422 
COMMENDED ESSAY, 1899. 
the world, and the first thing they are told is that the guns there are 
all obsolete. How can this have an effect other than prejudicial ? 
Who can blame the young officer who says “This is no place for me. 
I will serve in a branch of the service which is not obsolete ” ? 
present To turn to the subject of courses. The routine at 
System present adopted is to send to some command, an order 
of courses. to detail an officer for a course, Position Finding, 
Firemaster or whatever it may be. Again there is a dip in the lucky 
bag, an officer whose tastes lie in the direction of chemistry etc. and 
who wishes to be a firemaster, is made into a Position Finder; the 
exigencies of the service demand it. Having gone through his course, 
he is ordered to take up a Position Finding appointment; he has to 
leave the company he is fond of and wishes to serve in and devote 
himself to a minor branch of his profession which is one he does not 
care for. 
No doubt he does his duty as well as he can, but how is it possible 
for his heart to be in it ? 
Preserst It must be bad for an officer of four or five years* 
Specialists. service, to be put in a position where he loses all touch 
of regimental duty; where he never goes to a court-martial, turns out 
a guard, or visits a dinner. A subaltern who has done five or six 
years of this semi-staff work, and is then sent to a company as a junior 
captain, cannot expect to do it justice and must on all points of minor 
administration and interior economy be in the hands of his subordi¬ 
nates. 
Again in stations where the Regiment is short-handed it is no un¬ 
usual thing to find one subaltern doing all the work of the place, per¬ 
haps moving heavy guns, a work requiring nerve and skill. He gets 
no extra pay, while another subaltern who happens to be an Instructor 
in Range Finding specialist is drawing an extra half-crown a day and 
he perhaps does less work. 
This cannot fail to create ill-feeling and discontent. 
Remedies. We cannot help the guns being obsolete and we have 
to take such men as we can get, and make the best of them; but the 
young officer is there ready to hand, and by putting him through a 
course of systematic training and carrying out a small amount of re¬ 
organization which is dependent on it, the efficiency of the Garrison 
Artillery could be largely increased and the service in it very much 
popularized. 
It now remains to show how this is to be done, 
officers on When we consider the case of an officer who enters 
joining. the Garrison Artillery, and intends to stay in it, we 
must realize that he is entering a branch of the service at least as in¬ 
tricate and technical as the Royal Engineers, and must be prepared to 
spend a certain amount of time in fitting him for it, before he is sent 
out as the finished article. 
The Engineers spend two years at Chatham getting this prelimin¬ 
ary polish but for the Garrison Gunner only one year would be necess • 
aiy, and that year need not all be taken at once. 
It is impossible to make a man master of all trades and ye f there 
