[6] The drill-books and regulations for field service embody an official theory, and it is, of course, indispensable that they should. But these books are not prepared under the responsibility of the general staff. The usual practice is to appoint a committee composed of a number of combatant officers of all ranks,--a general commanding an army corps, commanders of divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions. They will, as a rule, have had the general staff training, but it is as experienced commanders that their judgment is asked. They prepare a draft code of regulations, which is first issued experimentally, and only adopted after full criticism and revision. [7] The précis given in the text needs only the alteration of two words to bring it perfectly up to date. For "a mile" substitute "two miles," and for a "line two deep" substitute "line in single rank"="line of skirmishers." For a recent and interesting but heterodox discussion of tactical questions the reader may be referred to _Ein Sommernachtstraum_ (_Midsummer Night's Dream_), which is by a well-known officer, long a member of the general staff. [8] Verdy's practice is to use the history of a campaign real or imaginary as a series of problems set to the student. This is called in Germany "the applicatory method," and its introduction is ascribed to General von Peucker, who was Director of Military Education in Prussia from 1854 to 1872. [9] Von der Goltz's papers on Rossbach and Jena appeared in 1882. CHAPTER IV THE CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF In the best work the man is more than the school. An ordinary man gives out no more than has been put into him. All his performances can be explained by his antecedents. But the best workers contribute from themselves an element which no analysis can adequately explain. A Newton or a Columbus, a Stanley or a Whitworth, has some unseen spring of force and insight. A man of this stamp is required at the head of an army, and above all at the head of the organization entrusted with the design of operations. The eve of a war is always accompanied by a great outburst of feeling, which in ninety-nine men out of a hundred manifests itself as an excitement, a disturbance, interfering with the action of the judgment and distorting the view of persons and events. But this is the very time when the weightiest decisions must be taken. The provisional plan of concentration, the result of careful preparation in quieter times, has to be reconsidered in relation to the circumstances of the moment, and definitely settled and adopted. The judgment of the strategist must therefore be perfectly clear, uninfluenced by the emotions which he shares with the rest of his countrymen.