The commission, when visiting the school, was conducted on leaving the apartments of the commandant to the nearest of the two refectories. It was after one o’clock, and the long room was in the full possession of the whole first or junior division. A crowd of active and spirited-looking young soldiers, four hundred at least in number, were ranged at two long rows of small tables, each large enough, perhaps, for twelve; while in the narrow passage extending up and down the room, between the two rows, stood the officers on duty for the maintenance of order. On passing back to the corridor, the stream of the second year cadets was issuing from their opposite refectory. In the adjoining buttery, the loaf was produced, one kilogramme in weight, which constitutes the daily allowance. It is divided into four parts, eaten at breakfast, dinner, the afternoon lunch or _gouter_, and the supper. The daily cost of each pupil’s food is estimated at 1f. 80c. The lecture rooms and museums offer nothing for special remark. In the library containing 12,000 books and a fine collection of maps, there were a few of the young men, who are admitted during one hour every day. The _salles d’étude_ on the first floor are, in contrast to those at the Polytechnic, large rooms, containing, under the present circumstances of the school, no less than two hundred young men. There are, in all, four such rooms, furnished with rows of desks on each side and overlooked in time of study by an officer posted in each to preserve order, and, so far as possible, prevent any idleness. From these another staircase conducts to the dormitories, containing one hundred each, and named after the battles of the present war--Alma, Inkerman, Balaclava, Bomarsund. They were much in the style of those in ordinary barracks, occupied by rows of small iron beds, each with a shelf over it, and a box at the side. The young men make their own beds, clean their own boots, and sweep out the dormitories themselves. Their clothing, some portions of which we here had the opportunity of noticing, is that of the common soldier, the cloth being merely a little finer. Above these ordinary dormitories are the attics, now applied to the use of the additional three hundred whom the school has latterly received.