Intellectual quality is not the only respect in which there has been lately witnessed a change among the officers of the army. The Crimean War was followed by many promotions to the grade of officers from the ranks. Since then the average number of commissions given in this way seems to have been about twenty-five a year. Of this number 16 have gone to infantry, 4 to cavalry, and the remainder to other branches of the Service. These promotions, suitable as they are to the day of democracy, cannot of course affect sensibly the tone or the _personnel_ of the officers of the Queen's army, who will continue to be, as they have been, men born to the social advantages of gentle station. The social fusion and personal intimacy of men whose antecedents and interests differ, though their official rank be identical, is not likely ever to be more complete than between English and native officers in the Indian Staff Corps regiments; though the difficulty in the way of amalgamation proceeds probably less from the exclusiveness of the older officer than from the indisposition of the new to avail himself of the social opportunities placed technically at his disposal.[70] CHAPTER XXII FROM WOODEN WALLS TO FLOATING ENGINES Great reduction of the navy, as well as of the army, between the Napoleonic wars and the Queen's accession. But silently a reaction soon set in. First beginnings of new policy. Reform in the training of sailors in gunnery; later developments of naval education for officers and men; the existing course compared with the past. Successive stages in the replacement of sails by steam power. A navy transformed by Steam and Iron. Lessons of contemporary experience gradually applied to the English navy, especially those learnt from the American Civil War and the Austro-Italian War.