It is not greatly to be wondered at if the work, which Great Britain has only partially accomplished, notwithstanding the greatness of its progress, should be only begun in the United States. The aptitude of a large mass of the inhabitants for arms, whether they be foreign or native-born, is marred by many things. There is the principle of equality intruding itself in military duty, confounding civil rights with the relations between superior and inferior--between officer and rank-and-file. There is the difficulty of getting men to follow officers who have no special fitness for their post. A soldier may be made in a year; a company officer cannot be made in three years. There are many officers in the American army of great theoretical and some practical knowledge; there are many in the British army lazy and indifferent;--but no one would think for a moment of comparing the acquirements, in a military sense, of the officers of the two nations. In the Crimean war, when our army was enlarged at a time that severe losses had much diminished the number of officers, we saw that our standard was considerably lowered by the precipitate infusion of new men. No wonder, then, that the United States had and has great difficulty in procuring officers of the least value for a levy of more than half-a-million of volunteers. But the system itself is a most formidable barrier to success. Under no circumstances can it reach a moderate degree of efficiency, unless the test of subsequent examination be rigidly enforced. There is no superiority of rank, of military knowledge, of personal character, of social position, to create an emulation in the mind of the private to be the obedient but daring equal of the officer in the time of danger. To such general remarks there are many and brilliant exceptions. In the course of time, the personal qualities and the reputation for bravery and skill of officers would stand in the Republican armies in lieu of those influences which move the British soldier. No one is foolish enough to think or say that the private follows his officer because the latter has paid so much money for his commission or has so much a year. The gradual rise from one rank to another is a guarantee of some military knowledge--at all events, of acquaintance with drill. Social position counts for much. Men who are equal before the law are very unequal in the drill-book. It would be lamentable to see so much faith in a cause, such devotion, zeal, boundless expenditure, and splendid material comparatively lost--to behold the petted Republic wasting away under this influence, and the _vis inertiæ_ of the force it has called into being, were it not that the spectacle is a lesson for the nations. It has not yet come to its end.