110 OUR INFANTRY. 



the reports should be handed to the board 

 with the numbers only annexed without the 

 names of the writers. This book should be 

 seen only by the person who had charge of it 

 and the Commander-in-Chief. This last plan 

 would be useful, not from an apprehension 

 that the judgment of the board would be im- 

 properly influenced, but because disappointed 

 candidates, being usually indisposed to concur 

 in an unfavourable judgment on their works, 

 are apt to fancy that their successful competi- 

 tors are unduly favoured. 



The plan here recommended, to be fairly 

 judged, must be contrasted with the existing 

 system under which generals are placed at the 

 head of armies in the field, with whose fitness 

 for such a situation, those who place them in it 

 are too often wholly ignorant. Thus individual 

 members of our civil government have fre- 

 quently appointed officers to command our 

 armies without reference to the Commander- 

 in-Chief who was, sad to say, a cypher. If 

 we are not prepared to see this state of things 

 return, we must render the military profession 

 one which clever men, without interest, shall 

 henceforth be disposed to enter. 



