1. The examination for the Swordknot is again placed after admission into the corps, but no one can be admitted to attend the division schools without a testimonial of fitness for the rank of Swordknot ensign.
2. A testimonial of fitness for the university, i.e., to have passed the abiturient examination, dispenses with the examination for the Swordknot. In consequence of this rule fifty abiturients on an average annually enter the army. These, as well as the selectaner of the cadet corps, must be considered, in point of scientific education, an excellent supply of officers. From the powerful impulse that military instruction has received in the last fifty years, it may be expected that the time is not distant when the candidate for an officer’s commission, instead of passing the Swordknot examination, will have to bring the finished training of the gymnasium; in other words, to have passed the abiturient examination.
3. Instead of the seventeen division schools there are now by the regulation of 1844, only nine, and a further reduction of their number to four or three is contemplated, with an improvement of the staff of teachers and a stricter supervision of the scholars.
[III. SYSTEM OF MILITARY EDUCATION AND PROMOTION.]
The standing army composed in the manner and under the circumstances already described, is supplied with officers who must have a good general education, and have served in the ranks, or have obtained a certain amount of professional instruction. The usual course is as follows:—
[Young men obtain a nomination] from the colonel of a regiment. This nomination admits them merely to service in the regiment as privates, with a recognition of their being candidates, aspiranten or aspirants, for the rank of officer. Before they obtain that rank, the following conditions must be fulfilled. They must pass an examination in the common subjects of a good general education, such as the sons of well-born or wealthy civilians may be supposed to receive. They must serve six or nine months with the troops; they must attend nine months at a division school, or twelve months in the artillery and engineer school, where they receive a course of special military instruction; and they must pass an examination in professional subjects before a board sitting at Berlin. They are then eligible for a vacancy. In order to obtain a commission they require further the recommendation of the officers of the regiment.
It is obvious to remark, that in obtaining a commission in the Prussian service the candidate’s chance depends greatly on the recommendation of the colonel and the after assent of the officers. The effect of this is to maintain an exclusive character in the army. Above two-thirds of the commissions are obtained by the course described above; the remainder are granted to those who pass through the cadet schools.
Of these there are five altogether, four junior establishments, situated in certain provincial towns, and one senior or upper school at Berlin, to which the others are merely preparatory. They are all supported by the state; mainly for the purpose of educating the children of meritorious officers in want of assistance; but they are also open to others. With the exception of the highest class of the upper school, the Selecta above mentioned, the instruction given is of a perfectly general character, and there is no obligation even for those who have received the most ample pecuniary assistance to enter the military profession. The discipline, however, is military, the teachers are mostly officers, the pupils are regularly drilled, and most of them actually go into the army. This they do in ordinary cases without going through the highest or select class in which professional instruction is given; they merely pass the same preliminary examination as the candidates nominated by the colonels of regiments; they enter the army without their commissions, and have to obtain them in the same manner as the other candidates, by serving six or nine months with the troops, and by following their professional studies in the division or artillery and engineer schools, and by passing the officers’ or second examination before the examining board at Berlin. Those who do remain to go through the highest or select class receive their professional instruction in it instead of in the division or artillery and engineer schools, and they are examined for their commissions by the board while still at the cadet school.
Thus, in the course usually followed, three requisites are exacted in Prussia before a commission is given; first, a good general education; secondly, some actual military service; and, thirdly, professional knowledge gained by something like a year of military study. But the military service is not required from the upper thirty students of the Selecta of the Cadet House.
It will be well to mention, at the commencement, the names of the two examinations. The first, the preliminary examination, merely testing the general education, admits to a particular grade among non-commissioned officers; those holding it rank between sergeants and corporals, and in consideration of their being candidates (aspiranten) for a commission wear a different sword-knot, and hence have the name of Swordknot ensign or Portepée-fähnrich. The first or preliminary examination is accordingly called the Portepée-fähnrich examination. The second, the professional one, is the officers’ examination, for the commission of second lieutenant.