5. The officers of artillery and engineers may be said to be in quite a peculiar position in France, owing to the high education given at the Polytechnic School. The consequence is, that the preparatory education of French artillery and engineer officers is of the highest scientific character. We have already spoken largely on this point, and need do no more than allude to it.

6. We may remark, that preparatory military education in France is mainly mathematical-at the Polytechnic almost wholly so. The literary and classical elements, which enter so largely into all education in England and Prussia, are in French military education very much thrown aside. Lectures in military history and literature are said, however, to succeed at St. Cyr.

7. The system of State foundations (Bourses) existing in the Polytechnic and St. Cyr, and affording a curious parallel to the military foundations in the Austrian schools, requires some notice. Every pupil, in both the Polytechnic and St. Cyr, who can prove poverty, is entitled to State support, either entire or partial. At the present time, not less than onethird of the students in each of these schools receive such maintenance. The system of civil Bourses is of old standing in France; most of these were destroyed at the Revolution. They were renewed and greatly devoted to military purposes by Napoleon. The extent to which they are given may seem excessive, but it must prove a powerful incentive and assistance to talent.

8. It has been remarked that there is comparatively little practical teaching in the School of Application for Artillery and Engineers at Metz. But a very extensive practical training is in fact supplied to these officers after they enter the service, remaining as they must do with the troops until promoted to the rank of second captain, and subsequently being employed in the arsenals, workshops, fortified places, &c.

9. The French have no "senior departments" for military education. In this respect their practice differs from that of England and Germany.

FRENCH MILITARY EDUCATION IN 1869.

The following remarks on French Military Education are from the Report of the English Military Education Commission submitted to Parliament, and printed in 1870:

1. The proportion of professionally educated officers in the line is greater now than in 1856, when it was stated by the Commissioners in their report to be one-third.

2. The professional education for commissions in the line is given by a two years' course at St. Cyr, admission to the school being dependent on competitive examination. Admission to the Artillery and Engineers is obtained through the Polytechnic, where young men intended for commissions in those arms receive a preparatory education of a highly scientific character, in common with candidates for many other branches of the public service. Admission to the school is obtained by competition, and the choice of services is

dependent on the results of another competitive examination at the end of the two years' course. Commissions are then obtained in the respective corps, and the young officers go for a further period of two years to the School of Application at Metz, there to receive their strictly professional instruction. The course of teaching at Metz is still mainly of a theoretical character, and the main portion of the practical training of the officers is deferred until they join their regiments. The Staff Corps is recruited entirely from the Staff School; a very small number of pupils from the Polytechnic have a claim to admission to the school, but the great majority of the students are admitted by competitive examination, open nominally to the sub-lieutenants of the army and to the best students of St. Cyr, but in practice almost entirely confined to the latter. The students join the school with commissions as officers; at the end of the two years' course they are definitely appointed to the Staff Corps in the order in which they stand in a competitive examination, but before being employed upon the staff they are sent to do duty for five years with the various

arms.

3. The military schools in France are not, as in England and in Prussia, placed under the control of a special department. They are all under the immediate management of the Minister of War. There is, however, for each branch of the service in the French army a consulting committee (comité consultatif), or board of general officers, attached to the War Department, for the purpose of giving advice to the Minister, and in matters affecting the individual schools the Minister generally consults the comité consultatif of that branch of the service for which the school is specially preparatory.

4. Each school has its own conseil d'instruction, composed of officers and professors of the establishment, which exercises a general supervision over the course of instruction, and has the power of suggesting alterations or improvements in it. The financial business of the school is managed by another board conseil d'administration); and there is generally also a similar board (conseil de discipline), which exercises more or less authority in questions of discipline. The effect of this arrangement is to give the various officers and professors of each school to some extent a voice in the general management of the institution. 5. The staff of officers and instructors employed appears, in most cases, very large in proportion to the number of the students; 48 for 270 in the Polytechnic; 33 for 170 in the school at Metz; 62 for 600 in St. Cyr, &c.

Though there is in all the schools a military staff separate from the staff of professors and instructors, and more especially charged with the maintenance of discipline, the line of separation between the two bodies is not, except at the Polytechnic, so distinctly drawn as in the English military schools. The military professors exercise disciplinary powers; while, on the other hand, the members of the strictly military staff in almost all cases take some part in instruction. The latter appear to be more utilized for this purpose than is the case either at Sandhurst or Woolwich.

6. Considerable care is exercised in the appointment of professors; at the Polytechnic the candidates are selected by the Conseil de Perfectionnement; at La Flèche they are recommended to the Minister of War by the Minister of Public Instruction; at the Staff School and St. Cyr the appointments are thrown open to compétition.

7. The discipline maintained at all the schools is of a very strict nature;

except for the youngest pupils at La Flèche it is entirely military; the punishments are similar to those inflicted in the army, and even include imprisonment. The maintenance of discipline is considerably facilitated by the fact that the pupils at most of the schools are actually subject to military law; and those of St. Cyr, if dismissed from the school, are sent into the ranks as private soldiers. There appears, however, in all the schools to be an absence of the moral control over the young men which is exercised in the Prussian schools. The Commandant of each school has very extensive powers in regard to discipline, but in no case has he authority to dismiss a student from the school without the sanction of the Minister of War.

8. The principle carried out in France is that special military education should not be begun until a comparatively late age, and should be founded upon a groundwork of good general education in civil schools. The only approach to a junior military school in France is that of La Flèche, and this is mainly a charitable institution; the pupils, it is true, learn drill, but beyond this no special military instruction is given them. The course of study is the same as that at the Lycées or ordinary civil schools, and the pupils are under no obligation to enter the military service. Nor can the Polytechnic be called an exclusively military school; even those who enter the Artillery and Engineers from it have their education in common with civilians at the very least until the age of 18, and in the great majority of cases their strictly professional instruction at Metz does not begin till 20 or 21. The very earliest age at which a special military education commences in France is 17, which is the age of admission to St. Cyr, and comparatively few enter the school before 18 or 19. The knowledge required for admission to St. Cyr is entirely such as is acquired at civil schools, and so much importance is attached to a good general education that the degree of either bachelier ès sciences or bachelier ès lettres is made a necessary qualification for admission to the examination, while the possession of both degrees gives considerable advantage to a candidate. The principle of deferring the commencement of special instruction has even received extension since 1856; the age of admission to St. Cyr, which was then 16, has been now increased to 17, and the junior school of La Flèche has been made even less military in its character than it was at that time.

9. When a professional education has once commenced, the principle appears to be that it should be almost entirely confined to subjects which have a practical bearing on military duties. Mathematics, as a subject by themselves, do not form part of the ordinary course of instruction at any of the special schools. The previous course at the Polytechnic secures of course very high mathematical attainments in the candidates for the Artillery and Engineers who enter Metz; but at Metz itself the study of mathematics is no longer continued. In the same way at the Staff School a knowledge of mathematics as far as trigonometry is required for admission, and their practical applications to operations of surveying, enter into the school course; but no part of the time spent at the school is devoted to mere theoretical instruction in pure mathematics; yet the officers of the Staff Corps are intrusted with the execution of those scientific surveys which in our service are in the hands of the Engineers.

St. Cyr offers to some extent an exception to the rule that the course of study at the special schools should be of an exclusively professional character, as the instruction given there during the first year is partly of a general nature,

embracing history and literature. This, however, arises from the fact that the students from the Lycées generally show a deficiency in the more literary subjects of a liberal education, and a portion of the time at the school is therefore spent in completing and improving their general acquirements. A knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, and plane trigonometry is required as a qualification for admission, but beyond a very beief revision of these subjects, and a voluntary course for condidates for the Staff Corps, mathematics are not taught at the school. It would seem indeed that, except in the case of candidates for admission to the Artillery and Engineers, mathematics do not hold so prominent a position in French military education as is generally supposed in England to be the case. For staff and regimental officers the main requisite demanded seems to be a practical knowledge of trigonometry as required for surveying.

10. Much time is devoted in all the French schools to drawing in its various branches; some hours daily are invariably given up to the subject; indeed the time spent upon purely geometrical drawing appears almost to be excessive. The great importance attached to the drawing of machinery is a peculiar feature in all the schools. Landscape drawing is one of the regular subjects taught to candidates both for the line and the Staff Corps.

The theoretical instruction given at every school is supplemented by visits to numerous military establishments, manufacturing departments, and fortresses. This is also a feature in the system of military education in Prussia; in both countries it seems to be thought desirable to afford young officers a practical insight into the working of the various establishments connected with the army. In the case of officers of the Artillery and Engineers it appears in France to be made a special object to cultivate a mechanical genius, and to secure a thorough acquaintance with manufacturing departments with which their professional duties bring them into contact.

Military law and administration (comprising financial and other regulations connected with the army), and drill, riding, and fencing in the way of practical exercises, form part of the education of officers of all branches of the service; in drill, lectures explanatory of the drill-book are invariably given in addition to the practical instruction.

11. The system of instruction in all the French military schools is more or less that of the Polytechnic. Lectures attended by large numbers, enforced study of fixed subjects, the execution of all work under close supervision of the instrutors, and frequent periodical examinations, are everywhere found. Active competition is the leading feature of the system; the students are perpetually being "kept up to the mark." A fixed period of two years is in all cases assigned to the course of study; the course can not be completed in a shorter time, and the regulated period can not (unless under quite exceptional circumstances) be exceeded.

It seems also to be thought that, as a necessary consequence of the strictly competitive system, the subjects upon which the competition depends should be exactly the same for every student. No choice of studies is allowed; those which enter into the examination are equally obligatory for all. The only exception to this rule is at St. Cyr, where in languages a choice between German and English is given.

No pecuniary rewards are offered to the students at any of the schools. The bestowal of the numerous bourses which are granted to those admitted to the

Polytechnic and St. Cyr is regulated entirely by the poverty of the candidates, without any regard to their ability.

12. The education of officers in France is entirely concluded before any regimental duty has been done. The French system is in this respect the exact opposite of that pursued in Prussia, where no professional instruction, as a rule, is given until a certain amount of service with the troops has been performed. There are in France no establishments for the instruction of officers of some years' service, like the Staff College in England, or the Artillery and Engineer School and the War Academy in Prussia.

13. The chief changes which have taken place in the military schools of France since the publication of the Report of the Commissioners of 1856 may be summarized as follows:----

(a.) The modifications in the course of instruction at the Polytechnic; the abridgement of the studies previously pursued; and the slightly increased importance now attached to literary subjects.

(b.) At Metz, the introduction of an examination at the end of the first years' course of study.

(c) At St. Cyr, the alteration of the age for admission to the school from 16 to 17; the extension of the subjects of the entrance examination; the modifications in the course of instruction, and the postponement of the commencement of strictly military studies almost entirely until the second year; the introduction of a stricter system of discipline, combined with additional encouragements to good conduct and industry; and the increased advantages offered with the view of attracting to the school a higher class of professors and officers. (d.) At La Flèche, the complete reorganization of the institution with the object of more closely assimilating its general arrangements to those of a purely civil school.

(e.) At the Staff School some modifications in the course of study and in the mode of admission to the school have been made; but the most important alterations are those adopted in July 1869, by which the number of students admitted annually to the school is increased considerably beyond the number of vacancies likely to occur in the Staff Corps, and the novel principle is introduced that admission to the school does not carry with it the certainty of permanent employment on the staff.

It may be added that there seems a tendency to diminish the importance of mathematics as an element of preparatory military education, and to attach slightly more weight to studies of a literary character. This is more particularly seen at St. Cyr and at La Flèche, and to a less extent at the Polytechnic. There is also a growing disposition to increase, in the case of the cavalry and infantry, the proportion of officers who have received a professional education.

*These sums include the pay of the officer students at these establishments, amounting to 288,000 frs. at Metz, and 103.000 frs. at the Staff School.

†The estimate for the Medical School appears to be exclusive of the pay of all military medical officers employed at the school, but the amount of this additional sum is not stated. For 1,520 pupils, who repaid 956,500 francs.