This anecdote, which has many resemblances in ancient history, is of great moment in directing the understanding to the consideration of military institution. It leaves no doubt of the necessity of knowing the art of war as it is practised by other nations, and especially the importance of practising that which has proved superior to all others. A fatality has attended all the efforts which have been made for several years to introduce a suitable organization of the militia, and a correct military system. The genius of ignorance appears to have cast a spell over all the attempts that have been made. Like the projector who was so much occupied by the erection of a _weathercock_, that he set about it before the foundation for the steeple was laid, every attempt has been made at the wrong end; a part has been mistaken for a whole, composed of numerous parts, and the wrong part has always been chosen first. America, which has been so original in the revolution as to give rise to the institution of rifle corps, which have decided seven-eighths of the battles that have been fought in Europe since; has been led to resort constantly to the very system of which America proved the futility, for precepts and examples; instead of profiting by the march of science, we have gone for instruction to the worst military institutions of Europe. When any person intrusted with the military concerns of the U. States wants information, it is to authorities exploded and condemned by men of military knowlege, reference is made. A minister of England in addressing that nation in 1806, at the very moment when it was announced to that nation that the _bellum ad internicionem_ had only then begun..... that “the war was now at the foot of her walls,” had the honesty, which times of danger extracts even from ministers, to declare.... “_The military system of England was equally in want of repairs, or rather a thorough rebuilding, even to its foundation stone._” There is no truth more certain, yet it is to this tattered and defenceless fabric we resort for models on every occasion. The bill for establishing a _quarter-master general’s department_, which was before congress in 1809-10, is a scion of this decayed tree; no doubt that as long as the present apology for a system exists, the proposed department may serve, as a crutch is of use to a body stricken with paralysis.