7. That a cavalry officer as he gets up to three to seven years’ service, though he requires little book learning, requires fairly wide practical knowledge, also considerable powers of imagination; without these, his abilities for training his men and for leading them in war are likely to be defective. 8. Also that the main point which he must regard in all his training is not only, “Is this a situation in which my command may find itself in war?” but also, “Is there any situation in war in which my command is not practised?” CHAPTER XVII THE TRAINING OF THE CAVALRY OFFICER (_continued_) ... “ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.” SHAKESPEARE. “War is a business and must be learned like any other profession.”--NAPOLEON. The attributes which a cavalry officer of the rank of squadron leader and upwards may to advantage possess are so many as to defy enumeration; some of them really possessed in perfection are so rare and valuable that _in war_ they may even counterbalance the fact that their owner is barely able to read or write. It was not without reason that Napoleon said of Ney: “When a man is as brave as he is, he is worth his weight in diamonds.” To cavalry officers of all others are the reflections of Von der Goltz applicable, when he says: “_Restless activity_ on the part of the general is the first condition of connected and rapid action in war”; and then he details the weakening of troops exposed to hardships, “exertion, and privations of all kinds, fatiguing marches, and wet nights in bivouac, cheerfully endured for a short time, but not for months together. They damp martial ardour considerably. A few privileged natures escape the effect of such conditions, but not so the mass of men.” To the officer it is well that it should be known that, as war goes on, he may expect to find himself weakening, but, as with any other disease, forewarned is forearmed. It is a duty to his country for a cavalry officer in peace-time to take such exercise in the available sports of hunting, pig-sticking, polo, big-game shooting, and other exercises as will keep muscles and lungs in condition and training, and his nerves in order. The cavalry officer, and for that matter the general and staff officer, who seldom gets on a horse in peace-time, will not suddenly change his nature in war; on the contrary, the enforced exercise will knock him up. Long days in the saddle, and nights spent on the outpost line with an insufficiency of food, the constant strain of vigilance will tell on most men, in fact in some degree on all men. But the officer who knows beforehand that he may expect his initiative, firmness, zeal, and love for action to evaporate somewhat after some months or even weeks of campaigning will be on the look-out. He will school his mind and countenance in cheerfulness and lightheartedness before his subordinates: