THE PRELIMINARY EDUCATION OF OFFICERS.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sra,—The great difficulty in the way of attracting clever boys to the Army, and the reason why so many of the purely " playing-field " type enter it, are both due, first, to the fact that the pay of an officer is so low as to make the Army a less eligible profession than others, especially for the sons of any but the rich; and secondly, to the fact that promotion goes to a very large extent by seniority, and not by intellig,ence. The way out of this difficulty seems to be to raise the pay of officers, and to make the entrance examination fairly easy ; but at the same time to make it imperative for all officers to pass increasingly stiff examinations in military subjects, practical and theoretical, before they are eligible for promotion, and to superannuate those who fail to pass each of these examina- tions in a given time. By this means we should always have a supply of Lieutenants of good physique and with all the qualities which success in games and field sports implies, and at the same time should have in the higher grades officers of assured practical and theoretical knowledge of the art and science of war.—I am, Sir, &c., F. E. B.
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