indifference. The experience with volunteers in the Civil War had
given almost universal confidence that the American people could
constitute themselves an army at will. The presence of several
heroes of that war in succession in the position of
commander-in-chief of the army had served to diffuse a sense of
security among the people. Here and there military drill was
introduced in school and college, but the regular army attracted
none of the romantic interest that clung about the navy, and the
militia was almost totally neglected. Individual officers, such
as young Lieutenant Tasker Bliss, began to study the new
technique of warfare which was to make fighting on land as
different from that of the wars of Napoleon as naval warfare was
different from that of the time of Nelson. Yet in spite of
obviously changing conditions, no provision was made for the
encouragement of young army officers in advanced and up-to-date
Studies. While their contemporaries in other professions were
adding graduate training to the general education which a college
gave, the graduates of West Point were considered to have made
themselves in four years sufficiently proficient for all the
purposes of warfare.

By the middle nineties thoughtful students of contemporary
movements were aware that a new epoch in national history was
approaching. What form this national development would take was,
however, still uncertain, and some great event was obviously
required to fix its character. Blaine's Pan-Americanism had
proved insufficient and, though the baiting of Great Britain was
welcome to a vociferous minority, the forces making for peace
were stronger than those in favor of war. Whatever differences
there were did not reach to fundamentals but were rather in the