rs and employes of the government, and to the privates
and non-commissioned officers in the army, is liberal, and, in general,
too liberal; but the pay of the higher grades in both the civil and
military service is too low, and relatively far lower than it was when
the government was first organized.

The worst tendency in the country, and which is not encouraged at all
by the territorial democracy, manifests itself in hostility to the
military spirit and a standing army. The depreciation of the military
spirit comes from the humanitarian or sentimental democracy, which,
like all sentimentalisms, defeats itself, and brings about the very
evils it seeks to avoid. The hostility to standing armies is inherited
from England, and originated in the quarrels between king and
parliament, and is a striking evidence of the folly of that bundle of
antagonistic forces called the British constitution. In feudal times
most of the land was held by military service, and the reliance of
government was on the feudal militia; but no real progress was made in
eliminating barbarism till the national authority got a regular army at
its command, and became able to defend itself against its enemies. It
is very doubtful if English civilization has not, upon the whole, lost
more than it has gained by substituting parliamentary for royal
supremacy, and exchanging the Stuarts for the Guelfs.

No nation is a living, prosperous nation that has lost the military
spirit, or in which the profession of the soldier is not held in honor
and esteem; and a standing army of reasonable size is public economy.
It absorbs in its ranks a class of men who are worth more there than
anywhere else; it creates honorable places for gentlemen or the sons of
gentlemen without wealth, in which they can serve both themselves and
their country. Under a democratic government the most serious
embarrassment to the state is its gentlemen, or persons not disposed or
not fitted to support themselves by their own hands, more necessary in
a democratic government than in any other. The civil service,
divinity, law, and medicine, together with literature, science, and
art, cannot absorb the whole of this ever-increasing class, and the
army and navy would be an economy and a real service to the state were
they maintained only for the sake of the rank and position they give to
their officers, and the wholesome influence these officers would exert
on society and the politics of t