PLAN OF LECTURES AT THE DIVISION SCHOOL IN POTSDAM, 1855-6.
| Hours. | Monday. | Tuesday. | Wednesday. | Thursday | Friday. | Saturday. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8– 9 9–10 | Fortification. | Military Literature. | Tactics. | Fortification. | Artillery | Tactics. |
| 10–11 | Instruction on Military duties. | Artillery, &c. | Plan drawing. | Military Surveying(theoretically.) | Plan drawing. | Military Surveying(theoretically.) |
| 11–12 | Plan drawing. | |||||
| 12– 1 | ||||||
| 12½–2½ | Gymnastics. | Riding. | Fencing. |
Dinner time, 3 o’clock. Time for studying, from 6 till 8 o’clock, or from 7 till 9 o’clock every evening.
The lecturer has to draw up what is called the thread of the lecture (leitfaden,) a sort of programme containing its leading heads, intended to assist the memory of the pupils in giving a full account of it afterwards; and the contents of the different lectures on Tactics, Arms and Munitions, Fortifications, &c., are written out very minutely by the students. Ten pages of close print are devoted to these programmes in Helldorf; and the translation already given (pp. 188-194) will show that the list of military subjects adverted to is considerable.
At the end of the nine months spent at the Division School, the “Officier Aspiranten” go to Berlin for the examination for their commission. If they can not pass this, they return to study by themselves for their second trial. Unless by special permission from the King, they can not try more than twice.
The examination is conducted by the Supreme Commission for Examinations at Berlin, and has been already described.
The Division Schools were founded at the end of the great War. Their germ appears in Scharnhorst’s general order in 1810, which, among other things, instituted three War Schools for the candidate for commissions (Portepée-fähnriche.) These three War Schools seem to have been changed into the Division Schools in 1813 and 1816. At first, indeed, they were much more numerous than at present, as their name implies, there being two Divisions to each Army-Corps. There are now, as we have mentioned, nine; and Corps School or Army-Corps School would be the more correct designation.
Their importance as the institutions for special military instruction to all “Officier-Aspiranten” of the army led us to inquire carefully with regard to their efficiency, and in particular from two distinguished officers, on whose judgment and scientific experience great reliance might be placed. One of these, it may be added, possessed constant means of knowing all the details respecting them.
I. Formerly, it appears, it was not possible to limit these schools to their true object, purely military instruction. This was the special object of their creation; but owing to the defective general education which candidates often brought with them into the army, the Division Schools were too much used as a means of meeting this deficiency.