The system should contemplate the retention in the government service, in some constructive capacity, of every man once trained as an officer and capable of rendering service as such in case of war. It is wrong to expect such men to return to private life with a military string tied to them, and take up the complicated duties of a commercial career, with the family obligations that they ought to assume resting upon them, without providing for the contingencies that a call for an immediate return to active service would create. Every soldier trained as an officer should be retained in the government service, either civil or military, under conditions which would make it possible for him to establish a family and a home, and at the same time be certain that his family would suffer no privation if he were called to active service in the event of war. This is not the place to work out the details of such a plan, but it is entirely practicable. The details should be worked out by the War Department. If the people will provide a Reserve of enlisted men under civil control, doing the work of peace in time of peace, and ready for the work of war in time of war, it would be a confession of incompetence for the War Department to question their capacity to train officers for this reserve. Doubtless, however, some of the present regular army idols would have to be shattered. One of the most serious aspects of our unpreparedness for any military conflict lies in the _incompleteness_ of the present system. As the author of "The Valor of Ignorance" well says, we have no military system. We have no means of training an adequate number of officers or holding them in readiness for service during a long period of peace. Provision should be made immediately for the War Department to train these officers. The plan outlined would eliminate the element of weakness that would result from an effort to utilize for national defense officers having no training except that acquired in the State militia. In the plan advocated, every officer needed for an army of a million men in the field would be ready at any moment to step into the service and would have been trained in the work by the military machine of which he would by that act become a part.