Their relative places on leaving the school are assigned to them, as we were assured, very carefully, and, after much consultation in every case among the professors; but this is not done by marks, nor by any minute system of testing intellectual qualifications, but an estimate is formed upon the whole work of the two years, both on the studies in the school and the practice in the field,—of the student’s comparative fitness, as an officer, for the work of the staff. “We try to estimate the whole man,” was the expression used to us, “whether he will make a good Colonnen-führer” (a good man to direct a regiment on a march,) as was said elsewhere. This general estimate was preferred to that of marks, on the ground that the latter might give too much weight to the more appreciable, i.e., simply intellectual qualities.
The students do not at present live within the establishment, but are to do so when the new ones, building, are ready. They begin their lectures at half-past seven and end at one or three o’clock on alternate days, going to the riding-school in the afternoon on the days when their morning’s work ends at one. Thirty horses are kept for their use.
[The subjects of instruction] during the first year consist of—
1. Military Drawing and the Study of Ground and Positions.
2. Higher Tactics.
3. Staff Duties.
4. French Language and Literature.
5. Riding.
And those of the second year are as follows:—
1. Military Drawing, and the Study of Ground and Positions.