[MILITARY EDUCATION.]
The following account of the institutions for military education in England is abridged from an article in Blackwood’s Magazine for November, 1858:
There exist in this country three military seminaries—the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, where youths are educated for service in the Artillery and Engineers; the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, where cadets are prepared for the Infantry and Cavalry; and the Honorable East India Company’s Military School at Addiscombe, which educates simultaneously for the Artillery, Engineers, and Infantry services of the three Presidencies. Supplementary to these are the School of Practical Instruction at Chatham, where passed cadets from Woolwich and Addiscombe learn practical engineering; and the senior department at Sandhurst, supposed to be a Staff school, into which officers of infantry and cavalry are, under certain restrictions, admitted.
I. The Military Academy at Woolwich came into existence in the year 1741. It was created by George II., to supply a want under which the English army then suffered, by giving some instructions in matters connected with their respective arts to officers and men who served in the Artillery and in the Engineers. Its beginnings were of the humblest imaginable order. A single room in a house at Woolwich, where the Board of Ordnance used occasionally to assemble, was set apart by Government as a hall of study; and two masters were appointed to give lectures by rotation, during four consecutive hours, in three days of every week. At first only the officers of the single battalion composing the English Artillery and of the corps of Engineers were required to attend. By and by the room was thrown open to the non-commissioned officers and privates also, and eventually the cadets, of whom five were supposed to be on the strength of each company of Artillery, repaired thither in like manner. But the cadets being the sons of the officers of the corps, as they neither dressed in uniform, nor were under any military control, proved very difficult to manage; and the difficulty led to a great change as well in their condition as in that of the Academy itself.
In the year 1744 the cadets were, for the first time, clothed in uniform, and collected into a distinct company. Two officers, with a drum-major, undertook the management of them; and the arrangement worked, or was supposed to work, so satisfactorily, that by little and little, as the regiment enlarged itself, the numbers composing the Cadet Company were increased also. In 1782 they had grown from twenty to sixty; in 1798 to a hundred; after which steps were taken to lodge and board, as well as to educate and drill them, apart from the residences of their fathers. Hence, after trying for a while to accommodate some in a separate barrack, while others were billeted on private persons at a payment of 2s. a day per head, the pile which now attracts the attention of the passer-by on Woolwich Common was erected. And by the addition of a lieutenant-governor, and a whole host of officers and professors, it grew into the sort of establishment which is familiar to most of us. In 1806 the staff of officers and teachers appointed to the Cadet Company consisted of—
1. Lieutenant-Governor; 2. Inspector; 3. Professor of Mathematics; 4. Professor of Fortification; 5. Mathematical Master; 6. Arithmetical do.; 7. French do.; 8. Fortification do.; 9. Landscape-drawing do.; 10. Figure-drawing do.; 11. Second French do.; 12. Fencing do.; 13. Dancing do.; 14. First Modeller; 15. Second do.: 16. Clerk.
In 1829 the fencing and dancing masters were discontinued, and a chemical lecturer appointed. In 1836 three new masters were added; and in 1857 the staff stood thus:
Military.—A Governor; one Second Captain, commanding; one do. for Practical Class; four First-Lieutenants; one Quartermaster; one Staff-Sergeant; seven Drill-Sergeants; one Paymaster’s Clerk; one Assistant do.; Servants.
Civil or Educational.—A Chaplain; Inspector—a Lieut.-Colonel of Artillery; Assistant do.—Major, R.E.; Professor of Fortification—Lieut.-Col., R.E.; two Assistants—Second Captains; Professor of Mathematics; seven Mathematical Masters; Master of Descriptive Geometry; Master for Geometrical Drawing; Drawing-Master for Landscape; Second do.; Master for Military Plan-Drawing—Brevet-Major, R.A.; Instructor in Surveying and Field Works—Captain, R.E.; Assistant do.—Captain, R.A.; Instructor in Practical Artillery—Second Captain, R.A.; Assistant do.—Second Captain, R.A.; four French Masters; four German do.; Master for History and Geography; Lecturer in Chemistry; Assistant to do.; Lecturer in Geology and Mineralogy; Lecturer in Practical Mechanics, Machinery, and Metallurgy; Lecturer in Astronomy and Natural Philosophy; Clerk; First Assistant do.—a Sergeant; Second do.—Bombardier; one Drill-Sergeant—Practical Class; Modeller, Modelling Smith, Servants, &c.
Admittance to the Academy was, till very lately, obtained only on the nomination of the Master-General of the Ordnance. There was a preliminary examination, it is true; but this all except the dullest might calculate on passing, and the ages of entrance ranged between fourteen and sixteen. In 1835 the minimum age was raised to fifteen, the maximum to seventeen; while candidates were called up to compete for admission in the proportion of four youths for every three vacancies. The arrangement did not avail to produce any radical change in the spirit of the institution. The preliminary examination still proved to be a “pass,” and no more; and so it continued till those political views obtained the ascendant which abolished altogether the office of Master-General and Board of Ordnance, and gave us in their place a Secretary of State for the War Department.