The first regulations promulgated remain in most of their essential features but little changed, notwithstanding the lapse of thirty-five years, and this is testimony in itself to the soundness of the system for which Marquis Yamagata was mainly responsible. All Japanese subjects on reaching the age of twenty were to be liable for three years’ active service in the army or the navy. The officers of the lower grades were to be chosen by the officers of the corps. Commissions were to be granted only after a course of instruction and rigid examination. After their three years’ term conscripts were to form a first reserve, assembling once a year for drill. On the expiration of two years in the first reserve they were to be placed in a second reserve, only liable to be called out in case of a levy _en masse_. The militia was to be formed of all males between the ages of seventeen and forty, who had been otherwise exempted from service, and these were to be formed into troops for district protection whenever a general levy might take place. The term in the first reserve has been extended far beyond that originally contemplated, but in practice the service in the first and second reserves is merely nominal, and in the militia or national army likewise, as the men are only called out once a year for manœuvres, save in case of war or emergency. The six provincial divisions, inclusive of the Imperial Guards, who were maintained at the capital, were stationed in the first place as under:— Headquarters Brigade Headquarters Regiment Quarters