The first necessity for rendering an army effective is evidently military discipline, including drill, subordination, and observance of the prescribed regulations. The first is too much considered as the devotion of time and toil to the accomplishment of results based on mere arbitrary rules. The contrary is the truth. Drilling in all its forms--from the lowest to the highest--from the rules for the position of the single soldier to the manoeuvres of a brigade--is only instruction in those movements which long experience has proved to be the easiest, quickest, and most available methods of enabling a soldier to discharge his duties: it is not the compulsory observance of rules unfounded on proper reasons, designed merely to give an appearance of uniformity and regularity--merely to make a handsome show on parade. Nothing so much wearies and discourages a new recruit as his drill; he cannot at first understand it, and does not see the reason for it. He exclaims: 'I'm sick of this marching, Pipe-claying and starching.' He thinks he can handle his musket with more convenience and rapidity if he is permitted to carry it and load it as he chooses, instead of going through the formula of motions prescribed in the manual. Perhaps as an individual he might; but when he is only one in a large number, his motions must be regulated, not only by his own convenience, but also by that of his neighbors. Very likely, a person uneducated in the mysteries of dancing would never adopt the polka or schottish step as an expression of exuberance; but if he dances with a company, he must be governed by the rules of the art, or he will be likely to tread on the toes of his companions, and be the cause of casualties. Military drill is constantly approaching greater simplicity, as experience shows that various particulars may be dispensed with. Formerly, when soldiers were kept up as part of the state pageants, they were subjected to numberless petty tribulations of drill, which no longer exist. Pipe-clayed belts, for example, have disappeared, except in the marine corps. Frederick the Great was the first who introduced into drill ease and quickness of execution, and since his day it has been greatly simplified and improved.