The preparation for this second, severer, and professional test that has just been described, is usually obtained in the division schools, of which an account will shortly follow, and to which any young man once accepted as a candidate, who has served his six months with the troops, and has passed his preliminary or ensign examination, may be admitted, even though a vacancy has not yet occurred, and he has not yet received his definitive promotion to the ensign’s grade.
[V. MILITARY SCHOOLS FOR PREPARING OFFICERS.]
[The Cadet Schools or Cadet Houses.]
The actual military education of Prussia commences with the cadet houses, the schools intended for pupils before entering the army. They are divided into two classes, the junior and the senior. They can not indeed be called exclusively military schools, since the education which most of their pupils receive is one which fits them for civil professions, and is not specially military; and there is no obligation even on those who have received the largest amount of pecuniary assistance to enter the military profession when they leave the cadet house. The highest class, however, of the Upper Cadet School of Berlin, called the Selecta, receives strictly military teaching for a year, and the schools may fairly come under this denomination, as being mainly intended to educate the sons of officers who are in want of assistance, and as possessing a military discipline, uniform, and spirit.
These are five in number, four preparatory schools, and one a finishing institution; the four first in the provinces, at Culm, Potsdam, Wahlstatt, and Bensberg, the last in the capital itself. At the four junior schools, boys may be admitted at 10 or 11, and may remain till 15; at the upper school the ordinary stay is from 15 or 16 to 18 or 19.
The whole constitute together a single body, called the cadet corps. Boys may enter the school at Berlin on passing an examination, without previously attending one of the lower schools; but those who are sent up by the authorities from Culm, Potsdam, Wahlstatt, and Bensberg, are received without examination, being already members of the corps. A single officer exercises the command of the whole; and a single commission, of which the general inspector is chairman, regulates all matters relating to the admission of candidates into the body.
The whole number at present is between 1,100 and 1,200, of whom 420 are in the Upper School at Berlin, 205 in the Preparatory School at Potsdam, and 200 at each of the other houses.
The cadets are of two kinds, the King’s cadets and the Pensioners or paying pupils; the former are 720 in number, the latter about 420. The pensioners pay 200 dollars (30l.) a year for board and instruction together; the King’s cadets are aided in various degrees accordingly to the following scale:—
| 240 pay 30 dollars (4l. 10s.) each. |
| 240 pay 60 dollars (9l.) each. |
| 240 pay 100 dollars (15l.) each. |