wisdom, as yet but half explored! Certainly, when one thinks
for what a handful of an army our present military system was devised,
and with what an admirable elasticity it has borne this sudden and
stupendous expansion, it must be admitted to have most admirably stood
the test. Of course, there has been much amendment and alteration
needed, nor is the work done yet; but it has mainly touched the details,
not the general principles. The system is wonderfully complete for its
own ends, and the more one studies it the less one sneers. Many a form
which at first seems to the volunteer officer merely cumbrous and
trivial he learns to prize at last as almost essential to good
discipline; he seldom attempts a short cut without finding it the
longest way, and rarely enters on that heroic measure of cutting
red-tape without finding at last that he has entangled his own fingers
in the process.

More thorough training tells in another way. It is hard to appreciate,
without the actual experience, how much of military life is a matter of
mere detail. The maiden at home fancies her lover charging at the head
of his company, when in reality he is at that precise moment endeavoring
to convince his company-cooks that salt-junk needs five hours' boiling,
or is anxiously deciding which pair of worn-out trousers shall be
ejected from a drummer-boy's knapsack. Courage is, no doubt, a good
quality in a soldier, and luckily not often wanting; but, in the long
run, courage depends largely on the haversack. Men are naturally brave,
and when the crisis comes, almost all men will fight well, if well
commanded. As Sir Philip Sidney said, an army of stags led by a lion is
more formidable than an army of lions led by a stag. Courage is cheap;
the main duty of an officer is to take good care of his men, so that
every one of them shall be ready, at a moment's notice, for any
reasonable demand. A soldier's life usually implies weeks and months of
waiting, and then one glorious hour; and if the interval of leisure has
been wasted, there is nothing but a wasted heroism at the end, and
perhaps not even that. The penalty for misused weeks, the reward for
laborious months, may be determined within ten minutes. Without
discipline an army is a mob, and the larger the worse; without rations
the men are empty uniforms; without ammunition they might as well have
no guns; without shoes they might almost as well have no legs. And it is
in the practical appreciat