172 Life of Count Rumford. 



getting that he was a military man, he feels bound to 

 explain the way and the motives which engaged him in 

 an object seemingly foreign to his profession. This 

 explanation is found in the connection which proved 

 to exist between the many different measures for the 

 promotion of the public welfare which had occupied 

 him. 



He says that, among the various public services which 

 the Elector asked of him, he was particularly charged 

 with the arrangement of his military affairs in intro- 

 ducing a new system of order, discipline, and economy 

 among his troops. Knowing very well the injury to 

 the population, morals, manufactures, and agricjulture 

 of a country which accrued from the maintenance of a 

 standing military force, he divined that the most 

 practicable mode of relief from, or of a limitation of, 

 this mischief, would be found "in making soldiers citi- 

 zens, and citizens soldiers." The situation of the sol- 

 dier was to be made as easy, agreeable, and eligible as 

 possible ; his pay was to be increased, he was to be 

 comfortably and even elegantly clothed, allowed all 

 liberty consistent with order and subordination, with 

 simpler military instruction, and to be relieved of all 

 obsolete and useless customs. His quarters and bar- 

 racks were to be made neat and clean within, and 

 attractive on the outside. Schools were to be estab- 

 lished, in all the regiments, for teaching reading, writing, 

 and arithmetic. And not only the oldiers, but their 

 children, and the children of the neighboring peasants, 

 were to be taught here gratuitously ; school-books, 

 paper, pens, and ink being furnished by the Sovereign. 

 With true Franklinian economy, Thompson adds that 

 the paper which had thus served one use would really 



