urdensome or distasteful in themselves, but because
he felt that whilst making the machine they might destroy the man.
Those responsible for the efficiency of the United States army had
not yet learned that the mind must be trained as well as the body,
that drill is not the beginning and the end of the soldier's
education, that unless an officer is trusted with responsibility in
peace he is but too apt to lose all power of initiative in war. That
Jackson's ideas were sound may be inferred from the fact that many of
the most distinguished generals in the Civil War were men whose
previous career had been analogous to his own.* (* Amongst these may
be mentioned Grant, Sherman, and McClellan. Lee himself, as an
engineer, had but small acquaintance with regimental life. The men
who saved India for England in the Great mutiny were of the same
type.)

His duties at Lexington were peculiar. As Professor of Artillery he
was responsible for little more than the drill of the cadets and
their instruction in the theory of gunnery. The tactics of artillery,
as the word is understood in Europe, he was not called upon to
impart. Optics, mechanics, and astronomy were his special subjects,
and he seems strangely out of place in expounding their dry formulas.

In the well-stocked library of the Institute he found every
opportunity of increasing his professional knowledge. He was an
untiring reader, and he read to learn. The wars of Napoleon were his
constant study. He was an enthusiastic admirer of his genius; the
swiftness, the daring, and the energy of his movements appealed to
his every instinct. Unfortunately, both for the Institute and his
popularity, it was not his business to lecture on military history.
We can well imagine him, as a teacher of the art of war, describing
to the impressionable youths around him the dramatic incidents of
some famous campaign, following step by step the skilful strategy
that brought about such victories as Austerlitz and Jena. The
advantage would then have been with his pupils; in the work assigned
to him it was the teacher that benefited. He was by no means
successful as an instructor of the higher mathematics. Although the
theories of light and motion were doubtless a branch of learning
which the cadets particularly detested, his methods of teaching made
it even more repellent. A thorough master of his subject, he lacked
altogether the power of aiding others to master it. No flashes of
humour rel