ion of all these matters that the superiority
of the regular officer is apt to be shown.

Almost any honest volunteer officer will admit, that, although the
tactics were easily learned, yet, in dealing with all other practical
details of army-life, he was obliged to gain his knowledge through many
blunders. There were a thousand points on which the light of Nature,
even aided by "Army Regulations," did not sufficiently instruct him; and
his best hints were probably obtained by frankly consulting regular
officers, even if inferior in rank. The advantage of a West-Point
training is precisely that of any other professional education. There is
nothing in it which any intelligent man cannot learn for himself in
later life; nevertheless, the intelligent man would have fared a good
deal better, had he learned it all in advance. Test it by shifting the
positions. No lawyer would trust his case to a West-Point graduate,
without evidence of thorough special preparation. Yet he himself enters
on a career equally new to him, where his clients may be counted by
thousands, and every case is capital. The army is a foreign country to
civilians; of course you can learn the language after your arrival, but
how you envy your companion, who, having spoken it from childhood, can
proceed at once to matters more important!

Yet the great advantage of the regular army does not, after all, consist
merely in any superiority of knowledge, or in the trained habit of
command. Granting that patience and labor can readily supply these to
the volunteer, the trouble remains, that even in labor and patience the
regular officer is apt to have the advantage, by reason of a stronger
stimulus. The difference is not merely in the start, but in the pace. No
man can be often thrown into the society of regular officers, especially
among the younger ones, without noticing a higher standard of
professional earnestness than that found among average volunteers; and
in this respect a West-Point training makes little or no difference. The
reason of the superiority is obvious. To the volunteer, the service is
still an episode; to the regular, a permanent career. No doubt, if a man
is thoroughly conscientious, or thoroughly ambitious, or thoroughly
enthusiastic, a temporary pursuit may prove as absorbing as if it were
taken up for life; but the majority of men, however well-meaning, are
not thorough at all. How often one hears the apology made by volunteer
officers, e