Royal Military Academy Woolwich

“ He considered that Woolwich should be reserved for the advanced stages of professional education, and that all general and elementary education should be previously acquired. He also instituted many valuable reforms in the system of education at the Royal Military Academy. ”

“ The opening of the Royal Military School at Woolwich to competition, on the basis of a more advanced age, and more thorough general education, has not only drawn in pupils of higher average ability and attainments, but has enabled the authorities to extend 795 the course of instruction. ”

“ Those who pass through the series in good standing are promoted to a commission; the most distinguished to the engineer corps, and the others to the artillery. The appointment of these young officers gives rise to an interesting ceremony. The Duke of Cambridge, with a numerous staff, visits Woolwich Academy twice a year. All the cadets are present in review in front of the monument. It is pleasing to see how admirably they go through the manœuvres. The duke then enters a hall where a viva voce examination takes place on the art of fortification. ”

“ The appointment of a civilian as a member of the central Board of Military Education had been recommended by the Commissioners of 1856, on the ground of the close connection between military and civil educational questions. The decision to carry out this recommendation, simultaneously with an augmentation in the strength of the Council, appears to have been connected with the determination arrived at, to place the superintendence of the Academy at Woolwich—the competitive examinations for admission to which had hitherto been conducted by Canon Moseley—in the hands of the Council. ”

“ After the abandonment of the scheme for the amalgamation of Woolwich and Sandhurst, the Council of Military Education turned their attention to the subject of enlarging the latter establishment, with the view of making it a general military college, through which all candidates for commissions in any branch of the service, except the Artillery and Engineers, should be required to pass. ”

“ In being here I confess I think your lines are cast in pleasant places, and it is well that it should be so, for to judge from my own experience when going through a course of training at Woolwich, it may be possible that in future years you will re-visit this scene of your early labours. It is often the case that after some years' service, students of the military art find that owing to the constant progress made in military science, they have fallen a little behind, have perhaps become a little rusty, and have to go back for a time to drill. ”

“ As regards education, the cadets, in my opinion, have too many subjects imposed upon them during their two years' residence at Woolwich. In addition to following up their previous studies in mathematics, French, and German, they have to learn artillery, fortification, military surveying, landscape drawing, chemistry, military history, riding, gymnastics, and drills of all kinds. ”

“ The corps of professors and teachers at West Point has always deservedly ranked high as instructors, but there is no "royal road" to knowledge, and it cannot be claimed that three or four years at the Military Academy would count for more, as general education, than the same period spent in any other good school. A very few men of high standing in the classes supplemented their education by obtaining appointments as temporary instructors in the academy after graduating, but most of them left their books behind them and began at once the subaltern's life at the distant frontier post. ”

“ A Military Academy was formed, principally with a view to bring forward extraordinary talents and employ them in the civil or military public service. Anyone was admissible. The children of the meanest mechanics and day-labourers, provided they had very extraordinary natural genius, a healthy constitution, and a good character, were educated. It was an establishment designed for the encouragement of genius, and for calling forth into public utility talents which would otherwise remain buried and lost in obscurity. ”

“ A better knowledge of the exact sciences has been carried into the colleges; the railroads and canals have been built by engineers ready furnished by the government; and now when half a million of men have been suddenly called to war, they have been largely officered by the graduates of West Point. Here we may briefly allude to the most grave fact which has been urged against the Military Academy. The best officers of the rebel army were educated there. ”

“ We are inclined to believe that the usefulness of the Military Academy at West Point,—which has furnished so large a proportion of the best civil engineers, lawyers, physicians, and divines, as well as the soldiers who and who alone have conducted our armies to real glory,—we are inclined to believe that this justly celebrated school owes all its triumphs to its rigid laws and independence of popular clamor.
Discipline is every thing. ”

“ The School of Gunnery at Shoeburyness gives instruction in gunnery to officers and men, and conducts all experiments connected with artillery and stores. The sands at the mouth of the Thames afford ample opportunity for artillery practice and firing at long ranges. The Royal Artillery Institution at Woolwich contains a museum, lecture-room, and printing-press, from which professional and scientific papers are periodically issued. ”

“ The War Academy has for its object the higher scientific and practical education of officers, in every branch of the military profession, on the staff, as also of the higher adjutants. It aims also at the development of all military scientific subjects.
The War Academy has three courses, each lasting nine months, and the intervals are employed in practical exercises.
The number of students in one course must, as a rule, not exceed twelve, and every upper or sub-lieutenant who has served not less than four years with the troops, can attend the academy. ”

“ The bravest function of the Prince's visit was in this college, where he presented colours to the cadets and saw them drill. The discipline of these boys on parade is worthy of Sandhurst, Woolwich or West Point, and their physique is equal to, if not better, than any shown at those places. It is not exactly a military school, though the training is military, for though some of the cadets join Imperial or Canadian forces, and all serve for a time in the Canadian Militia, practically all the boys join professions or go into commerce after passing through. ”

“ Now, lads may linger on at Woolwich four, and even five years, gaining this remarkable advantage from their stupidity, that when forced to compete at last for choice between Artillery and Engineers, they compete with youths who may have had but two years’ training. And at Sandhurst, the course which nominally covers four years, may, if the youth have interest at headquarters, be completed, as far as his appointment to a commission completes it, in four months. ”

“ But there were more pleasing subjects of correspondence between Woolwich and the out-stations than recruiting or promotion. There was a genuine desire springing up in the hearts of the more thoughtful officers for a more scientific training, a desire which was daily acquiring strength, and whose mere existence ensured success; for those who sought it for others, endeavoured by their own exertions to secure it for themselves. ”

“ Secretary Root discovered that one-third of Regular Army officers possessed no formal military education, and he believed that the Military Academy and the schools of application were inadequate to equip officers to handle the new responsibilities attendant to the growing world prominence of the United States. Nevertheless, he valued the Military Academy as the initial training ground for the Army's officers and launched a successful campaign to increase the cadet corps, modernize the academy's curriculum, and improve its physical plant. ”

“ The General Military Academy in Bucharest—usually called the Military Academy—is a four-year university-level school whose graduates receive regular officer commissions and who are expected to serve as career officers. It also offers mid-career command and staff types of courses. An advanced academy, the Military Technical Academy, requires that its applicants have a university degree; they may be military officers, but they are not required to have had military service or military education of any sort. ”

“ From his experience in the War of 1812 and service on Indian campaigns, General Andrew Jackson while President of the United States in a message to Congress said:
“I recommend to your fostering care, as one of our safest means of national defense, the Military Academy. This institution has already exercised the happiest influence upon the moral and intellectual character of our Army; and such of the graduates from various causes may not pursue the profession of arms will be scarcely less useful as citizens. ”

“ I am far from desiring to see this country destitute of a Military Academy; but I would have it a school of practice, and instruction, for officers actually in the service of the United States; not an institution for educating, gratuitously, young gentlemen, who, on the completion of their term, or after a few months’ leave of absence, resign their commissions, and return to the pursuits of civil life. ”

“ But of the ninety-six, forty are preparing for the Engineers or Artillery, and twenty for the Line. The subjects taught in the military division are the same as at Cheltenham, except fortification; and the head-master (Rev. Dr. Benson) claims, in his evidence before the Commission, that his graduates are as well trained in the same subject as the pupils of Sandhurst or Woolwich. He advises the establishment of exhibitions in the Military School, open to competition to the pupils of all the public schools, and regards the modern side as an essential feature in all public schools. ”

“ Candidates, who have shown the necessary efficiency to entitle them to be appointed officers, are named candidates, first class, for the commission of officer, or, in consequence of the diminished number of officers in the active army, are promoted to be sublieutenants.
Only those candidates for the commission of officer, who have received the certificate “especially qualified” in the above final examination of the military scientific course, can present themselves for admission into the War Academy. ”

“ Officers who, on the decision of the Examination Commission, have during the three courses of the War Academy displayed zeal, talent, and application, will, on leaving the academy, have their names sent in to the King for especial notice.
Each of the military schools has its own commandant. The Cadet Corps is commanded by a First Lieutenant of Infantry, the War School by a Major of the Quartermaster-General’s Staff, the Artillery and Engineer School by a Major of the Engineer Staff, and the War Academy by a Colonel of the General Staff, to whom an Adjutant is attached. ”

“ To this want of preparatory knowledge, maturity of mind, and taste for mathematical and military studies, do we attribute most of the difficulties of internal administration, and class-room instruction. So long as the cadet is a boy, or if full grown in body, a youth with only boyish tastes, and without scholarly and soldierly aspirations,—so long as not a few are in the Academy, not because they sought its privileges from an inward and irrepressible impulse to a military career, but for the eclat of a military position to be resigned when such position involves sacrifices ”

“ The few 728 who now remain have seen more than half a century’s service in useful employments. Perhaps it should be mentioned to the advantage of the Military Academy, as a school of physical education, that at the end of half a century, twenty of its pupils out of eighty-nine, should be yet alive. ”

“ There are periodical examinations at the end of every half-year, the second of which, by its results, determines whether the young man shall be allowed to go on to a commission, or be removed from the Academy.
The moral tone of this military college has never, we regret to say, been of a very high order. Excellent men have been at the head of it, and the ability of the professors and teachers appointed to instruct admits of no question. Yet few right-minded officers look back upon the years spent in the cadet barracks except with disgust. ”

“ Military service at home in time of peace is naturally of a less interesting character than travels and occasional expeditions in distant lands; and the training of young soldiers at Woolwich, which fell to my lot for some time after my return to England, did not present incidents of a striking character. At one period, I remember, there was a considerable dearth of recruits, especially of drivers for the horse artillery, partially due to the frequent changes in war office regulations as to the height and dimensions of the men enlisted. ”