TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 239 



a way, and why it takes so long. Yet, though you may 

 have found many of your experiences exasperating, the 

 experience of others has shown them to be just what is 

 needed. Your very exasperation is part of your course. 

 You have to control it. Being put under arrest has helped 

 to make many things clear to those who can learn. Not 

 all of your superiors know the deep mental, or cerebral, 

 side of the processes of training and organization but, 

 since an army is a continuing live organism, they have 

 tradition, military history, and their own experience in 

 the making of a company or battalion, which show them 

 that certain results follow on the adoption of particular 

 methods. We all use words and phrases of which the 

 real meaning may be unknown to us. We often employ 

 the French phrase, and speak of esprit de corps as the end 

 and aim of training. The " spirit," as we say, makes 

 the body live and makes it one. This is shorthand, but 

 it is true. Every soldier knows it, but not every one could 

 tell us why, even if he has p.s.c. after his name. If our 

 methods are right our reasons may not matter. But as 

 no methods are perfect, even when moulded by age-long 

 tradition, knowledge of underlying causes may help to 

 improve them. 



I spoke of an army as an organism. It exists as a 

 body, it has members, tools, a brain, a nervous system, 

 and all are used to ensure that certain effects are produced. 

 An army, too, can suffer and rejoice. It can become irre- 

 sistible by continued success ; it can suffer panic, and it 

 can die. These words are not mere illustrations. You 

 and your officers and men arc living parts of a living thing, 

 even though the staff may never trouble to look upon an 

 army in that light. They may not be so self-conscious. 

 Perhaps that is all the better for them. It is best not to 



