COMPETITIVE TESTS FOR THE ARMY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,-1Vill you allow me to point out that the application of a stringent educational test to candidates for the Military Service, introduced by Lord Cardwell, is in process of being quietly whittled away ? In April, 1877, the Spectator noticed, as being well-nigh incredible, a statement, which appeared in Fraser's Magazine for that month, to the effect that a scheme was under consideration for officering the Service formerly known as the Control mainly by the promotion of non-commissioned officers. Your reviewer deemed it impossible (as well he might) that duties such as the collection and purchase of provisions, forage, and baggage animals, the hiring and managing of native drivers and labourers, and the dealing with petty native contractors in any foreign country in which a British army might happen to be employed, were intended to be placed in the hands of a body of men understanding, with scarcely an exception, no syllable of any language except their own. Nevertheless, the thing has since been done. Admission to the Administrative Departments of the Army by competitive examination has been put an end to, and under date of the 26th of March of the present year twenty-nine non-commissioned officers were gazetted to be sub-assistant- commissaries.
A few days ago, the head of the Civil Service Commission (of all persons in the world) advocated in the House of Lords a pro- position that 1,200 marks should be allotted to athletic exercises at the competitive examinations for commissions in the Line. Lord Hampton mournfully complained that young gentle- men of good birth and education had been unable to enter the Army merely from their having obtained too few marks in mathematics. Now at the examination for direct com- missions in the winter of 1876, the latest of which the particulars are published with the Reports of the Commissioners, out of ninety successful candidates who took up mathematics, twenty- two obtained less than 600 marks, out of a total of 3,000 allotted to that subject. It appears, therefore, that if the proposition advocated by Lord Hampton should be adopted, the young gentlemen of birth and education commiserated by his lord- ship may henceforward, especially if they are accustomed to ride to hounds, secure by their athletic qualifications a place amongst the successful candidates, even though they should have the mis- fortune to make a " duck," as they themselves express it (that is to say, to obtain no marks whatever) in mathematics.
It is simply impossible to overrate the value of bodily vigour and activity in a military officer. But it is a most mistaken assumption, though countenanced by several speakers in the House of Lords, that these qualities cannot be secured without seeking them amongst the idle and the stupid. There is, on the contrary, an over-abundance of young men desirous of entering the Army who combine ample vigour and activity with education and intelligence enough to enable them to succeed at the pre- sent examinations. If the medical examination which now takes place is not sufficient to secure bodily vigour and activity in our officers (and knowing something of the candidates who go up. from one large school, I believe that it is sufficient), let a certain amount of proficiency in such things as riding, swimming, run- ning, and leaping be made part of the preliminary requirements, without satisfying which no candidate shall be allowed to enter the competitive examination. But this test ought to be superadded to the intellectual test, and not substituted for it. There is. neither justification nor excuse for the project of making bodily activity a cloak for mental incapacity or for idleness. The time when strength and courage without intelligence could suffice for the command of a regiment, or even of a company, is gone by.—
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