The Military Direction consists of a director, a field officer connected with the direction as inspector, and an adjutant, who directs the accounts of the Institution.
The military director is supreme, both over the military officers who are members of direction, and of the military officers who are studying in the school. The police, the discipline, and all the administration of the Institution are under his control. All the subordinate officers in the house are under his orders. The field officer attached to him is charged to look carefully to the discipline and to the due attendance at the lectures. The adjutant directs the correspondence and accounts of the establishment. The whole of the staff and the military directors are lodged in the school.
The Direction of Studies is in the hands of three field officers of literary and scientific attainments, and of two other persons, civilians of Berlin, of high literary reputation. Its president is the senior officer, who is generally also the military director. It has also a secretary attached to it.
The Direction or Board of Studies is exclusively intrusted with the care of everything affecting the teaching of the Institution, and its members are bound to be frequently present at the lectures. It has also under its inspection all the means and objects required for teaching, such as the library, the collection of maps and models, the collections for physical science, and the laboratory.
The Director of Studies selects the professors of the Institution, recommends them to the superior authorities, and in case of their appointment gives them their instructions.
At the beginning of each course the direction fixes the plan of the lectures, and if any alterations in them are required, proposes them to the superior authorities for their sanction.
The Direction of Studies regulates the examinations which the officers who are candidates for admission into the school are to undergo. With this view it draws up a certain number of subjects and questions suited for the purpose, which it sends, in the spring of each year, to the chiefs of the staff of the different Corps d’Armée, in whose presence the candidates do their work. Those of the candidates whose work is satisfactory are entered at once in the school.
In order to take account of the progress of the students the board of studies makes them pass an examination in writing at the end of every three months; makes a revision of the judgment of the professors upon the papers, and conjointly with the military board of direction, gives certificates at the end of the triennial course to the officers who have gone through it completely. In these studies it is the part of the board of studies to give a judgment on the scientific merit, and that of the military board to judge the moral conduct of the officers.
The two boards make a report yearly on the progress and the conduct of the officers of the school. This report is submitted to the king by the minister of war. Particular mention is made of those officers who by extraordinary success have deserved his majesty’s favor.
II. SUBJECTS AND AIDS OF INSTRUCTION.