to show that it would have cost us much more to maintain a large army through the peace than to create one by a great effort at the beginning of a war; but the amount of money which would render an army efficient by giving it a good training, is small in comparison with that necessary for the maintenance of an army, great merely as regards the number of men composing it; and the amount required to maintain an efficient though small force is nothing to that required to maintain a large army completely uninstructed. I may say, in drawing a comparison between our army and the armies of foreign countries, I find, from all I have heard from military men who have seen our forces in the field by the side of allies and of enemies, that in many respects we enjoy a certain superiority. For instance, with regard to equipments, as to which there is a great variety in the comparative condition of the different armies which were engaged in the Crimea—in the matter of tentage the Turks stand first, the English second, the French third; in that of clothing, the French are first, the English second, the Turks third; and in that of arms, the English are beyond comparison first, the French second, the Turks third. With the Russians no comparison is possible, as no opportunity has been afforded of instituting one; but in the three armies I have mentioned we have every possible variety of advancement in the one point of equipment. I believe, too, it will be very shortly admitted as a fact that in spite of the privation, suffering, and disease endured by the English army, its mortality was less in proportion to its numbers than that of any of the other armies engaged, including the Russian. I am not, therefore, going to bring any charges against our army; on the contrary, I think it is wonderful that men provided with no means of learning the higher branches of their profession during peace should have adapted themselves so rapidly to a new state of things, and, by their determination, energy, courage, and constancy, should have achieved such immense results.

I will not deal, except in passing, with the question of the instruction of the men, because, as regards them, a plan is already in operation which is, no doubt, like everything else, susceptible of improvement, but which is being improved and extended every day—we are, at any rate, in the right groove. One observation, however, I must make. In a pamphlet, very well worth reading, entitled Thoughts on Military Administration, by a Field Officer, dated Aldershot, 1855, some criticisms are offered upon the proceedings at that encampment which are deserving the attention of the House. The author remarks— Our soldiers, in other respects so efficient, are notoriously wanting as compared with the troops of other European countries in contrivance and resource, and less fitted, therefore, to cope with many of the difficulties and privations to which all armies in the field must at times be exposed. The obvious cause of this is, that the high state of civilisation at which this country has arrived, prevents the humbler classes from having recourse to those make-shifts which, in less civilised countries, are the habitual arts of the peasantry. "And yet," continues the author— I believe that, with nearly 10,000 soldiers and militia on the spot during the past summer months, civil labour has been employed almost exclusively at the camp. You build, drain, construct roads, bake, butcher, and wash by contract, and contract alone. Now, I do not enter into the question as to whether this is the most economical expedient that can be resorted to under such circumstances; but it certainly is not calculated to impart that knowledge or those habits to the troops of which they stand so much in need. I heartily concur in that opinion. At the same time there is this to be said for the Government—that they had to deal at Aldershot, principally, with a large militia force, and it was more important at that moment to convert labourers into soldiers than soldiers into labourers. But there was also there a large body of the line, and I certainly regret the great opportunity which was lost of thoroughly instructing those men how to drain, make roads, construct bridges, and build huts for themselves. In future, they must be taught something more than their drill—the army must be made, so to speak, self-sufficient for its own purposes.

Before passing from this subject, I fear I have a quarrel to pick with my hon. Friend the Under Secretary for the War Department—this time for the insertion of an item in the Estimates, or rather for the manner in which the money voted is to be applied. The regimental schools have become so numerous, that it is out of the power of any one individual, however able, to conduct the work of their inspection. It has overtasked even the energy of the present Inspector General; and three additional inspectors have, therefore, been appointed. So far good—but, as the object of the Government must have been to make the instruction of the army more military, more professional than it was, the course taken by the Government in the selection of these new inspectors strikes me as being singularly defective; for, instead of appointing military men for the new inspectorships, the Secretary of State has nominated to two of those offices gentlemen who are clerks in the War Office; that appears to me to be a great mistake—for, although these gentlemen are, no doubt, efficient and indefatigable men in their proper situations, they are no more fit to inspect these schools than I am. The principle to be adopted should have been this—these inspectorships should have been kept as prizes, open to officers who have distinguished themselves in the higher and more scientific branches of the profession of arms, and who would therefore have carried more weight with them than any who could be introduced into the army from the civil service. I have seen a Minute of the Privy Council which proposed to place those regimental schools under the inspection of the Privy Council. That was certainly a most objectionable as well as fanciful idea; but I am happy to hear it has been abandoned. Officers commanding regiments are not some of them much disposed to education at all; but certainly, least of all, would they be induced to regard with favour an educational system for the army not under the direction of the Horse Guards, nor would they have bowed to the authority of the rev. Gentlemen who are inspectors under the Privy Council. They would probably have resisted their authority; the Privy Council would have complained to the Horse Guards, who would have backed their own men, and there would have been a continual war between the Horse Guards and the Privy Council, in the meantime the schools would have greatly suffered. It is, therefore, I think, fortunate that this plan has been abandoned.

I now come to the question whether or not means of instruction should be afforded to the officers of the army. A few years ago any project with that object would have been very unfavourably received. It was not so two years back. I hope it is not so now. I think the popular fallacies upon this subject have died away. An idea was once prevalent that there was some sort of antagonism between knowledge and action; that if a man was instructed in his duty, he was likely to become a pedant and a bookworm, and no longer to be an active, zealous, handy officer. Now, it cannot be denied, that there is no effective substitute for experience; war is, of course, the best school for soldiers. But although armies are created for purposes of war, their more habitual state is a state of peace—war is not the rule but the exception in a soldier's existence, and long may it continue to be so. Well, the only substitute that an officer can have for his own experience in war is the experience of other men, and by every nation except England that principle is recognised. Some people speak lightly of it as a mere theoretical principle; but Napoleon, no mere theorist in the art of war, was himself a highly instructed officer, and he never had his hand off the military colleges and schools of France, some of which he himself created, while others he remodelled, always with the view of raising around him that phalanx of officers who led the French armies to victory. I have read with great care an able Report on the subject of education at Sandhurst, and I will quote one or two sentences from the evidence upon which it is based, in which much valuable matter is to be found. I must first, however, remind the House that in 1850, the Duke of Wellington issued his "confidential memorandum," in which he proposed, in the first place, to examine young men who were candidates for commissions, and then to have a further examination on promotion to the ranks of lieutenant and captain. Here is the opinion of Lieutenant Colonel Adams upon this subject:—"Generally speaking," he says, "the officers of the army have no education at all, and they have nothing to interest them." But recollect what is done with young men who intend to enter the army. I ask any Gentleman who remembers his own education, whether the great bulk of what he knows was not acquired after, not before the age of sixteen, and that not through the instruction of masters, but by his own self-teaching? And why? Because at that age he began to feel the responsibilities of life pressing upon him, he began to prepare himself for the struggle upon which he was about to enter. But what happens now when a young man enters the army? That is just the time when he shuts up his books; his education is assumed to be ended—he is told that he is "an officer and a gentleman," and undoubtedly he almost invariably, it must be allowed, acts up to that character worthily. But how great to him is the disadvantage of thus closing his studies at that time! Just at the period when the mind is most susceptible of improvement and good impressions he is debarred from instruction, and forced to learn nothing besides the bare routine of his regimental duties. Colonel Adams proceeds to say— If they know anything it is a little Latin, nothing more, and how are they to amuse themselves? They do not take any interest in any reading; they do not know surveying; nor are they interested in military matters at all. But I have observed that officers who know anything, instead of engaging in racing and billiards, will say, 'Let us go out, and take a sketch of such and such an object to-morrow.' That is the spirit we want to encourage. We want to put the minds of our young officers in the right groove. And what does Colonel Prosser say?—Lord Lovaine asks, is it of no use to consider these things as anything but the means by which the men after all must acquire knowledge in the field—they are but steps? Colonel Prosser replies— I regard them as a means of facilitating them very much. In the application of that, I may mention that Sir John Jones mentions the apathy of the officers in the line, and the absolute want of assistance on their part, because they know nothing about it; but by teaching them the nature of saps, approaches, and so forth, they enter readily into it and assist the engineers with spirit. Again, General Pasley mentions, in the account of the siege of Copenhagen, that "there was not an officer or a private with him who knew anything of the construction of fascines and gabions." I will read another extract, because it is the statement of an important witness. Undoubtedly, Sir John Burgoyne gave strong opinions against the requiring a high education for officers of the line; and I was surprised at that circumstance, because there does not exist in the service a more accomplished or more highly educated officer; and I should have supposed he would be the last person to depreciate acquirements which he possesses in an eminent degree himself. He said that the Duke of Wellington could not solve a problem of Euclid when he was at the head of the army. I dare say not, and I do not know why he should when at the head of the army. The object of teaching an officer mathematics is not so much to enable him to solve a problem in Euclid as to train him for receiving scientific military instruction. The illustration, however, I must say, is not a felicitous one, because the Duke of Wellington was one of the few officers of the army who had received a scientific education, having been educated at the military college of Angers in France. But Sir John Burgoyne is asked—How far on active service is it of advantage, that officers of the line should understand the principles and operations of fortification? And he answers— It would be a great advantage if the officers generally of the line, in a siege for instance, understood the principles of fortification; many of them were quite at a loss during the operations in the Crimea, to perform the duties that are really required to make the best use of their position, which they would understand better if they knew more of fortification; but it is hardly to be expected that every officer of the line should attain much knowledge of it. Certainly, I do not see how officers are to attain such knowledge, if you do not give them the means of acquiring it; but if facilities are afforded, I do not see why they should not do so. I do not say that it is necessary for every officer to acquire the same amount of scientific information as engineer and artillery officers, but they should all know enough to understand the fundamental principles of the operations in which they are engaged, so that they might be enabled to avoid mistakes and prevent unnecessary sacrifice of life. I will quote one other sentence, and I refer to the passage, because it is important as bearing on the cause of the drawbacks to our successes in the Crimea. In Captain Morton Spearman's notes on military education, it is stated:— The strength of every army depends more on the instruction and talent of its officers than on its numerical value. It is those armies, therefore, in which the education of the officers has been most carefully attended to and developed that are most to be depended on in the hour of need. Everywhere except in this country this is a recognised truth. On the Continent it is practically acknowledged. Many persons have remarked the difference in result between the earlier and later campaigns of the British army in the last war; few the means by which that difference was initiated. To dispute the zeal and devotion of either the officers or men engaged in those earlier campaigns is impossible. But the fact is, that, in 1793, neither the regimental officers nor the officers employed on the general staff of the British army were sufficiently instructed either in the theory or in the practice of their profession. To the want of such instruction, especially of theoretical instruction, experience has since shown that the early disasters of the war are alone to be attributed. The following curious sentence was dictated by Napoleon to Montholon, at St. Helena, in which he alludes to some observation he had made to his brother Louis at Toulon:— Brought to France when fourteen, Louis entered on the life of a man at the siege of Toulon on hearing me say to him, in the midst of the corpses of 200 grenadiers slain through the ignorance of their commander, at the assault of an impregnable side of Fort Pharon:—'If I had commanded here, all these brave men would be still alive. Learn, Louis, from this example, how absolutely necessary instruction is to those who aspire to command others.' Well, my own belief is that the opinions as to the non-necessity of instruction to officers have been dissipated by the experience of the last war. I believe that many Gentlemen would not now be found bold enough to express the opinion, if it be entertained by any, that mischief and danger will result from military instruction. I am not going to contend for high literary acquirements. What I wish for is strictly professional and practical knowledge; and when people argue that the cultivation of the intellect detracts from the activity of the body, I must say I am at a loss to know where an example is to be found of this physiological curiosity. There may be persons of very great intellectual and very little physical powers; but I cannot understand why the muscles of a sound, active, and vigorous man should shrink, or his spirits abandon him, merely because he is taught the reason and cause of the work he is engaged in. One-half of the complaints of the conduct of officers during peace, of vulgar jokes and boyish follies, has resulted from the forced idleness of their position. Cases in which these complaints have been made will be in the recollection of the House. I will not mention the names of the regiments, because the courage and the constancy with which they afterwards faced danger, privation, and suffering do them the greatest honour, and entitle them to the oblivion of any follies they may have committed in a time of peace.

I will just explain shortly what the present system of military education is, and how I propose to amend it. The young men intended for the artillery and engineers are placed first at the preliminary establishment at Carshalton, and thence go to the academy at Woolwich, and are there transferred to the practical class. Those intended for the line may go at the age of thirteen years to Sandhurst, where they remain till they are old enough for their commissions, or they may receive their commissions without passing through any military school. Now, in reference to the age at which these boys are taken into the military establishments, I do not believe that it is the business of the State to give education to children; I do not believe that the State can give it effectually or well. I do not believe that either at Carshalton or Sandhurst the boys acquire the same healthy tone of feeling or of morals by one-half as they do at the great English public schools. I therefore think it advisable that they should not be sent to Sandhurst until after the period when a boy's education is completed at a public school or at home. When he has been so educated, then take him and convert him into an officer. With respect to Carshalton, I propose, therefore, that it should be altogether abolished as a preliminary school to Woolwich; and with respect to Sandhurst, I propose that, instead of taking boys of thirteen years of age, they should be taken at sixteen. At present the students are subjected to a system of discipline properly applicable to persons of more advanced years; and I believe the system does not work well, but fails. It is admitted by all, and here I might again quote the evidence before the Sandhurst Committee, that it would be advantageous to introduce a greater number of officers into the army through Sandhurst, and you can do so by shortening the course of those who go there. It is true that I have heard that the youths from Sandhurst, when they join their regiments, are not well looked upon. They are considered conceited with what they know, and not to have the same gentlemanly tone as boys from other schools. The reason, however, of their being considered conceited is because they stand in a peculiar position—they know more than the rest—they have received a regular military education, not shared in by their fellows. That ground of objection would be at once done away with by raising generally the standard of military education throughout the army;—and really, if that objection against Sandhurst means anything, it amounts to this, that ignorance of military matters has become a sort of badge of gentility. I will not enter into details about the defects of the establishment at Sandhurst, but I will say one word about the system of passing by what is called "steps"—that is to say, the boys are instructed first, say in one language or science, carried to a certain point, and there left, and then instructed in another. It is a system of cramming, and when a boy is crammed to a certain extent in one branch of instruction, he is compelled, as it were, to forget that, to shoot all the rubbish he has taken in on that head, and, having so emptied his memory, he is carried on to another. That is radically wrong, and I believe that the masters at Sandhurst, if you could hear their opinion, are convinced of it. You have an examination there of a high standard to which boys may submit themselves, and if they pass it they get a commission without purchase. That is the only examination out of Sandhurst; but the boy who knows that his father can purchase for him, or has interest at the Horse Guards, will not trouble himself to pass that examination; and I believe there are instances of a boy who has been plucked at Sandhurst afterwards getting a commission, either by interest or purchase, having gone through the minor examination which is established for those who enter the army without having been at Sandhurst.

The fact is, that there are two entirely different modes of getting into the army; and I believe the result to be that a great proportion of boys at Sandhurst, who know that there is no absolute necessity for them to go through the ultimate examination there, do not trouble themselves about it. The great incentive to study—an inevitable examination in prospect—is thus entirely lost. What I propose is to reduce the course at Sandhurst to eighteen months or two years, taking the boys at the age of sixteen, and to make several alterations in the education, the tendency of which would be to render it more practical and less theoretical; and after the course at Sandhurst, I should propose that those boys who showed the greatest aptitude for chemistry, mathematics, and so on, should go to Woolwich to prepare for the artillery, and that those who showed the greatest aptitude for architectural science and the like should go to Chatham to prepare for the engineers. I would have also a third school for the cavalry, where those officers who are destined for that arm should learn veterinary surgery and farriery besides, and all such matters as are necessary for a cavalry officer to know. This school, of course, would most naturally be placed at Maidstone, which is our great cavalry depôt. I would propose that no one should be admitted into the army who had not passed the examination at Sandhurst, or, at all events, an examination equal to it. It has been argued that every man who goes into the army should pass through Sandhurst; but I do not think that would do. It would tie parents up too much; and I do not think it would be suited to our English habits to force all through a particular or exclusive educational establishment. I would require that from whatever schools the boys came, they should pass through as strict an examination as is required in the military schools. Besides, as an examination between boys keeps boys up to the mark, so an examination between schools keeps masters up to the mark, which is equally important. At the open examinations at Woolwich—which the pressure of the war rendered necessary not very long ago, first, I think, in the time of the Duke of Newcastle, and then, again, of Lord Panmure—it was found, to the astonishment of the examiners, that some of the stranger boys were ahead of the boys at the Academy, and I believe that that has not been without its effect on the professors at Woolwich. In order to secure perfect impartiality, the examination should not be conducted by the Sandhurst professors. You must have a separate board of examiners; and this board would play a considerable part in my plan.

Having got the officer into the army, then comes the question how we are to deal with him afterwards. At this moment you have for promotion a certain, or rather an uncertain examination. It is an examination, for example, of an officer whether he knows the different duties of a company, the places of officers in a battalion, and so on; but whatever examination there is it is a defective one. It is an examination which some captain in the regiment is ordered to make; but it does not at all follow that the captain is very much more instructed than the officer who is to be examined. That may or may not be, but, at all events, the character of the examination must vary very much in each regiment. The Duke of Wellington, in his confidential memorandum, contemplated one universal system of examination throughout the army. Many persons are apt to suppose that, because little was apparently done in this direction during the time that the Duke was at the Horse Guards, therefore he was opposed to a system of examinations; but that is not so. He began by proposing, first of all, that all candidates for commissions in the army should be examined in a certain manner, and that was done; but the rest of his plan fell to the ground. The examination which he established was not a high one. The East India Company have adopted identically the same plan of examination, and it has now been in operation for some years; but it has not been found that the standard is too high, for, during the whole time that it has been in operation, there have been only four rejections. The Duke proposed that the officer who had obtained his commission should afterwards undergo an examination for promotion in certain subjects, of which he gave a list. A lieutenant who had entered the service subsequently to July, 1849, was to be required before his promotion to a captaincy to pass an examination in geography, history, the first six books of Euclid, the properties of the circle, algebra, logarithms, trigonometry, mensuration, and fortification, with the principles of which latter science he was to be sufficiently well acquainted to project a plan on the system of Vauban, the provisions of the Mutiny Act, the Articles of War, and so on, besides, of course, the evolutions of a battalion.

In January, 1854, I proposed a plan which will be found in the appendix to the Sandhurst Report. That plan obtained the sanction of the Horse Guards. I then applied to the Treasury for money to enable me to carry it out, and the Treasury having given me permission to take a sum in the Estimates for the purpose, I explained my plan to this House, and the House approved it. That was before the war. Now that is the plan which I lament to see is dropped out from the Estimates of the present year. My proposition was, that there should be a board of examiners for the purpose of conducting all examinations, whether for commissions or promotion, and I believe these examinations would give employment to at least three persons. In the year ending in March, 1853—that is, before the war—there were 441 ensigns and cornets who received commissions, and 365 lieutenants and 282 captains were promoted; so that there were 1,088 persons in all who would have been subject to examination. The examiners should be men of weight, and the President ought to be the Director General of military education. They would go down to Sandhurst to examine for commissions, and they would also examine at London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Questions would be sent out to every station which officers, being candidates for promotion, would have to answer in the presence of an officer of the staff specially appointed for the purpose. I am aware that objections have been urged to this plan. In the navy, it is said, an officer can study his profession, because he is always on board ship; he has his books with him, and he has his naval instructors always at his elbow; but that it is not so in the army. There are no such instructors in the army, and the officer who is on a foreign station has no facility for procuring books or instruction. I would propose to station an officer at the head-quarters of each division to act as military instructor, of whose services for the purpose of passing through a course of military education every officer who chose might avail himself. In the Colonies and in outlying stations, it is said, it would be impossible for officers to avail themselves of the services of this military instructor; but field operations are generally carried on in the summer, and in the winter there is inaction, so that there would not be much difficulty in an officer obtaining leave to repair to head-quarters to place himself under the military instructor of the division. In cases where even this was impossible, promotion might be given, as in the navy, subject to the condition of passing the requisite examination at a future opportunity. The instructors should all be military men who had passed through the senior department at Sandhurst, and I would give them good pay and the rank of staff officers while they held their appointment. The advantages derivable from a position on the staff would stimulate the ambition of officers to qualify themselves for it. I would also give them the duty of inspecting regimental schools. It has been proposed, as I have already stated, to put these schools under the inspection of the Privy Council or of a War-office clerk, but by making these military instructors inspectors of them you would gain the advantage—first, of being able to inspect the schools in the Colonies, which you could not do either by a Privy Council inspector or a War-office clerk; and, secondly, of keeping your instructors from rusting by constant familiarity with the business of education.

I now come to the question how we are to deal with the staff. In France they have a staff school and a staff corps quite distinct from the army. The system is to send a young man first to the Polytechnic or to St. Cyr, whence he can enter by competition into the Ecole d'Application, privates and non-commissioned officers likewise competing. When an officer has attended this school for a certain period and passed an examination, he has to serve two years in the infantry, two in the cavalry, and two in the artillery—thus spending six years in making himself acquainted with all the branches of the service. He is then called to serve as a captain in the staff corps, and from that moment all his promotion is there—he never goes back again as a regimental officer. That is not the system either in Prussia or in England. Here every officer who has been taken from his regiment and has served five years upon the staff is, or ought to be, at the end of that period, sent back to his regiment. But we have a staff school. During the last five years of the Peninsular war, I believe, there was but one officer on the staff of the Quartermaster General who had not passed through our staff school at High Wycombe. I am afraid we have retrograded in that respect within the last few years. The staff school at High Wycombe, afterwards moved to Farnham, produced some of the most eminent men in our army. It was established by the Duke of York, and was at first presided over by General Le Marchant, and military instruction was given by a distinguished French officer, General Jamy, who had left the French army with Moreau. Among the celebrated officers educated there I may mention the names of Sir George Murray, Sir John Hope, Sir Richard Bourke, Lord Hardinge, General Wetherall, Sir Charles Napier, and Sir William Napier. The school was removed first to Farnham and then to Sandhurst. Its original course of instruction was much superior to that which obtains now. Military science has comparatively dropped out and mathematics have got almost exclusive possession of the school. In the senior department I am told that the text books are in the proportion of one on military science to seven on mathematics. But that department has languished, because during peace you have not taken officers from it for the staff. You have not had your army in divisions or brigades; and a number of scattered regiments does not deserve the name of an army any more than a number of scattered men can be called a company. There has been no proper staff employment, and, there having been no great necessity for good staff officers, the senior department at Sandhurst has lost its prizes, and with them its efficiency. I want to restore it to its former effective state. The whole establishment, when at its best, cost but £5,080 a year, showing how small is the sum by which the additional efficiency of an army can be secured. I have consulted many military officers with respect to the comparative merits of the French system and our own. There is one great defect in the former as applicable to our army. We want to inoculate the whole army with a more professional spirit. The professional spirit in the navy far exceeds that in the army. Naval officers are more thoroughly devoted to the duties and interests of their branch of the service than military officers. I think the object would not be attained by the establishment of a separate staff corps. For if you make a separate staff corps, which is to be a distinct caste, it will be regarded with jealousy by the other departments of the army, and you will not have the advantage derivable from the return of highly qualified and instructed officers to their regiments. I do not propose, therefore, to adopt the French system, but to revert to our old plan, only making it compulsory instead of optional. I propose to remove the staff school back to Farnham, where, being in the neighbourhood of the head-quarters of Aldershot, it will be close to a vast camp, and will see all the operations of an army conducted on a large scale. I purpose to leave the junior department at Sandhurst, and thus, in addition to other advantages, get rid of the objectionable practice of putting officers and boys together. After consulting with military officers whom I thought capable of giving me sound advice, I have come to the conclusion that, following so far the French system, every officer who serves upon the staff should not only go through the staff school and qualify himself for the higher duties of his profession, but should be attached for a certain period as a supernumerary to each branch of the service. In France, six years is the period allotted for that purpose, two in each branch of the service. In the evidence before the Sandhurst Committee, six months in each service is recommended. I believe, however, having consulted others, that three years of such duty—one in the infantry, one in the cavalry, and one in the artillery—would, in addition to the staff instruction at Farnham, be sufficient to procure a good staff officer. But, it may be said, what advantage will an officer derive if, after thus qualifying himself, his position with respect to the staff is no better than that of others? I confess the present system is indefensible. An officer is not only anxious to serve upon the staff, but is ambitious, and wishes to make himself conversant with the higher scientific branches of his profession. He asks leave of absence from his regiment, in order that he may go to the senior department at Sandhurst; but his request cannot be complied with unless he has served four years with his regiment and has passed a certain examination. If, however, he gets a nomination to the staff itself, then no examination is necessary; so that, in fact, you do not require for an actual appointment on the staff what you demand from an officer who merely wishes to prepare himself for the staff. I propose that it should be laid down as a rule—speaking, of course, of times of peace—for all rules disappear in time of war, which is itself a rude, but nevertheless the best of all instructors—that no officer should be eligible for a staff appointment who has not passed through the staff school with a certificate, or passed an equivalent examination if he has studied elsewhere, and who has not served for three years in each branch of the service, namely, one year in the infantry, one in the cavalry, and one in the artillery. It may be urged as an objection to such a plan, that it might exclude many officers who, though men of talent and energy, are not scientifically instructed. In the first place, I answer, that if you exclude one man you probably get another just as good, but I doubt very much whether it would have any such effect; for if an officer thought he had a chance of getting on the staff, he would naturally be induced to obtain the necessary qualifications, and would be impelled by a sense of his own interest to go in search of them; and thus you would get such men, with all their talent and energy unimpaired, plus all the scientific knowledge to be imparted at Farnham. Such is an outline of the scheme I propose. I am supported in its favour by the opinion of Sir Howard Douglas, a competent judge, who has suggested a plan for the re-establishment of the staff school, in accordance with my proposal; and by that of Major Addison, one of the officers whom I intended to appoint as staff instructors, the others being Colonel Moody, late of the practical class at Woolwich, Captain Watson, a man of great ability, and Captain Gleig, also engaged at Woolwich. I think, therefore, it will not be unacceptable to military men.

Let me recapitulate shortly what my proposals are. I propose to do away with all military education under the age of sixteen. I propose to admit students in larger numbers to Sandhurst, and to increase that establishment in proportion to the additional number of inmates. I propose to admit them, not only into the school, but out of it into the army, by one uniform standard of examination, and I also propose to admit those who have not attended any military college, if able to pass the same examination. I propose further to establish sit the head-quarters of every division a staff officer for the instruction of subaltern officers, and to subject the latter to an examination uniform throughout England and the Colonies. With regard to the Colonies, I propose that the examination shall be conducted in writing, and that the answers to the questions shall be in writing anonymously; the machinery for this is simple enough. I propose to remove the senior department from Sandhurst to Farnham and to render the education there more practical and military in its character. I propose, lastly, that every officer who serves on the staff shall pass through the staff school, or pass through an equivalent examination to that which procures a certificate, and attach himself for three years to the different branches of the service—spending one year in each branch. The English army is almost the only army in Europe which has not this system or something like it. In almost every other country there is a stronger military turn; the population look with greater interest at military subjects; the gentry especially understand them better than in England. Our bent is naval, theirs is military. But if there is a less military turn here than elsewhere, there is so much the greater necessity for an attempt to infuse a professional spirit by supplying a good military education to our officers. I have heard it said by some persons, "You cannot expect young men, officers, to submit to an examination." But why, I would ask, should it not be the same in the English army as it is in the navy? I saw it stated the other day in a newspaper that an officer in the navy, a master, who had distinguished himself in the service, a man advanced in life, passed an examination in the most signal manner; and I cannot conceive why what is done in the navy cannot be done in the army. Why should it be impossible to do that in the English army which is done in the French, the Prussian, the Hanoverian, and almost every other European army? True, we have a purchase system,—I am not now going to enter upon that question, but only notice it, as it is sometimes said, "How can you have examinations with the purchase system?" It is just because we have purchase that we the more require examination. There is no doubt that purchase has great advantages, but it also has great disadvantages, and the question to be considered is, which weigh the heaviest? The evils of purchase of course are, that many young men enter the army without intending to make it their profession, only intending to stay in it a short time—in plain English, they enter it more for amusement than as a profession, and we want to correct that evil by infusing a spirit of emulation into the minds of our young men, and by creating an incentive to military study, with a view to its adoption as a regular profession.

I have now made my proposals to the House, and it must take them for what they are worth. I thought it my duty to do so, having been necessitated, from the official position which I have occupied, to pay considerable attention to the subject. I look upon one part of these propositions, and that the most important, as having already, two years ago, received the sanction of the Horse Guards, of the Government, and of the House of Commons. I am strengthened by that support, and I hope the Government will continue it. The country, I am sure, will support—I will not say my plan, but something like it, which shall be intended to accomplish the same objects. Sir William Napier ends his History of the Peninsular War with these words:— Our troops embarked, some for England, some for America. So terminated the war, and so terminated with it all recollections of the veteran's services. That was an eloquent and unfortunately a just sentence, but I do not believe it will apply to the present time. We do not know what we owe to our army. Look at what has been done under great disadvantages. I do not believe there exists in the world such raw material for men and officers. Is it physical energy and hardiness that are required? I believe our army has those qualities in a greater degree than any other army. Is it devotion to the call of duty that they are deficient in? Where will you find greater or more numerous instances of such devotion? If there have been instances of shortcomings, have they been the fault of the officers or the men? Have they not, rather, been exclusively chargeable on our defective system at home? We owe it to these gallant and devoted men, to give them every means of attaining the utmost proficiency in their profession. Having officers and men willing to throw away their lives at the first call of duty, if you have officers thoroughly conversant with all the means of saving those lives which the men are willing to sacrifice, you will have an army which will be invincible. I would now beg to press this subject upon the attention of the Government, hoping that they will take it up. Public opinion will support them in any efforts to improve the military character of the army. Recollect that by every day's delay you raise up fresh difficulties—the recollection of past evils will pass away—people will begin to acquiesce in the old routine, and, above all, you create fresh barriers to the efficiency of the army by admitting more uninstructed and incompetent officers; you create vested interests against you, and postpone to an indefinite period the ultimate attainment of your object. I have brought forward this subject with the view of pressing it upon the notice of the Government, and especially of the House. If you think this plan sound in principle, and the reasons I have adduced for the necessity of adopting some such plan to be, as I think they are, incontrovertible, I call upon you to assist me in pressing upon the Government the duty of at once setting about to devise a scheme which shall effect that improvement in our military system which is so universally desired. Of this I am certain, that if the Government will undertake the work, the House of Commons will not be slack in furnishing the means of carrying it into effect.

MR. FREDERICK PEEL

said, no one could undervalue or receive otherwise than with welcome any attempt to advance the cause of education, whether for the country generally or for particular classes, and he thought his right hon. Friend had done good service in stating his views in respect to the nature of the education to be given to officers in the army. The long period during which the right hon. Gentleman had been connected with the administration of the army and the interest he had always taken in the subject of its education, justly entitled his views to consideration and respect. He (Mr. Peel) only regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had not found it consistent with the course he intended to pursue, to afford him some intimation, either privately or by the terms of his notice of Motion, of the subject he was about to introduce, and of the probable direction of his remarks. He must confess, in consequence, that at present he did not feel capable of following the right hon. Gentleman through his speech, full of details, upon a subject in reference to which details were more important than principle; for all were agreed as to the necessity of improving the education of officers in the army, and the only question was, how it was to be put in working operation. He therefore felt considerable embarrassment in remarking upon the plan of the right hon. Gentleman, and would reserve to himself the liberty to modify those remarks in case future consideration should show a necessity for so doing. It appeared that the House was indebted for the right hon. Gentleman's speech to two things—first, the omission of a certain item from the Estimates of the present year, and next the introduction into them of a new Vote. The right hon. Gentleman complained that in the Estimates for the current year he found no provision for certain persons whom it had been contemplated to employ to instruct officers in the science of their profession; and, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman had inferred that the Government did not intend to persevere in improving the military education of officers of the army. The right hon. Gentleman had admitted that in time of war the Government was justified in throwing over all schemes of education that might impede the working of the army on active service in the field. It must be remembered that at the time the present Estimates were framed we were in a state of war, and, as provision had been made for three consecutive years for the instruction of officers without one single officer having been instructed, it appeared quite useless to renew the Vote. The right hon. Gentleman also complained of the provision for assistance to be given to the officer charged with the inspectorship of garrison and regimental schools, although he paid a compliment to the present state of the schools for the education both of adults and of the children of soldiers. The number of those schools was, he was happy to say, continually increasing, and it was quite impossible for any single officer, much less one who, however indefatigable, was already charged with the duties of Chaplain General of the Forces, to discharge satisfactorily those of school inspection in addition: and as it was desirable that these schools should be inspected, at least once in each year, the Government proposed to provide for the creation of an assistant inspectorship in each of the three countries of the United Kingdom, with which assistance it was hoped that an annual inspection of every garrison and regimental school might be made. The right hon. Gentleman had said, he understood it had been contemplated to place those schools under the inspection of persons appointed by the Privy Council; but he (Mr. Peel) had never heard that any such idea had been seriously entertained by the War Department. The right hon. Gentleman had hardly done justice to the course which had been taken by the Government, because he said that these inspectors were War-office clerks, the fact being that one of them was the very Captain Gleig, the officer of Artillery, whom the right hon. Gentleman had said that he had proposed to appoint one of the instructors of officers.

Coming now to the question of the education of officers of the army—he (Mr. Peel) would admit that the Government had not done much for the education of officers of the army—much less than had been done for the private soldiers. In France, in Switzerland, in Prussia, and at Turin, he believed in almost every continental country, the provision made for the professional training of the officers of the army formed an organised and systematic institution of the country. In England we had nothing of the sort. With the exception of the Academy at Woolwich, where young men were prepared for the scientific corps—the Artillery and Engineers—and Sandhurst College, which provided to only a very small extent for the line, there was in this country no establishment for the education of officers which could claim the character of an institution. He (Mr. Peel) thought that the country had a right to expect that in future the Government would provide for officers who loved study and were ambitious of distinction in their profession, ample means of obtaining the knowledge which was necessary to the fulfilment of their desires. Staff appointments and other situations at the disposal of the Government ought also, in his opinion, to be honestly conferred as far as possible upon those officers who availed themselves of the means which might thus be presented to them. Whether personal or family connexion could ever be entirely excluded in the consideration of claims for appointments might well be doubted; but it might at least be expected that it should not be allowed to have any influence except in cases where the claims of the rival candidates might be equal. He also agreed with his right hon. Friend that the cause of education in the army had suffered from the circumstances that many officers had gone into the army merely with the view of obtaining amusement for a short term of years, and with no intention of remaining permanently attached to it. Of course, such gentlemen could not be expected to manifest much anxiety to perfect themselves in professional knowledge. He did not think that his right hon. Friend had sufficiently appreciated the difficulties which beset the establishment of any standard of professional training, without which an officer should not obtain the second and third steps in the army. He would like to hear from his right hon. Friend what he thought should be the ingredients of that training. First, as to the ingredients of the standard. He (Mr. Peel) should not think it fair to an officer to refuse him his lieutenancy or captaincy merely because he did not come up to some educational test. He did not see how the capability of an officer to discharge his duties could be measured solely by such a test. In any test which might be established he would give quite as much importance to nerve as he would to brain. Some of the qualities which were of most value, both to a man and an officer, were common sense, sound judgment, a clear mind, and indefatigable activity of body, and he did not see how these qualities were to be taken into account if a purely educational test were established. Again, it would not be fair to make the standard of education the same for the whole army. His right hon. Friend himself seemed to feel the objection to this. It must be obvious that, scattered as our army was throughout the various dependencies of the British Empire, officers were often placed in positions where they did not enjoy the same facilities for acquiring knowledge as were afforded elsewhere. For instance, what comparison could be made between the means of acquiring information in strategy, tactics, military history, and other ingredients of professional training possessed by an officer stationed at Woolwich or Chatham, and those afforded to one who was engaged in a war with the Caffres on the frontier of Cape Colony? In the West Indies, again, an officer might frequently be stationed in some detached island, or some place like Hongkong, where the intellectual and literary tone of society was very low, where there was no inducement to him to study, and where he naturally entered into the amusements of the place. He (Mr. Peel) therefore thought it would not be fair to apply the same standard to all officers, before allowing them to obtain a lieutenancy or a captaincy, and that a great deal of deliberation would be required before assent could be given to a plan, such as he understood to be proposed by his right hon. Friend, by which a board of officers sitting in London should circulate throughout all the different dependencies of the British Empire the same questions, on the answers to which all promotion should depend. He must also put in a word for those officers who did not possess what was called "book learning." Many officers had, either by natural ability or by their personal character, risen to high positions, and had undoubtedly done the State good service; and it would, in his opinion, be difficult to adopt any single plan for the entire army which would not deprive us of many valuable public servants. His right hon. Friend (Mr. Sidney Herbert) had adverted to the system established by the Duke of Wellington in 1849. The Duke of Wellington required that before persons received first commissions in the army they should prove that they had the general education of a gentleman. The examination with the view of ascertaining that was held at Sandhurst, and, with the exception of so much of it as referred to fortifications, was entirely of a civil character. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sidney Herbert) would, with regard to the qualifications to be possessed by gentlemen before they obtained commissions, have two concurrent plans in force. The first proposed to modify the existing regulations of Sandhurst College; and he (Mr. Peel) agreed with him that there were disadvantages in the State taking charge of boys who were destined for the army at so early an age as that of thirteen, and never losing sight of them until they received commissions. The education which such boys received at Sandhurst might be equally well, and perhaps better, given at the public schools of the country, which were continually improving themselves in consequence of the competition among them; and he entertained no objection to the recommendation of the right hon. Gentleman, that the youths who went to Sandhurst should be at least sixteen years of age. At present the practice was to admit the great bulk of officers not upon any instruction given them in military schools, but upon the results of an examination in subjects which were not military. He thought that the principle of requiring candidates for commissions to pass an examination in non-military subjects was good, and that the plan was answering well. He would take that opportunity of stating what had been done by his noble Friend at the head of the War Department in extension and amplification of this principle. The standard for candidates for commissions in the line was not a high one, but in the case of the Artillery and Engineers the standard had been raised to a level with that which existed in the country in relation to general education. It was well known that up to the breaking out of the late war candidates for commissions in the scientific corps had to have their names placed on the list of the Master General of the Ordnance, were sent down to Woolwich, passed through the academy there, and then obtained commissions in either the Artillery or the Engineers. When the war broke out there was a great alteration in those corps. Many commissions were at the disposal of the Government and might have been filled up by drawing on the students in the military academies. But those students had not completed their education according to the ordinary term of years, and Lord Panmure determined to dispose of those commissions by open competition. The subjects of examination were advertised, and it was open to any one, from any public school or college, or any profession in civil life, to compete, subject only to certain conditions as to age and moral character. Great numbers came forward, and those who showed most proficiency in the examination were selected for the commissions. The plan had been found to answer well. The successful candidates had proved to be men of superior education; they were gentlemen and officers in every sense of the term, and worthy to hold the commissions they had won for themselves. It undoubtedly became very important to decide between the two modes of obtaining commissions in the army, namely, by deriving a military education in a military college, or proving a title by the results of a non-military examination. He should be sorry to decide that question hurriedly, and he thought the Government might be fairly allowed some time to watch the result of the experiment in the Artillery and Engineers before extending it to other branches of the army. That was the state of the case with regard to the examination which took place before officers were admitted to first commissions in the army. The other part of the scheme of the Duke of Wellington applied to examination before they became lieutenants and captains. He believed that portion of the scheme had to be worked out, because although ensigns were required to pass an examination before they became lieutenants, that examination was not of any strictness, being merely intended to show they had taken advantage of their opportunities to advance in a knowledge of regimental discipline. But, when the right hon. Gentleman proposed the appointment of instructors at all the chief stations of the army by whom the officers should be taught the theoretical knowledge which all agreed they ought to possess, he thought it was a question whether that theoretical and professional knowledge ought not to be given before officers were allowed to take up their commissions. The right hon. Gentleman had urged the Government to proceed with expedition in this matter. That was certainly their intention; but they ought not hurriedly and precipitately to come to a conclusion with regard to it. The House should remember the circumstances which required the Government carefully to consider the question. The right hon. Gentleman had adverted to the new organisation which the army was about to assume. It was undoubtedly intended that in the colonies, as well as at home, there should be a brigade and divisional organisation of the army. It was obvious that the effect would be to create a number of staff appointments which might be conferred on the most capable officers that could be found. Hitherto the mischief had been that the army was broken up into regiments and detachments, so that, on the one hand, the junior officers had no opportunity of acquiring proficiency in the higher duties of their profession, and, on the other, the senior officers had no opportunity of becoming acquainted with the most meritorious of the subalterns. The brigade organisation would remedy that great defect. The junior officers of superior merit would be called to fill those situations where their intellect would come into play, and the senior officers commanding brigades and divisions would have the opportunity of seeing which of those young men were most fitted for promotion to higher situations. There were also advantages to be derived from the camps of exercise and instruction. The right hon. Gentleman had adverted to the garrison at Dublin being admitted to be the best school of instruction for the army. He believed that that arose from a large force composed of the various branches of the army, having been collected at Dublin, and now, by means of the new camps of exercise and instruction, the advantage hitherto peculiar to Dublin would be extended to the whole army. He should also state that some time ago a Committee was formed by the War Department for the purpose of inquiring into the scientific requirements of the army. The Committee was composed of professional persons engaged in the examinations for Commissions in the Artillery, and they recommended the appointment of a commission to proceed to the Continent to obtain information as to the system of instruction prevailing in the various countries of Europe. Such a commission was accordingly formed by the War Department and consisted of three highly qualified and intelligent gentlemen. They were received with great cordiality in the various capitals through which they passed. They had brought back most valuable information from France, Belgium, Prussia, Switzerland, and other countries, and he understood that in the course of a few days they would present their report. He thought it only fair the Government should have time to consider the recommendations in that Report before committing themselves to the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman. There had been no undue procrastination in disposing of the question; but during a period of war, from which the country had only recently emerged, all such matters were necessarily kept in abeyance. It had been well said that from the first day of making war they ought to anticipate the return of peace, and from the first day of making peace they ought to provide for the contingency of war. It was the intention of the Government so to do. The Government would devote their best attention to this question of education, and he trusted the result would be that they would succeed in educating the officers of the British army so as to make them worthy instruments of the power of the country.

MR.ELLICE

said, he could not withhold his thanks to the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. Herbert) for having brought this subject under consideration, and he did not blame his hon. Friend (Mr. Peel) for expressing himself with considerable caution as to what might be the ultimate decision of the Government on the means for accomplishing the object in view, but he thought some parts of the speech of the hon. Gentleman were not quite so satisfactory as might have been wished. He would not enter upon the details of the plan submitted by the right hon. Gentleman; but it was quite time the subject should be pressed from a quarter having so much influence on the attention of the House, and he should have been glad to hear that it would be taken up by the Government with all the decision which in his opinion it required. His hon. Friend said he had never heard of the proposition from the Committee of Council on Education for the appointment of spectators to inquire and examine into the state of the regimental schools.

MR. FREDERICK PEEL

I said I never heard of its being entertained by the War Department.

MR. ELLICE

begged pardon for mistaking the expression of the hon. Gentleman, but the impression conveyed was, that the question of inspection had not been taken up either by the Council of Education or by the Government. The recommendations of the Committee of Council on Education were carried into effect by Orders in Council, and in the last of those Orders in Council was this passage:—"To inspect the regimental schools in the United Kingdom and the establishment for training regimental schoolmasters, and to report thereupon to the War Department." He could not say whether the hon. Gentleman had read that Order in Council, but what fell from the hon. Gentleman led him to entertain the impression that the hon. Gentleman was in error in the statement he had made. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Peel) appeared to anticipate a difficulty in the way of a stricter examination than had hitherto been required. But no difficulty had been found in the examinations for the navy. An officer in the navy was obliged to undergo a severe professional examination before he could pass for the rank of lieutenant. He did not think it necessary that that examination upon promotion should be carried beyond professional objects, but they had a right to demand proof that an officer was qualified for command and able to take care of his men. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. Herbert) in thinking that the money spent in army elementary education was thrown away. So far from thinking it a good system that young officers should be educated in the first instance in institutions provided by the public, he thought it much better that they should be taken from public and private schools in this country, and from different military colleges and seminaries in those countries having larger military establishments than ourselves, and where they could consequently obtain more efficient instruction to fit them for the profession in which they were to embark. There were, however, two branches of military education which the public should provide—that for the Artillery and Engineers, and for those who were to be employed as staff officers. Care ought also to be taken that the patronage of the army should be so bestowed as that the public should be satisfied that none but qualified persons should be appointed to such situation. Twenty-four years ago, when he filled the situation of Secretary at War, he proposed in a Select Committee that a rule should be established that all staff officers should be changed every five years, and that rule was accepted by the Committee and sanctioned by the House. In 1854, he was appointed a member of another Commission to inquire into the organisation and promotion of the army. The Commissioners found that the resolution of the Select Committee had remained a dead letter at the Horse Guards, and that in no one instance had an officer been changed—that in fact it had been evaded by making new appointments of the same individual every five years. If that resolution had been carried out, and if young men had been continually employed upon the staff, we should not have been so deficient in efficient staff officers when the late war broke out. Look at the manner in which some of the staff appointments were filled now. He had the highest opinion of the eminent services of Lord Seaton; but when he found an honoured officer of eighty-two years of age in command of the forces in Ireland at a time when young men ought to be gaining experience in organising troops and preparing new levies for the field, he could not accept such an appointment as an earnest of the principle which ought to regulate the staff appointments of the army. It was essential that the country should set to work in earnest to place the army on the most efficient footing, by insisting that there should be a thorough and complete examination of all officers, not only before their introduction into the army, but on their subsequent promotion. He trusted also that young officers would be selected for employment, and that every course which could accelerate promotion would be adopted to prevent the employment of old officers, who, however distinguished their services might have been, were not fitted for the active duties of their profession. He would give no opinion upon the details of the right hon. Gentleman's plan, but it was essential that the best system of examination should be insisted upon for officers entering the army, that there should be a further examination upon promotion, and that young officers should be selected for employment.

SIR DE LACY EVANS

said, that he would not detain the House more than a few moments, for the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman behind him (Mr. S. Herbert) was so able and so admirable that it would be impertinent in him to go over the same ground. He quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Coventry (Mr. Ellice) that it was most inexpedient to permit staff appointments to be held by the same individual for a long series of years; and he thought it a matter of so much importance that the Government ought to be called upon to give some pledge for the future with regard to the various staff appointments of the army. The right hon. Member had referred to the recommendation of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, that staff appointments should change hands every five years. That recommendation was so far from having been carried out that, in many instances, if gentlemen with tolerably good interest got into staff appointments they held them for the rest of their lives. In peace there was scarcely any staff appointment that might not be filled by a variety of officers, and the more changes there were the more practical experience of those duties would be diffused in the army. The Under Secretary for War had adverted to the competitive examinations which had been instituted, and he for one, offered his acknowledgments to the Minister for War for having adopted that most wise and liberal measure—one, he was happy to say which had answered every expectation. The tone of the Under Secretary for War was, however, not very cheering to those who looked forward to speedy improvements being made in military education. The formation of brigades and divisions, instead of allowing the army to be scattered about the country in detachments, performing police duties, would no doubt be of some use, but it would not supply those essentials of a scientific education to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wilts had referred. Those gentlemen who took part in the inquiry, instituted some time ago, as to the condition of the military colleges would remember that, with regard to examination, the evidence was extremely unsatisfactory. There were two classes of examination. One of them was too theoretical, being very much directed to the higher branches of mathematics; while, with regard to the other, Colonel Prosser (the Lieutenant Governor of the College) said it was so slight that a remarkably stupid man might, with a little cramming, pass it. Yet the Under Secretary for War asked for time, and said they must not be precipitate in altering the present state of things. It might be unreasonable to demand a complete plan from the Government at the close of a Session if this were the first that had been heard of the subject; but that was not the case. He was glad to hear that the Report of the Commission which had been sent to inquire into military education in foreign countries would be laid before the House when it came into the possession of the Government. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman that a high scholastic test would be objectionable; but there was a great difference between a test of that kind and one which would admit every remarkably stupid man into the army if he happened to have £700 or £800 in his pocket. It was clear from the speech of the hon. Gentleman that the postponement he called for was no less than another year; but he thought that the War Department, with the co-operation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wilts, could have no difficulty in coming to some decision before the close of the Session, and he was sure the House would not hesitate to vote the necessary means. If the proposition they made should turn out insufficient, it might afterwards be amended. With regard to the pecuniary part of the question, it was remarkable that so completely had military education been contemned or ignored as an element requisite for the efficiency of the national armaments, that for about thirty years not a shilling had been expended upon it by the nation, and officers had been educated upon what was called a "self-supporting" system. Other nations, republican as well as monarchial, had, on the contrary, paid great attention to the education of their military officers. He was old enough to recollect the last American war, in which he served, and he remembered that one advantage which we possessed over the Americans during that war was, that they had scarcely any military knowledge, theoretical or practical; but they discovered their mistake, and after the peace, although not mixed up, like us, in European politics, or menaced by great standing armies in adjoining countries, they founded an excellent military college, by means of which they were able to provide a greater amount of professional instruction for their small army than this country had provided for its large army. Only yesterday, too, evidence had been given before the Purchase Commission, with respect to the steps taken by the Austrian Government in this matter, from which it appeared that for the education of 7,000 students, non-commissioned as well as commissioned officers, no less a sum than £280,000 was appropriated—equal to at least £1,000,000 in this country. He did not propose that England should expend £1,000,000 upon the same object, but he mentioned the fact in order to show the attention paid to military education by other nations. Very large sums were also expended upon it by the French, Sardinian, and Prussian Governments. With regard to the staff, he was not quite certain whether the system hitherto adopted by us or that of foreign armies was preferable. He had not yet sufficiently turned his attention to that point. At the end of the Peninsular war the staff of the British army was, perhaps, the best in the world; but no rule could be drawn from that fact. He trusted that Parliament would not be allowed to separate without a proposition from the Government on this subject.

COLONEL DUNNE

urged that it was evident that the Government was in no hurry on this subject, for they had materials enough to proceed on, and the waiting for the Report of the Commission to inquire into the system of foreign armies was a futile pretext for delay, for there was already ample evidence on the subject before the House. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. Herbert), to whom every one connected with the army must feel grateful, would press on the Government the necessity of action in this matter. The system even of practical instruction in the army had diminished since he had first entered it. He was of opinion that a great many theoretical subjects which were required to pass examinations in the army were of no use, and would be better supplied by practical instruction. It was no use having the highest knowledge of abstract mathematics, and yet be unacquainted with any of the practical principles of fortification. He had himself the honour of being educated at Trinity College, and had studied fluxions and the higher branches of mathematics, but he had been obliged to teach himself all that he knew about the scientific branch of his profession. The right hon. Gentleman had touched the real reason for a deficiency of professional feeling in the army, when he showed that staff appointments and promotions were not given to the best, most meritorious, and most instructed officers; but were awarded for very different reasons. He trusted the Motion now before the House would induce the Government to act with more celerity with respect to this question of military education, and bring forward some plan before the end of the Session. He again repeated his acknowledgments to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wiltshire, whose plan he thought deserved the gratitude of the army and the country.

MR. RICH

said, that he thought the House ought to feel grateful for the admirable manner in which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. Herbert) had brought forward this subject and pressed it upon the Government. He had fully established the anomalous manner in which commissions, promotions, and staff appointments were obtained. He did not blame the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for War for having declined to enter into details or to pledge the Government to any particular course—the hon. Gentleman had been obliged to deal in generalities; but he rejoiced that the hon. Gentleman had not hesitated, after experience, emphatically to praise the system begun by the Duke of Newcastle and followed up by Lord Panmure, of allowing commissions to be obtained by competition in the two most important branches of the service, the engineers and artillery. The hon. Gentleman had assured the House that that system had been most eminently successful, and the clear inference was, that it would be equally successful in other branches of the army. The introduction of such a system and its application to other grades of promotion would supply what was wanting in our army—motives for exertion and a professional feeling. The hon. Gentleman talked of an examination of merely an intellectual nature being nugatory as a test of the professional ability of officers. That might be true to a certain extent, but what could not be denied was, that considerable mental qualifications, added to other qualities, were required to constitute a good officer. He also thought that sufficient importance was not attached to the due requirement of service. The duties of the camp at Aldershot constituted an improvement on the idle life formerly led by officers and soldiers in towns; but there was still a more efficient teacher than a summer-camp service—real service—and that was ordinarily to be found only in our Colonies. In drawing up a scheme of education, he trusted that the Government would weigh well the consideration of the service of officers, and service abroad ought to be counted more highly than service at home. In the Guards, an admirable and efficient body of men, the officers by certain privileges had obtained promotion more quickly than in the rest of the army; yet they, from their especial functions, never saw foreign service except when a continental war broke out—they were never engaged in Indian, Kafir, Australian, or Chinese operations, and, therefore, had no opportunities of learning the more important elements of their duty in time of European peace. Nevertheless, it was from this body that a large proportion of our general and staff officers was drawn. Service, however, mingled with education and other qualifications, was absolutely necessary to make an efficient officer. Every one agreed that staff officers should be well educated, and he would press the Government to include the appointment of staff officers under their arrangements and education. Staff officers should be required to fulfil certain conditions before appointment; and the best plan to prevent those conditions becoming relaxed in a time of peace was to make the appointments obtainable only by competition, so that presumably the best men would always get them. A system of open competition, under well-defined and well-conceived regulations, would stimulate and elevate the character of the whole profession, and would secure as fine a body of officers as ever led the British or any other army to victory. With regard to the Military College of Sandhurst, the hon. and gallant General the Member for Westminster had spoken of it as self-supporting; but it was self-supporting only by making one set of students support the others. The Government professed that the orphans of military officers should receive a gratuitous education at the military college; but they paid nothing towards it; for they charged the sons of civilians from 130 to 150 guineas a year for an education which was admitted did not cost more than half that sum. Out of this surcharge the entire education of those orphans was defrayed. That was a wrong which ought to be redressed, for it was not just that the parents of the general students should be made to pay more than the legitimate expenses of their sons' education; and especially when it was found that this extortionate demand actually precluded many persons of moderate means from sending their sons to Sandhurst, whereby the military education of officers, which Sandhurst was found to promote, was plainly to that extent impeded or prevented.

LORD HOTHAM

said, that the observations of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Rich) were directed more to the subject of a Motion he had two or three times brought forward in that House than to the subject which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Wiltshire had introduced so clearly and so ably, and in a manner showing that he had paid very great attention to it. He could not join in the blame that had been cast upon the hon. Under Secretary for War for not having given more decided answers to the questions mooted; for not only were many of the points to which his attention was directed now placed before him for the first time, but it must also be remembered that the hon. Gentleman was only the representative of the War Minister in that House, and was not competent to answer decidedly as to any new course of policy for the War Minister, much less for the Government, with whom the decision of such a matter must necessarily lie. The hon. Member (Mr. Rich) had referred to the want of experience of the officers of the army, and had spoken of the experience to be acquired by service in the Colonies. The hon. Gentleman should have said in some of the Colonies; for in some—the West Indies for instance—the regiments were broken up into small detachments, and the experience to be thus acquired was of no value. The hon. Gentleman might equally have spoken of the want of opportunity for gaining experience in this country; for he (Lord Hotham) had known an instance of a cavalry regiment being two years without the advantage of a riding-school, and yet this regiment would have been expected to be in an efficient state and ready for any service. He should not, however, have trespassed upon the attention of the House had it not been for the observations of the hon. Gentleman in reference to the brigade of Guards. The hon. Member had complained of the advantages in respect of promotion enjoyed by that corps, but he would beg to remind the House that the Royal Warrant of 1854, whatever its other effects might be, would certainly leave no ground for complaint of the rapidity of promotion in the Guards. The hon. Gentleman had also said that the Guards never went on service except in the case of an European war, and therefore had no opportunities of learning their duties in time of peace. But it must be remembered that, if the Guards were not sent on colonial service during peace, they were always among the first to embark in the event of war. No expedition had ever sailed from this country without a brigade of Guards forming a part of it, and no instance could be found of a General, under whose command a brigade of Guards had been placed, who had not spoken with the highest approbation of the manner in which they had performed their duties, and of the state of discipline in which he found them. The House would probably consider the Duke of Wellington a tolerably competent judge of such matters, and he was also a perfectly unbiassed judge, never having had any connection with the Guards until the death of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. And what opinion did the Duke of Wellington form of the brigade of Guards placed under his command in the Peninsula? On one occasion, in September, 1809, a General Order appeared, complaining of the mistakes constantly made in the returns and states of regiments; but what said the Duke of Wellington as to the conduct of the brigade of Guards on this matter? His General Order concluded by saying that— The Commander of the Forces deems it but justice to the two battalions of Guards to state, that their returns have in every respect been as accurate as the conduct of these excellent troops has been regular and exemplary in every other respect. Again, in January, 1810, the Duke of Wellington wrote, in these terms, to Major General Stopford, then commanding the Brigade of Guards— I have taken frequent occasions of stating publicly, the great satisfaction which the conduct of the Guards has invariably given me; which satisfaction has been recently increased in the march through Portugal, in which, as they were at the head of the column, they set the example to the other troops of the most orderly behaviour, I am anxious to testify this satisfaction in a manner which shall make an impression upon the non-Commissioned Officers, and shall prove to them that the attention which they pay to their duty is not unobserved by their superiors; and if the Commanding Officers of the two Battalions will be so kind as to recommend a sergeant each, I will recommend them to vacant Ensigncies in the Army. (Signed) "WELLINGTON. On another occasion, in March, 1811, when the army was in the lines of Torres Vedras, the sentence of death, awarded by a general court martial, was ordered to be carried into effect, and, for the sake of example, in presence of all the troops at Cartaxo; but here, again, it was stated, in General Orders, that— As during the two years which the brigade of Guards has been under the command of the Commander of the Forces, not only no soldier has been brought to trial before a general court martial, but no one has been confined in a public guard, the Commander of the Forces desires that the attendance of this brigade at the execution may be dispensed with. And, again, during the siege of Burgos, in September, 1812, a General Order complaining of the conduct of the working parties during the previous night, stated that— At the same time that the Commander of the Forces notices the misconduct of the working parties, he is happy to make an exception in favour of the brigade of Guards, who have performed this duty as they have every other duty in this army, in the most satisfactory manner. These instances which he (Lord Hotham) had thus cited, would be sufficient, he thought, to show that the Guards were not liable to the criticisms of the hon. Member (Mr. Rich). Had he thought that such criticisms were well founded, he should have listened to them with pain and regret; but as they were altogether undeserved, he felt called upon to show, and on the high authority he had quoted, that although without the experience which the hon. Member seemed to think was only to be acquired on colonial service, the Guards had always been found efficient, and ready for every duty required of them.

Long as he (Lord Hotham) had sat in Parliament, so unwilling was he to occupy the time of the House on a matter which some might have thought of a personal nature, that notwithstanding the numerous opportunities which had arisen, he had never before opened his lips on the subject of a corps in whose honour and reputation he felt a deep and enduring interest. He wished not to claim for the Guards any peculiar merit, and, certainly, he did not desire to institute any invidious comparison between the Guards and other branches of the service; but he did feel anxious to give proof that they were not behind the rest of the army in the correct performance of their duties, and to declare for himself that he was proud of having been brought up, and of having long served, in a corps which had never failed to prove itself worthy of the confidence of its Sovereign, and to satisfy the just expectations of its countrymen.

Referring, before he sat down, to the suggestions of the right hon. Member for South Wiltshire, he would only say that the subject to which they referred was one of the greatest importance—a subject upon which the prompt action of the Government was urgently needed, and with respect to which he hoped that the House would be speedily informed what course it was intended to take.

MR. RICH

explained that he never meant to call in question the distinguished bravery and heroism of the brigade of Guards.

VISCOUNT GODERICH

said, he was anxious to express the hope that, before the debate terminated, some Member of the Government would state to the House something more clear and definite with regard to their views and intentions than that which had fallen from the Under Secretary for War. The Government could not say that they had not had ample time to consider the important question of the organisation of the army. A considerable time ago the right hon. Member for Wiltshire (Mr. S. Herbert) gave notice of his intention to bring the subject under the consideration of the House, and the details of his plan had nothing essentially new about them, but, on the contrary, the greater part of them were contained in the Report of the Sandhurst Commission. He did not wish the Government to pledge themselves to carry out all those details, although from the manner in which the speech of the right hon. Member for Wiltshire had been received it was the evident desire of the House that the course to be pursued by the Government should, as nearly as possible, coincide with his scheme. It was of the utmost importance at the present moment that the House should elicit from the Government some expression of their opinion upon the question under discussion. We had just returned from a state of war to a state of peace; public attention had been directed to our military organisation; and it might be difficult in future years to concentrate the same amount of interest upon such a subject as the improvement of our army. In respect of scientific education England was behind all nations which possessed what could be called a civilised army, and, whatever might be the undoubted great qualities of our officers, it was of the utmost importance to us, who must always maintain a comparatively small army, that we should take the best means in empower to render it as efficient as possible.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

Sir, I must join with all those who have spoken in thanking the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wiltshire, for bringing under our notice a question of so much importance as the organisation of the Army, and for stating his views in so clear and able a manner to the House. Indeed, there is nobody who, from his intimate knowledge of all the matters to which his speech related, from his natural ability, from the clearness of his conceptions, or from his skill in developing his ideas, is more entitled than my right hon. Friend to call the attention of the House to the affairs of the Army. I am afraid, however, that I shall not be able to satisfy the expectations of those Gentlemen who have requested the Government to state their views and intentions upon the present occasion. We entirely concur with my right hon. Friend in his estimate of the importance of giving officers of the army the best possible education adapted to their professional pursuits. I do not agree with the noble Lord who spoke last in thinking that the British army is behind every other in the world in any respect; because if we look to the exploits of that army we shall see that upon every occasion in which it has met an enemy under any circumstances whatever it has proved itself at least equal—I should say superior—to those with whom it has had to contend. At the same time I do not say that the system of education for our officers is not capable of great improvement, and it will be the anxious desire, as it is the bounden duty, of the Government to devote their best attention to that subject, for the purpose of making such arrangements as may appear to them best calculated to attain the object in view. I am sure my right hon. Friend will not expect that I should, upon the present occasion, follow him through the various details of the plan which he upon mature reflection has suggested. Those details will receive the best attention and consideration of the Government. There are two things to be kept in view. Some persons argue in favour of higher literary qualifications as a preliminary proof of capacity. That may be carried too far; but to a certain extent undoubtedly such qualifications should be required, because, though you do not want that a young man entering the army as an officer should have acquired high literary attainments—which are not always accompanied with those physical and constitutional qualities which are requisite for a military life—yet it cannot be denied that such acquirements are a proof of general capacity. I think, too, that in future the course of instruction should be more devoted to professional attainments than to those other acquirements which are not immediately connected with military duty. A certain amount of mathematical knowledge may be found useful, if not absolutely necessary, in every operation in which an officer, to whatever arm of the service he may belong, may be required to partake; but to demand that extent of mathematical knowledge which is obtained by a wrangler at Cambridge is simply absurd, necessitates a great waste of time, and will not render the young man fitter for the profession of which he is destined to become a member. The main qualities for an officer are contempt of danger, fearlessness of responsibility, a quick eye to estimate the nature of surrounding circumstances, a rapid decision how to act in every emergency, and resolution to take the course which upon reflection he may think best. These are qualities the possession of which by an officer is most important, and which may be found in a man who is deficient in many of those attainments which, nevertheless, are essential to giving these qualities their best and most useful application. What we want is to combine the two; and you cannot, by any examination, ascertain exactly whether or not a man possesses these constitutional qualities. The Duke of Wellington used in his campaigns to keep with him a pack of hounds, and he said that by taking young officers out hunting with him he could form a judgment as to their quickness of eye, rapidity of decision, and handiness under difficulties. Our officers might now practise hunting at Aldershot. What I want to impress upon the House is, that no examination which you can institute will afford a decisive test of the existence of the qualities which I have mentioned. You must take your chance. All that you can do by instruction is to give to your officers that scientific knowledge which is essential to their professional pursuits, and to the well conducting of the troops who may be placed under their command; and by examination to ascertain whether they have profited by the instruction which you have afforded them. It is said that it is not fair to make the military college at Sandhurst a self-supporting institution (according to the expression now in fashion), and that that is substantially to make one part of the students pay for the education of the other. I am bound to say that whatever injustice there may be in that arrangement, it was forced upon the Government by repeated discussions in this House. Year after year my late hon. Friend the Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) urged the abolition of the military college as a matter of expense to the public, and it was in deference to the repeated and urgent representations made in discussions upon the Army Estimates that at last the military college was so arranged that no Vote of money should be required for its support. I hope that the experience of late years will have opened the minds of Parliament to the greater importance of these matters, and that hon. Members will, not only now, but in future Sessions, bear in mind of what immense importance it is that our army, whatever its numbers, should be as good and efficient as it is possible to make it. I entirely agree with those who think that it is of far less importance what shall be the actual number of your troops than what shall be their organisation and the instruction to be given to the officers who command them. I trust that the House will excuse me if upon these matters I do not go into further details than to say, that the Government are as fully impressed as are any of those whom I have now the honour of addressing with the deep importance of making our army as efficient as possible. During the war the whole attention of the Government was devoted to the efficient prosecution of its active operations, and it was impossible for them to give so much attention as their importance deserved to the questions which have been raised by my right hon. Friend. Now that peace has fortunately returned, however, it will be the duty and the anxious desire of the Government, as soon as possible, to come to some satisfactory decision upon the arrangements necessary to accomplish the objects which my right hon. Friend has in view.

Subject dropped.