EXPENDITURES.
The expenditures of the government, on account of the Military College, were as follows: for 1858-9, £27,969; for 1863-4, £39,690; for 1866-7, £36,416, exclusive of payments made by the cadets or by the Indian government, which, in 1866-67 was £4,237.
[ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY AT WOOLWICH.]
[HISTORICAL NOTICE.]
The Military Academy at Woolwich was instituted by George II. in 1741, to give instruction to officers who served in the Artillery and Engineers. It began in a small room in a building at Woolwich, where the Board of Ordnance used occasionally to assemble, under the instruction of two masters, who lectured by rotation during four consecutive hours in three days of every week. At first only the officers of the single battalion composing the Artillery, and of the corps of Engineers, were required to attend. In the second year non-commissioned officers, and privates too, were at liberty to attend, and upon its close cadets, to the number of five to each company of artillery, resorted to the hall. Being sons of officers of the corps, and not in uniform or under military control, the cadets became an element of disorder, which led to a more systematic organization. In 1744, the cadets were clothed in uniform, and collected into a distinct company, under two officers, with a drum-major. By 1782, the number of cadets had increased from twenty to sixty, and in 1798, to one hundred,—boarding with their families. In the last year arrangements were made to lodge and board the cadets by allowing 2s. a day per head, until by degrees, in 1857, an imposing pile of buildings had been erected, and the establishment for government and instruction consisted of 18 officers on the military staff, and some fifty professors and masters in the civil and educational corps.
[REGULATIONS FOR ADMISSION.]
Previously to the year 1855 admission to the Royal Military Academy could only be obtained by a nomination from the Master-General of the Ordnance. The limits of age for admission were at that time from 14 to 16, and the candidates nominated were required to pass an entrance examination before the professors of the Academy, which varied somewhat according to the age of the individual. A certain number of the candidates previously passed though the preparatory school at Carshalton, admission to which was equally obtained by nomination from the Master-General of the Ordnance, and were transferred to the Academy on passing an examination similar to that required from those who entered the latter establishment direct. The term of residence at the Academy varied, according to the progress of a cadet, from two to four years.
The inability of the Academy to meet the demand for officers for the Artillery and Engineers created by the Crimean war, led to the introduction of a new system of obtaining commissions in the scientific corps. At first a limited number of nominations were placed in the hands of the head masters of the great public schools of the country, and the candidates nominated by them were appointed to provisional commissions on passing an examination at Woolwich; but after a short time the principle of open competition for admission to the Artillery and Engineers was adopted, in 1855, by Lord Panmure, when Secretary of State for War. Simultaneously with this change—the first recognition of the competitive principle in regard to military education in this country—a great alteration was made in the limits of age for admission to the scientific corps. Both direct appointments to commissions in the Artillery and Engineers, without any previous special instruction, and admissions to the senior or practical class at the Academy, without passing through the lower or theoretical classes at that institution, were thrown open to public competition among all natural-born subjects of Her Majesty. The limits of age for candidates for the direct appointments were from 19 to 21. Those who were successful were in the first instance to receive provisional commissions, and to be placed for instruction under the Director of Artillery Studies, at Woolwich, for a period of about six months, at the end of which they were to be permanently commissioned. Candidates for admission to the practical class at the Academy were required to be between the ages of 17 and 19; those admitted were to remain in the practical class for six or eight months, after which, on passing an examination, they were to receive commissions in the Artillery or Engineers. The first competitive examination under this system (the regulations for which will be found below) was held in August, 1855, and was conducted by a body of examiners specially appointed for the purpose, under the direction of Canon Moseley. The examination for both classes of appointments thrown open to competition was the same, and was based on the general education of the country, the object being merely to compare the abilities and attainments of the candidates without reference to special professional knowledge. Two other similar examinations, both for provisional commissions and for admission to the practical class, were held in January and June, 1856, the only difference being that the limits of age of the candidates were somewhat extended, and that in these later examinations no commissions in the Engineers were offered to competition.
On the conclusion of the Crimean war, however, the system of appointing officers directly from civil life to commissions in the scientific corps, as well as that of admitting candidates to the practical class at the Academy, which had been adopted to meet the pressure of the war, came to an end. No other examination after that in June, 1856, was held for a year; but in June, 1857, the first competitive examination for admission to the ordinary course of instruction at the Academy took place. The limits of age for admission were fixed at 17 to 20, and it was announced that the successful candidates would remain under instruction at the Academy “until sufficiently advanced in scientific knowledge to pass a satisfactory examination.”