Defence of a Fortified Place. 342

XV. MILITARY EDUCATION.--Military Schools of France, Prussia, Austria,
Russia, England, &c.--Washington's Reasons for establishing the West
Point Academy.--Rules of Appointment and Promotion in Foreign
Services.--Absurdity and Injustice of our own System. 378

EXPLANATION OF PLATES 409




PREFACE


The following pages were hastily thrown together in the form of
lectures, and delivered, during, the past winter, before the Lowell
Institute of Boston. They were written without the slightest intention
of ever publishing them; but several officers of militia, who heard them
delivered, or afterwards read them in manuscript, desire their
publication, on the ground of their being useful to a class of officers
now likely to be called into military service. It is with this view
alone that they are placed in the hands of the printer. No pretension is
made to originality in any part of the work; the sole object having been
to embody, in a small compass, well established military principles, and
to illustrate these by reference to the events of past history, and the
opinions and practice of the best generals.

Small portions of two or three of the following chapters have already
appeared, in articles furnished by the author to the New York and