[PLAN OF REORGANIZATION.]
The military schools are divided into two classes, viz.:—
(1.) Those which give a boy a general education, but prepare him at the same time for the military profession.
(2.) Those which educate boys only in military matters.
In the first class may be included (a) all those lower class institutions in which military orphans and sons of poor non-commissioned officers and commissioned officers are educated; (b) the middle (cadet) schools which prepare students for the military academies; (c) the military academies, viz, Wiener Neustadt, and the engineer and artillery academies. As pure military schools, may be mentioned the schools for non-commissioned officers in the infantry, engineer, artillery, and pioneer corps; the cadet and division schools in the infantry; the higher artillery and engineer courses.
(a.) The lower schools for the education of military orphans of a tender age have the same system as the common schools of the like class (Normal or Volks Schulen), where the moral qualities are to be chiefly inculcated on Christian principles; it is therefore necessary that children should not be taken from family influences earlier than can be helped. It will therefore only be necessary to take into these schools such children as are orphans, or sons of penniless parents, or at all events those whose families can not be induced to educate them at home even by pecuniary assistance. One school would be enough for such boys, in which the moral education would be the first object, as the necessary education required to prepare the scholars for the higher schools and regimental cadet schools may be obtained by their attending the public schools.
(b.) As regards the middle cadet schools, they should be abolished, as they do not agree at all with the above-mentioned principles. Boys are torn from home at much too tender an age, and are not brought up in the path of morality. Should a reform only of these schools be intended, this would be so expensive that the improvement gained would be dearly paid for.
As the army is not only to be composed of drilled soldiers, but also of generally well educated men, in order to improve their intellectual position and the spirit of the army, and to prevent the undue growth of drill and mere formalities, it is of great necessity that the military schools should be brought into harmonious concert with the civil schools. The deficiencies of the latter are less than those of the former, and it may be expected that they will soon be removed. In accordance with these considerations (and there are yet many more), it is much to be recommended that these two institutions should be abolished, not only as being right in principle, but also in agreement with the laws of national economy.
By the laying down of the system of education to be taught at the common middle schools, as a condition of being allowed to enter a military academy, in connection with the influences of the moral development of the family circle, up to the fifteenth year of a boy’s life, it is to be hoped that the general above-named principles will be attained; and when the poor officers are allowed the means to educate their boys aspiring for the military academies by granting them pecuniary allowances, it may be hoped that they will not only be contented, and will care for the moral education of their children, but that the State also will find in the system the best means of attaining its object.