Makers of JapanMorris, J. (John) (Writer on Japan)
History
Makers of Japan
Morris, J. (John) (Writer on Japan)
Japan -- Biography
The Military College stands on a wide plateau in Tokio, at Ichigaya,
where there is excellent air, and abundance of space. The students are
divided into three companies each under the command of a captain of
infantry. Each company is in six sections, of twenty-five to thirty
students each, a lieutenant of infantry in charge of each section. The
studies prescribed are the same for all arms—viz. Tactics, Artillery,
Science, Fortification, Topography, Military administration, Field
hygiene and farriery, Foreign languages, Surveying, and Practical
work. For exercise the students have drill (distinct for each arm),
gymnastics, fencing, sabre exercise, riding, and shooting. Study and
exercise together keep the youths at work the whole day, save for
half-an-hour after supper, when they unbend. The school year begins on
the 1st of December, to agree with conscription arrangements, and the
first examination is in April or May, the second in September or October.
At the end of October there are annual manœuvres, and the graduation
ceremony is in November, when the Emperor makes a point of being present.
There is a Military staff college, designed to give further instruction
in the higher branches of military science to junior officers of promise.
Its students are lieutenants and sub-lieutenants of all arms who have
been at least two years with their regiments or battalions, and whose
physical health, intellectual qualifications, morals, diligence, and
general conduct have shown them to be suitable recipients of the higher
training. Here the course is for three years, and for about ten weeks the
students are with regiments different from their own arm, participating
in the annual manœuvres. Graduates receive diplomas, and a badge which
they wear like a medal, and one year after graduation they are eligible
for staff appointments, instructorships, and other more or less coveted
posts. Artillery and Engineer Lieutenants are eligible for the College
of Artillery and Engineering, wherein special instruction is given on
subjects required in these two arms, the course including strategy,
equitation, mathematics, chemistry, drawing, and foreign languages. At
the gunnery school for fortress artillery, and for field artillery,
practical instruction is given for periods of two or three months to
students who comprise captains and lieutenants from each of the field
artillery regiments, or of fortress artillery, or they are lieutenants or
sub-lieutenants who have just graduated from the College. At the cavalry
training school the course lasts eleven months, and includes practical
testing of all sorts of riding material and harness. It may, in fact, be
claimed that the system of military instruction in the army of Japan is
as complete as that of the armies of Europe, but the government still
sends annually some dozens of promising young officers abroad to perfect
themselves in their studies in the Occident.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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