ows restive at outside criticism, and yields more and
more to the conviction that no advance in efficiency is possible
unless it be the result of suggestions emanating from its own
ranks. Its view of things becomes narrower and narrower, whereas
efficiency in war demands the very widest view. Ignorant critics
call the spirit thus engendered 'professional conservatism'; the
fact being that change is not objected to--is even welcomed,
however frequent it may be, provided only that it is suggested
from inside. An immediate result is 'unreality and formalism of
peace training'--to quote a recent thoughtful military critic.

As the formalism becomes more pronounced, so the unreality increases.
The proposer or introducer of a system of organisation of training
or of exercises is often, perhaps usually, capable of distinguishing
between the true and the false, the real and the unreal. His
successors, the men who continue the execution of his plans,
can hardly bring to their work the open mind possessed by the
originator; they cannot escape from the influence of the methods
which have been provided for them ready made, and which they are
incessantly engaged in practising. This is not a peculiarity of
the military profession in either branch--it extends to nearly
every calling; but in the profession specified, which is a service
rather than a freely exercised profession, it is more prominent.
Human thought always has a tendency to run in grooves, and in
military institutions the grooves are purposely made deep, and
departure from them rigorously forbidden. All exercises, even
those designed to have the widest scope, tend to become mere
drill. Each performance produces, and bequeaths for use on the
next occasion, a set of customary methods of execution which are
readily adopted by the subsequent performers. There grows up in
time a kind of body of customary law governing the execution of
peace operations--the principles being peace-operation principles
wholly and solely--which law few dare to disobey, and which
eventually obtains the sanction of official written regulations.
As Scharnhorst, quoted by Baron von der Goltz, said, 'We have
begun to place the art of war higher than military virtues.'
The eminent authority who thus expressed himself wrote the words
before the great catastrophe of Jena; and, with prophetic insight
sharpened by his fear of the menacing tendency of peace-training
formalism and unreality, added his convi