There are some 40,000 men who join the army voluntarily for a term of two or three years, and who re-enlist and become non-commissioned officers, and if they remain twelve years they are entitled to $200 on leaving the service, and head the lists of candidates for the railway, postal, police, street-cleaning, and other civil services. Some 10,000 men who have passed a certain examination serve only one year and are entitled to certain privileges. Each man in the infantry serves 2 years in the active army, 5 years in the active reserve, 5 years in the first division of the Landwehr, 6 years in the second division of the Landwehr, and 6 years in the Landsturm. Colonel Gaedke calculates that Germany has now under arms not less than 714,000 soldiers and sailors, and that 4,800,000 can be put into the field if wanted out of the 6,000,000 who have done service with the colors. Out of this enormous total, practically none, according to the last census, is illiterate. Our American census of 1910 gives the number of men of militia age in New England as 1,458,900, and in the whole country 20,473,684. Promotion from the ranks, as we understand it, is practically unknown. The German officers pass through the ranks, it is true, as part of their education at the beginning of their military career, but those who do so join in the beginning as candidates for commissions, and have been provisionally accepted by the commander and officers of the regiment they propose to join, as must every candidate for a commission in the German army. If the candidate is not wanted, it is hinted to him that this is the case, and he must go elsewhere, as this decision is final. Every German regiment's officers' mess is thus in some sort a club. Officers are supplied from the cadet corps, and from those who join the ranks as candidates for commissions. All cadets must pass through a war-school before obtaining a commission. Of these there are 10 in Prussia, Wuertemberg, and Saxony, and 1 at Munich in Bavaria. They there receive their commissions as second lieutenants. There are 9 Prussian schools, the Hauptkadettenanstalt at Gross Lichterfelde, and 8 Kadetten-Haeuser; and 1 at Dresden and 1 at Munich. Some of these I have visited, and been made at home with the greatest courtesy and hospitality. These German cadet schools are to a great extent charitable institutions for the sons of officers and civilian officials. The charges range, as I have indicated above, from $200 a year to nothing at all.