The examinations of the first year are conducted by the usual Board, the Supreme Military Examinations Board; but for those of the second and of the third year, there is a separate board, chosen from the two services by the Curators, and otherwise unconnected with the School.
The numbers in the school vary from 216 to 240. In time of peace about five are yearly admitted for each regiment of artillery, and two or three for each division of engineers. The great majority have entered the army from the usual places of civil education, a few from the Prima of the Cadet House, on the same terms as the others, and a small number, who are usually among the best pupils in the school, from the Selecta, who come as officers, and after a short service with the troops, enter the second year’s classes, provided there is room, preference being always allowed to the students already belonging to the school, who have succeeded in passing the examination of the first year.
The Artillery and Engineers’ School buildings stand in Berlin itself, in the principal street, Unter den Linden, No. 74, near the Brandenburg Gate. They bear the following inscription: Artillerie und Ingenieur Schule. Stiftung Friedrich Wilhelms III. M.DCCC.XXII.
On the occasion of our visit to the school, we were allowed by the kindness of the authorities to be present at some of the lectures. The students of the second year were attending the course on the History of the Art of War, and the immediate subject was an account of and criticism on the battle of Blenheim. The young men, about forty-five in number, were ranged in desks facing the Professor, but not in the manner of an amphitheater. The lecture was interesting, animated, and generally instructive; it was perfectly professorial in character, and the young men took notes. A class of the students of the first year, thirty-five in number, were engaged in topographical drawing. The artillery division of the third year students were in another room, listening to and busily taking notes upon a lecture (also professorial) on the construction of gun-carriages: the number was about forty-five.
Only the students of the first year are lodged in the building; and owing to the unusually large number lately admitted, an adjoining house has been taken to afford additional room. The accommodation in general is rather limited. Two stories in the upper part of the building are occupied by the somewhat scantily furnished chambers; there appeared in some cases to be two young men in one room, in other cases four, or as many as six or seven to a bedroom and sitting-room. The students who lodge in the building dine together in a mess-room; and there is a billiard-room, with coffee-rooms adjoining it, for the general use, looking out from the ground floor front into the Unter den Linden. There is a library, a small laboratory attached to the lecture-room employed for the subjects of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy, and a small collection of apparatus required for illustration on the latter subject.
On quitting the school, the engineer students, as soon as they obtain their commissions, are employed for three years with a Division of Engineers; then for three years in a fortress to superintend buildings; and then again with a Division of Engineers. They are then eligible to promotion as first-lieutenants.
The artillery students, in like manner, join and serve with their regiments.
Promotion in the artillery is by regiments, in the engineers it is general throughout the whole corps.
We should not omit to call attention to the fact, that the only instance which has come to our knowledge of the promotion of officers in their own arm of the service, being made contingent on their passing an examination, is to be found in the Prussian Artillery and Engineers. First-Lieutenants belonging to those corps must pass an examination before they can be promoted to the rank of captain. This regulation does not exist for any other part of the Prussian service, and it is considered a great grievance by the officers of those corps, as it may be exacted at the age of forty, from the most highly educated officers of the Prussian army.
The pay of subaltern of engineers is somewhat higher than that of the artillery, infantry, and cavalry. Above the rank of subaltern, the pay of the artillery, cavalry, and engineers, is on an equality, but superior to that of the infantry. The engineers have, moreover, a prospect of employment of a civil nature when they return from active service; to lucrative positions of this kind they are not unfrequently appointed.