Military schools and courses of instruction in the science and art of war,: in France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Sardinia, England, and the United States. Drawn from recent official reports and documents. Revised Edition
History
Military schools and courses of instruction in the science and art of war,: in France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Sardinia, England, and the United States. Drawn from recent official reports and documents. Revised Edition
Military education
The students are summoned to rise at half-past five, have to answer the
roll-call at six, from six to eight are to occupy themselves in study,
and at eight they go to breakfast. On any morning except Wednesday, at
half-past eight, we should find the whole of the new admission assembled
in an amphitheater, permanent seats in which are assigned to them by
lot, and thus placed they receive a lecture from a professor, rough
notes of which they are expected to take while it goes on. The first
half hour of the hour and a half assigned to each lecture is occupied
with questions put by the professor relating to the previous lecture.
A name is drawn by lot, the student on whom the lot falls is called up
to the blackboard at which the professor stands, and is required to work
a problem and answer questions. The lecture concluded, the pupils are
conducted to the _salles d’étude_, which have just been described, where
they are to study. Here for one hour they devote themselves to
completing and writing out in full the notes of the lecture they have
just heard. The professor and his assistants, the _répétiteurs_, are
expected to follow and make a circuit through the corridors, to give an
opportunity to ask for information on any difficult points in the
lecture. A lithographed summary of the substance of the lecture,
extending perhaps to two octavo pages, is also furnished to each
studying room for the use of its pupils.
The lecture, as we have said, commences at half-past eight o’clock; it
lasts an hour and a half; the hour of writing up the notes brings us to
eleven. The young men are now relieved by a change of occupation, and
employ themselves (still in their places in the rooms of study) at
drawing. A certain number, detached from the rest, are sent to the
physical and chemical laboratories. The rotation is such as to admit
each student once a month to two or three hours’ work at a furnace for
chemistry, and once in two months to make experiments in electricity, or
other similar subjects. In this way, either at their drawing or in the
laboratories, they spend three hours, and at two o’clock go to their
dinner in the refectories below, and after dinner are free to amuse
themselves in the court-yard, the library, the fencing and the billiard
rooms, till five. At five they return to the studying rooms, and for two
hours, on Mondays and Fridays, they may employ themselves on any work
they please (_étude libre_;) on Tuesday there is a lecture in French
literature, and on Thursday in German; at seven o’clock they commence a
lesson, which lasts till nine, in landscape and figure drawing, or they
do exercises in French writing or in German; at nine they go down to
supper; at half-past nine they have to answer to a roll-call in their
bedrooms, and at ten all the lights are put out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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