Of what use, therefore, can military education be to my friend Charley Benson? He is one of the fortunate men of this world, who, having good interest, need not trouble his head with the why or the wherefore of this or that science. As aide-de-camp, his chief duties are to dress well, carve well, dance well, ride well, help to do the honors of his uncle’s house, and occasionally attend that relative to the review or inspection of a regiment. His training for the staff consisted in going through a couple of years’ regimental duty with his corps; and, although whilst there he learnt nothing which could be of the slightest advantage to him either as an aide-de-camp or a deputy quartermaster-general, he now finds himself quite on a par with his brother staff-officers as regards any knowledge of his duties. Nor is he altogether a bad specimen of the English staff-officer. There are some few holding such appointments who have in a certain degree qualified themselves for the post by a couple of years’ study at the senior department of the Military College at Sandhurst; but the certificates obtained by these gentlemen never got them on the staff. Their nominations were coincidences, and would have been equally certain had they no qualification whatever. In a work lately published by an officer of the English army, whose character and accomplishments guarantee the truth of what he asserts, the writer states: “I have reason to believe that from eighteen hundred and fifteen to eighteen hundred and fifty-four--a period of thirty-nine years--not one single appointment on the staff of the army has been made in consequence of the officer having graduated at Sandhurst.”[2] And further, the same author informs us that, according to the Army List for May last, twenty-five officers of the Guards hold staff appointments, of whom only five ever studied at Sandhurst, and not one of whom received a first-class certificate. [Footnote 2: Notes on Military Education. By Captain J. Morton Spearman, R.A. London, Parker, 1853.]