s that
various particulars may be dispensed with. Formerly, when soldiers were
kept up as part of the state pageants, they were subjected to numberless
petty tribulations of drill, which no longer exist. Pipe-clayed belts,
for example, have disappeared, except in the marine corps. Frederick the
Great was the first who introduced into drill ease and quickness of
execution, and since his day it has been greatly simplified and
improved.

One great difficulty in our volunteer force pertains to the institution
of a proper subordination. Coming from the same vicinage, often related
by the various interests of life, equals at home, officers and men have
found it disagreeable to assume the proper relations of their military
life. The difficulty has produced two extremes of conduct on the part of
officers--either too much laxity and familiarity, or the entire
opposite--too great severity. The one breeds contempt among the men, and
the other hatred. After the soldier begins to understand the necessities
of military life, he sees that his officers should be men of dignity and
reliability. He does not respect them unless they preserve a line of
conduct corresponding to their superior military position. On the other
hand, if he sees that they are inflated by their temporary command, and
employ the opportunity to make their authority needlessly felt, and to
exercise petty tyranny, he entertains feelings of revenge toward them. A
model officer for the volunteer service is one who, quietly assuming the
authority incident to his position, makes his men feel that he exercises
it only for their own good. Such an officer enters thoroughly into all
the details of his command--sees that his men are properly fed, clothed,
and sheltered--that they understand their drill, and understand also
that its object is to render them more effective and at the same time
more secure in the hour of conflict--is careful and pains-taking, and at
the same time, in the hour of danger, shares with his men all their
exposures. Such an officer will always have a good command. We think
there has been a tendency to error in one point of the discipline of the
volunteer forces, by transferring to them the system which applied well
enough to the regulars. In the latter, by long discipline, each man
knows his duty, and if he commits a fault, it is his own act. In the
volunteers, the faults of the men are in the majority of cases
attributable to the officers. We know so