400 
THE STUDY OF MILITARY HISTORY. 
derived from my own experience and from the current history of the 
war, that the military salvation of this country requires that the West 
Point Academy be destroyed. Successful commanders of armies are 
not made ; like great poets they are born. Men like Caesar, Marl¬ 
borough, Napoleon and Grant are not the products of schools. 1 
I don’t think his opinion is a valuable one, because, as it happens. 
Grant and Lee (and many another good soldier too) were both at 
the institution he derides, and the latter, at any rate, will bear com¬ 
parison with all but the very greatest leader of the world, but I presume 
he, as he said he did, represented the views of others besides himself, 
and undoubtedly there is an idea prevalent in some quarters that good 
generals are born, and not made. 
The expression, heaven-born leader,” is one of the common places 
of literature, and yet it may be proved that in almost every case a 
successful general has devoted himself to the literature of his pro¬ 
fession just in the same way as the successful lawyer, doctor, divine, 
or even poet has studied that of his. 
There is a time honoured saying that “experientia docet.” If 
every officer could have personal experience on the field of battle 
under modern conditions ; if, in place of attending manoeuvres, he could 
take part annually in actual warfare, no doubt he might dispense with 
text-books. There would, in such a case, no doubt at first be terrible 
disaster, many lives would be lost that with forethought might have 
been saved, but the cruel lessons would have their effect in the long 
run, we may depend upon it they would be laid to heart, and the sur¬ 
vivors of the initial reverses would no doubt develop into competent 
leaders. But we cannot be supplied with such realistic instruction, and 
therefore we fall back on the experience of others according to the 
manner in which in any other walk in life we shape our course. 
If you have not done a particular thing before yourself you go for 
advice and instruction to some one who has, and avail yourself of the 
benefit of his experience. And I may note here that the man who 
despises theory and reading, and who prides himself on being 
“ practical ” as opposed to “ scientific,” invariably does the same the 
moment he is called upon to carry out any operation but that of the 
most stereotyped character. 
Now the records of what our predecessors did in war simply place 
the results of their experience before us, and no one but a very rash or 
vain man would hesitate to avail himself of that experience. In fact, 
we might imagine that the more practical a man was the more he would 
do so, because in place of puzzling a matter out from first principles 
yourself it is shorter and quicker to get a solution ready made by others 
for you. 
But it is said that the conditions under which modern war will be 
waged are so widely different from those which prevailed, even fifty 
years ago, that there is little profit to be gained from the study, for 
example, of the Napoleonic wars. I have heard men assert that 
1 “ From the Soldier in Battle,” p. 12. 
