Has for its object the more advanced instruction of young Officers in a scientific and technical point of view, for service in the Artillery and Engineers.
Twenty Officers, of more than usual capacity, between twenty-one and twenty-six years of age, will be admitted from each of the two arms. They must be unmarried, and must have served with distinction during a period of not less than two years.
Officers in whose cases these conditions are satisfied, and who desire to be admitted to the course, apply for registration for admission to the examination, in the ordinary form, to the War Department.
Officers who, in the month of October, are summoned to attend, may charge their traveling expenses to the Treasury, and undergo an examination before the Professors attached to the Course, in the following subjects:—
1. Analytical Geometry and Higher Analytical Mathematics. 2. Mechanics and the Elements of the Study of Machinery. 3. Natural Philosophy and Chemistry. 4 Military Composition. 5. French. 6. Military Drawing, tested by the production of a Drawing of their own doing.
Candidates for the Artillery will be, moreover, examined in the Tactics of the three Arms, and in Artillery; and those from the Engineers, in the Art of Fortification and in Civil Architecture, both Plain and Ornamental.
The text-books used in the Academies of the Artillery and Engineers will serve as a measure for the range of attainment required. Pupils who passed with distinction through these Academies will thus be specially fitted for admission into the Higher Course after they have proved, during their time of service, their diligence in bringing the knowledge they have acquired into actual application.
On the close of this preliminary examination, the results will be submitted to the Supreme War Department, and the recommendations for admission laid before His Majesty.
A superior Field Officer, either of the Artillery or the Engineers, will be intrusted with the charge of the united course. The lectures will be given by the Professors of the Academy of the Artillery and Engineers. From the nature of the duties, partly common and partly distinct, which devolve upon the two corps, it follows that the course of the studies (which will be carried on during two years) will in like manner be partly common and partly separate.