usual sympathies and respects,
whether for persons or for things that make for conservation. Yet," he
says, "the fact remains that war is a school of strenuous life and
heroism and, being in the line of aboriginal instinct, is the only
school that as yet is universally available."

Emerson says: "War educates the senses, calls into action the will,
perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close
collision in critical moments that man measures man."

It is not my purpose, however, to glorify war. War to me is horrible
beyond description or conception, and it is for war that armies are
trained; yet the training of an army, like the training of even a
pugilist, is a work of great moral value.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Army gave us our independence, when
the Revolution had succeeded, and the Constitution had been framed, and
the country launched on her career, there was a tendency to forget
Joseph. So strong was the feeling against a standing army that it was
with difficulty that even a nucleus was maintained. The first
legislation on this subject gave us but one battalion of artillery and
one regiment of infantry, the whole consisting of 46 officers and 840
men. In 1814, because of the war with England, the army ran up to
60,000; but the next year fell to 12,000, and continued even below that
number up to 1838, when it again went up to about 12,000. In 1846,
during the Mexican War, it reached about 18,000. When the Civil War
broke out it was about 12,000. There were in the Army, at the time of
the beginning of the Civil War, over 1,000 officers. Two hundred and
eighty-six of these left the service of the United States, and
subsequently served in the Confederate Army. Of these 286, 187 had been
educated at West Point. But so far as I am able to say now, not a single
enlisted man followed the example of these officers.

Beside the staff departments, the Army now consists of 15 regiments of
cavalry, 30 batteries of field artillery, 126 companies of coast
artillery, and 30 regiments of infantry. These different classes are
known as the three arms of the service: Cavalry, artillery, and
infantry. Our whole Army to-day numbers 67,259 men. We are the greatest
nation, with the smallest army. Our Army, however, is capable of rapid
expansion; and, with our National Guard, we need not fear any emergency.
This Army, though so small, is in one sense a trained athlete, ready to
defend the nation's h