Kitabı oku: «The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862», sayfa 3

SOMETHING WE HAVE TO THINK OF, AND TO DO

The President's order for a draft—aside from its immediate purpose—has an important bearing in a more general view on the education of the public mind. It is an impressive enforcement of the great principle that every able-bodied man in the nation owes military service to his country as sacredly as he owes obedience to his God. This is a principle which probably few persons will hesitate to admit when plainly confronted with it. But the conviction of it has slumbered in the mind of the people during the long years of peace we have enjoyed. There has been almost nothing to remind us of it for fifty years past. The draft is an emphatic proclamation of it. It brings it home to the conscience of the nation; and thousands, who might otherwise have scarcely thought of it, will be led to recognize and to feel it.

It is to be hoped that we shall go further—that the quickened sense of obligation will make us consider what we must do to make the discharge of it of the greatest service to the nation; that we shall learn the lessons of wisdom which the present struggle enforces on us, and see to it, that in the future, by better military organization and instruction, the able-bodied men of the country are rendered more capable of effective military service at a moment's call.

Oar military system, and the enrolment of the people under it, goes indeed upon this principle of the obligation of military service by every able-bodied citizen—and so is a constant testimony to it; but in point of fact it has done comparatively little toward cherishing the military spirit, cultivating the military virtues, and securing an effective military force, ready at any moment for active service in the field. Dreading nothing from foreign nations on this side of the ocean, counting on the obvious policy of the nations of the old world to keep the peace with us, and never dreaming of such a rebellion as has broken out in our midst—we have not only neglected but discountenanced the cultivation of the military spirit. Our men of education and high social position, instead of contributing to make the militia system respectable by the personal performance of military duty, and by using all their influence to give a high tone to the service, have evaded its requirements on themselves, and done all they could to sink it into disregard and contempt: a dereliction of duty as unwise as wrong.

It is a miserable thing for a country to have to get ready for war when war is forced upon it. This was the case when the rebellion broke out. We were not ready for it. There was indeed no lack of men. Hundreds of thousands responded to their country's call; and the great body of the people were carried away with the delusion that men with arms in their hands are soldiers, and that massing them in great numbers makes them a great army. Wise men—men of military judgment and experience—knew better. But the popular clamor for onward offensive operations prevailed; with disastrous result in the first instance. Not on the whole perhaps to be regretted. It did what nothing else could have done—it dispelled the popular delusion. It did something toward teaching the nation a lesson indispensably necessary to be learned—that a million men with arms in their hands without discipline, are nothing but an armed mob, and that the discipline which alone makes an effective army, implies a great deal more than is gotten in company trainings and regimental parades under our old militia system.

Discipline—discipline—discipline; these are the first, second, and third requisites to make men into soldiers. With it the poorest materials can be made effective. Napoleon made good soldiers of the Italian lazaroni—and a poorer material can scarcely well be conceived. It is Napoleon that said: 'discipline is the first requisite for a soldier—bravery is only secondary.' Indeed the more there is of bravery in an army composed of such men as the New England States and the rural districts of New York send to the war—'reasoning bayonets,' as Napoleon called them, bayonets in the hands of men with heads on their shoulders, and heads that have the habit of doing their own thinking—the more there is of bravery in such a soldiery, the greater the need of discipline. Not only thorough training in the use of arms, but a habit of implicit obedience is indispensable to make good soldiers.

There can be no doubt this war is destined to make us a more military people than we have been before. And good reason we should be. In the first place, because the prevalence of a higher military tone and the maintenance of a more effective military force are indispensable for the national security and defence. Until the millennium comes we shall always be liable to foreign invasions or internal rebellion. In either case there is nothing before us but to fight, and nothing but successful fighting can save us. But how can we fight successfully if we have only raw recruits or an ill-trained militia, and officers better skilled to handle the yard stick than the sword, to marshal a column of figures than a body of men? In the nest place, because the military virtues—courage, fortitude, endurance, subordination, and obedience; the military habits—promptitude, vigilance, order, attention to details; and the physical developments—health, strength, and heightened muscular activity, which come from military discipline—all these are no less valuable as elements of the morale or general character of a nation than indispensable in a merely military view, to a nation's security and success in arms.

To form a disciplined army was the first thing we had to do when the rebellion broke out. It was a great pity, and a sad necessity to have to begin to do it then. We have paid dearly for our folly and neglect. If we had been as well prepared for war as the Swiss always are, it would have saved us millions of treasure, and many score thousands of lives. Let us at least now not fail to learn the lesson of wisdom for our future guidance which the past forces upon us. Let us look out for having a good military organization—a permanent system that shall give us hereafter not the show only but the reality of an effective force; not muster rolls of names of companies, regiments, brigades, but well-disciplined citizen soldiers, with good officers able to handle and lead them. This is something that can be done—something that ought to be done.

It is a matter for consideration what is the military system that will best keep us ready for war if war be forced upon us, and at the same time with the least detriment or danger to the people or the Government. Is it a large regular force, a standing army, adequate to the defence of the country always on foot and in the pay of the General Government? I think not. The number of regular troops in the service of the Union doubtless will and should be considerably increased. But to keep a large standing army, as many of the great powers of Europe do, is what I hope we shall never come to. I do not so much object to the great expense of it—for that is not worth consideration if it be the only or the best way to provide for the defence of the nation. But it is foreign to the genius and spirit of our institutions, and involves dangers to our liberties. Human nature is human nature—and is pretty likely to continue to be. What history has recorded more than once, it may have to record again.

Shall we then adhere to our present militia system? Not, it is to be hoped, without very great modifications, additions, and improvements. If we do, we shall show ourselves as incapable of learning by our own experience as by the wisdom of history. At the same time, our militia organization furnishes the basis of a military system adapted to the genius of our institutions, fully adequate to our national defence, and one that will save us from the expense and dangers of a standing army large enough for the need of the country in a time of war.

In reorganizing our military system on this basis, I would go to Switzerland for suggestions and guidance. The Swiss system, with certain changes and with some features adopted from the English, is the one most fitted for our country. In Switzerland the motto is: 'No regular army, but every citizen, a soldier.' This motto lies at the basis of their system. But then the system makes every citizen really a soldier. It is a system that has shown itself adequate and admirably adapted for the defence of the country against foreign foes and internal rebellion. Not their mountains merely, but their hearts and arms—and a knowledge on the part of their neighbors what those hearts and arms were capable of—have preserved their independence. And as to internal safety, let any one read the story of the rebellion of 1847, when under Jesuit influence seven of the Swiss cantons formed a secession league (Sonder-Bund), and rose in arms. Immediately an army of more than one hundred thousand men from the loyal cantons was in the field, summoned from their ordinary callings, and in seventeen days the whole struggle was over, despite the strong force and almost impregnable position of the rebels, and despite the menaces of Austria and her offers of help to the insurgents. In seventeen days their citadels were taken, the traitors' league broken, and the loyal army (all but nine thousand men left to see to the expulsion of the Jesuit conspirators and the restoration of order) disbanded to seek their homes and renew their ordinary occupations.

I shall not pretend to go into the details of such a system as we should adopt, but confine myself to such observations as every man of general intelligence, moderately acquainted with military history, is competent to appreciate.

In the first place, there can be no doubt of the importance of a good system for the enrolment of the rank and file, with effective provisions for a certain amount of instruction and drill every year.

The next thing, and which is of still greater importance, is the adoption of a system that shall secure the formation of proper officers. Dividing each State in the Union into a proper number of military districts, there should be in every district a perfect organization of officers, staff, brigade, regimental, and line—what the French call cadres, the nucleus or skeleton of brigades and regiments—with special provision for their thorough and effective instruction and discipline in all their respective duties. This was a great point in the policy of Napoleon. 'When a nation,' said he, 'possesses neither cadres nor the principles of military organization, it is extremely difficult to organize an army.' Attaching the rank and file to these cadres—whenever and as often as there is need—they can soon be made good soldiers, even if they have had but little training before; and there is no way in which discipline can be so speedily and effectively instilled. The cadre is not only the frame, joint, or articulation, but the system of veins and arteries and nerves of an army. All the military systems of Europe rest upon this principle. To prepare officers fit to be organized into these cadres, they have schools for special instruction—the school of the staff, and of every branch of service—including everything relating to the subsistence and movement of armies.

This brings us to the consideration of a point of fundamental importance. We have no such schools. We have nothing but West Point, and that is nothing to the needs of the country. In every State there ought to be schools to prepare officers for the cadres—special schools for every department of military science and art, either separately or united in one comprehensive institution. The rebels have been wiser than we of the North. For twenty years past, looking forward to this day, the conspirators and traitors now in arms for the overthrow of the Government, and the dismemberment of the nation, have been assiduously training officers. In nearly every Southern State they have had one, and in some States more than one special military school, founded and fostered by the State—beside introducing more or less of military drill into their other schools, and in every way cultivating a military spirit among the people. And they have reaped the advantage of having at the outset of the contest a better supply of competent officers and materials for officers than we had.

But not only should there be such special military schools—one in every State, but there should also be institutions where a sufficient number of young men can get the preliminary education necessary to fit them to enter the schools of officers—an education which, beside being as complete and thorough a literary one as officers ought to have, should also be such in point of military discipline and instruction as shall lay a good foundation for building themselves up and perfecting themselves as officers by subsequent instruction and experience. It is not absolutely necessary to establish institutions exclusively or specially for this purpose. The end might be attained, if sufficient amount of military instruction, drill, and discipline were added to the present course of education in the schools, academies, and colleges of the land. This perhaps would be the best way. It would accomplish the object of preparing a sufficient number of young men to enter the State schools of officers, and would beside tend to diffuse throughout the body of the educated class of the people something of military knowledge and of the spirit of the military virtues—to the great advantage of the nation in any times, but especially in critical emergencies demanding great and heroic sacrifices.

So horrible a thing is war, and so dreadful are its inevitable miseries, that there is at first thought something shocking to many persons, in the idea of making military instruction a part of the system of public education—in cultivating the military spirit, and training the children and youth of a nation to science and skill in the arts of carnage. The kind and gentle-hearted find little consolation in being reminded that war is one of God's agencies. They acknowledge that the earthquake, the pestilence, the tornado, are His agencies. They find no difficulty in saying, with Wordsworth, in regard to these:

 
'We bow our hearts before Thee, and we laud
And magnify Thy Name, Almighty God!'
 

Yet when he adds:

 
'But Thy most dreaded instrument
In working out a pure intent,
Is man arrayed for mutual slaughter—
Yea, Carnage is Thy daughter.'
 

they shrink from the thought and the image. It is too dreadful for ready acquiescence.

But there is another side to the subject, and a deeper view. See how the hero preacher, the saintly-hearted Robertson—as pure and tender a spirit as ever breathed—puts the matter:

'Take away honor and imagination and poetry from war, and it becomes carnage. Doubtless. And take away public spirit and invisible principles from resistance to a tax, and Hampden becomes a noisy demagogue. * * * * Carnage is terrible. Death, and human features obliterated beneath the hoof of the war horse, and reeking hospitals, and ruined commerce, and violated homes, and broken hearts—they are all awful. But there is something worse than death. Cowardice is worse. And the decay of enthusiasm and manliness is worse. And it is worse than death—aye, worse than a hundred thousand deaths—when a people has gravitated down into the creed that the wealth of nations consists not in generous hearts, in national virtues, and primitive simplicity, and heroic endurance, and preference of duty to life—not in MEN, but in silk and cotton, and something they call 'capital.' Peace is blessed—peace arising out of charity. But peace springing out of the calculations of selfishness is not blessed. If the price to be paid for peace is this, that wealth accumulate and men decay, better far, that every street in every town of our country should run blood.'

Now it may be that it is God's purpose to save us by the war we are now engaged in from such a 'gravitation'—to save us by war from calamities far worse than any that war can bring upon us. But be this as it may, one thing we must all admit, that horrible as war is, and dreadful as are its miseries, no nation is fit to be a nation that will not defend itself by arms, if war is forced upon it. And no nation is safe, or worthy of a place among nations, if it is not prepared to maintain its existence against invasion from without or rebellion from within. Beside, to be prepared for war is one of the best securities against war.

But the best, the only sufficient foundation for this preparation, must be laid in the education of the young—an education not exclusively military for any, but while professionally military for a sufficient number, yet as to the rest, military in just and due proportion—an education which, as John Milton says, 'fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and of war.' 'The nation,' says Wordsworth, in the preface to one of his grand odes, 'the nation would err grievously, if she suffered the abuse which other states have made of the military power, to prevent her from perceiving that no people ever was or can be independent, free, or secure, much less great in any sane application of the word, without martial propensities and an assiduous cultivation of the military virtues.'

THE NOBLE DEAD

 
'Those great spirits, that went down like suns
And left upon the mountain-tops of death
A light that made them lovely.'
 

CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES

I love Cambridge, and must write very kindly about it. For in the first place, I met there with some of the best men I have ever known. And secondly, it has educated some very noted geniuses and fine poets. I do not envy the American who can linger in its cloisters, ramble in the college walks and survey the colleges themselves with an unmoved spirit. Out of its courts marched Bacon, Newton, Milton, and Jeremy Taylor; Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Byron issued from it but the other day, for what are a few years in the biography of genius? And was it not but yesterday that Tennyson wrote his prize poem there? It was hallowed ground to me, worthy of not unmixed reverence, but of much reverence was it worthy.

I went straightway to the residence of Dr. Whewell, master of Trinity College, and he received me very cordially. His works are well known in America, and I knew them, and directly made complimentary allusions to them, which, did not displease him. 'Sir, you are welcome,' he said, pressing my hand. 'You are very welcome, sir.' He proceeded to talk of America, and spoke of Edward Everett, and his visit to Cambridge in 1842, and of the speech he made. Everett made a decidedly favorable impression. 'We had a visit from another of your countrymen, last year,' said Dr. W. 'Parker of Boston—Theodore Parker. A man of genius, but I believe a rationalist in religion. He saw but few of our men, and, indeed, we were not disposed to receive him. It would have created a scandal. But he is a very clever man.' After tea, I repaired with the Doctor to his study, and had a pleasant chat with him about American literature. We discussed the merits of Longfellow, Bryant, Irving, Cooper, Channing, Bancroft and Emerson. Of the last-mentioned writer, he said, 'He is not like Carlyle, though the newspaper critics are constantly associating them together. I have no sympathy with his opinions, but I am refreshed by reading him. He is a strong man, sir, and your country will be proud of him. Amongst our young men here his opinions are making great strides. 'Tis the vice of the age. Germany has had the disease, and is near recovery. England and America have caught the epidemic. But pantheism, sir, will not live, though here and at Oxford the students are reading Hegel, Strauss, Bruno-Bauer, and Feuerbach. At Oxford,' he added, 'these pernicious doctrines are demoralizing the university. Blanco White and John Sterling were but the pioneers of a large party of university men, who are preparing to avow their disbelief in Christianity.' The Doctor was right. Francis Newman, brother of the Puseyite Newman, who seceded to the Romish Church, and belongs now to the Oratory of St. Philip Neri,—Froude, brother of the deceased Puseyite Froude,—Foxton, an ordained priest of the Church of England, and Travers, another priest and vicar, have quitted Oxford and the Church, and published heretical works, or are preaching heretical doctrines; while, according to the testimony of Archdeacon Wilberforce, and Dr. Vaughan of Harrow, the doctrines of the German theologists have been embraced by half the undergraduates there.

The town of Cambridge is uninteresting. The streets are narrow and dismal, nor have they any ancient buildings or architectural oddities, except the Round Church, to arrest the stranger's attention, as Shrewsbury and Chester have. The surrounding country is level as a prairie, broken only toward the southeast, by the ridiculous dustheaps called the Gog-Magog Hills. These hills belong to the curiosities of Cambridge, and are as famous in university annals as the colleges themselves. Robert Hale scarcely joked when he said to a friend who visited him during his residence at Cambridge, and who asked him for these hills, 'When that man yonder moves out of the way, you will see them.' They are four miles from the town, and on the estate of the Godolphin family, of which the Rev. Sydney Godolphin Osborne, the S. G. O. of the London Times newspaper, is the present representative.

I was greatly disappointed with the Cam. It is a narrow, muddy stream, varying in depth from five to twenty feet. There is a deep pool near the village of Grantchester, two miles from the town, in which Byron used to bathe, and which bears his name. I would have the stranger that visits Cambridge go to see Grantchester churchyard. It is reached by a pleasant walk across fields, and is really a beautiful spot. Many students who have died at college are buried here. Another walk of three miles along the old coach road, leading to Oxford, will bring him to the Madingley, with its park and mansion, the seat of the Cotton family. Before he leaves this part of the country he should also visit Ely, distant twelve miles, and see the venerable cathedral.

There are seventeen colleges and halls at Cambridge. The halls enjoy equal privileges with the colleges, which is not the case at Oxford. The colleges are: Trinity, St. John's, King's, Queen's, Jesus, Corpus Christi, Caius (pronounced Keys), Sydney-Sussex, Magdalene (pronounced Maudlen), Christ's, Pembroke, Emmanuel, St. Peter's and Downing. The halls are: Trinity, Catherine, and Clare. Bacon, Newton, Byron, Tennyson, and Macaulay were of Trinity College; Milton was of Christ's, Gray of Pembroke, Wordsworth of St. John's, and Coleridge of Jesus. There is an amusing anecdote of Byron current in the university, which I do not remember to have seen in print. The roof of the library of Trinity College is surmounted by three figures in stone, representing Faith, Hope, and Charity. These figures are accessible only from the window of a particular room in Neville's Court, which was occupied by Byron during his residence at college. The adventurer after getting out of this window has to climb a perpendicular wall, sustaining himself by a frail leaden spout. He has then to traverse the sloping roof of a long range of buildings, by moving carefully on his hands and knees, at the imminent risk of being precipitated fifty feet into the court beneath. When the library is gained, a stone parapet has to be crossed, a bare glance at which sends a thrill through the spectator who surveys it from below. This feat Byron performed one Sunday morning, while the heads of the dons and dignitaries were yet buried in their pillows, 'full of the foolishest dreams.' He had abstracted three surplices from the college chapel, which he bore with him along the dangerous route I have described. When the bell, at eight o'clock, rung out its deep-toned summons to the usual morning devotions, and the fellows and undergraduates hurried on their way to the chapel, they were startled to behold Faith, Hope, and Charity clad in surplices which reached in snowy folds to their feet, while their heads were surmounted, helmet-wise, with bedchamber waterewers. An inquiry was instituted by the indignant college authorities. A few select friends knew, and the rest of the college guessed, that Byron was the author of the outrage, but it was never brought home to him. No undergraduate beholds these statues now without a hearty laugh.

When I was at Cambridge, the poet's statue by Thorwaldsen had just been rescued from the cellar of the London custom house, where it had lain for years amongst rubbish of all kinds, because the bigots of Westminster Abbey would not permit it to be erected in the Poet's Corner of that edifice. Dr. Whewell, much to his honor, though he is no admirer of Byron's poetry, procured it for the library of the college, where the poet was educated.

Many college anecdotes are related of Coleridge in Gilman's unfinished life of him. (When will it be finished?) These, though they are not much known in this country, I shall not repeat; but there is one current at Cambridge which has never yet been published, from deference to the feelings of the descendants of a vain, but otherwise worthy man. Dr.–, the master of – College, it was known, aspired to a bishopric, but for a long time he had been disappointed, though he had assiduously paid court to the Tory ministry, and intimated, in various ways, that he would have no objection to pronounce the nolo episcopari. Was not Dr. Mansell, the master of Trinity, bishop of Bristol? Watson, bishop of Llandaff, the apologist for the Bible, never strove harder for the archbishopric of York than did Dr. – to get appointed bishop of any see that might fall vacant. It happened that the see of Durham, the richest in all England, worth at that time, $400,000 a year, did fall vacant, and Coleridge, with borrowed money, posted up to London. In two days the master received a letter, offering him the bishopric—it was a private, friendly letter from the first Lord of the Treasury—on condition that he would support the ministry in more liberal measures than they had yet resorted to. He assembled his friends, and communicated the happy tidings. The next mail conveyed to the Prime Minister his grateful acceptance of the dignity. He was liberal at heart, and had always been so. His vote would be always at the service of the minister and his party whether in or out of office. The pleasing illusion was soon dissipated, and Dr. – never held up his head again. Coleridge wrote the Prime Minister's private and friendly letter.

I gathered anecdotes of Bulwer, Macaulay, and Tennyson, that are perhaps not worth the telling. Bulwer was of Trinity Hall. He went one day to bathe in the Cam at Grantchester, and was robbed of his clothes. Before he could emerge from the water, the future dandy author of Pelham had to borrow a suit of corduroys from a rustic. He crept down by-lanes till he reached his rooms, but a friend met him, who teased him into an explanation, and afterward spread the story. He was noted at Cambridge for his foppishness, and for wearing scented kid gloves. Tennyson was manly there, and gentlemanly, as he always is. I shall have something to say about him hereafter.

Connop Thirlwall, the present bishop of St. David's, one of the translators of Niebuhr's 'History of Rome,' and author of the best history of Greece that had appeared before the publication of Mr. Grote's magnificent work, used to say of the fellows of Trinity, when he was tutor of that college, that they were the wittiest companions when drunk, that he had ever met with. It is certain that, thirty years ago, they used to drink to excess, and the Combination Room was the scene of numerous debauches that would have discredited a common tavern. Everybody has heard of Professor Person's reputation in this way. He was a famous compounder of whiskey toddy, and under its influence scattered puns and witticisms in the purest attic Greek. Since his day, the drinking custom is abated, and even Dr. Thirlwall would find in the present fellows of Trinity College a race of men altogether unlike those who frequented the Combination Room, and called for their third bottle, in his time.

I was at much pains to acquire correct information respecting the system of education pursued in the university. The son of poor parents, I found, has but a small chance of receiving classical instruction in England. At Cambridge the sizars, and at Oxford the servitors, form the lowest grade of students. Formerly menial tasks were imposed upon them, and amongst other duties, they had to wait upon the fellows of their colleges at the dinner table—to bear the dishes and fill the goblets. This custom has long since been discontinued; nor are the sizars of Trinity and St. John's any longer distinguished from the great body of the students by any external mark of inferiority. At the small colleges, however, they wear different gowns, and are recognized without difficulty in the street. Of course, in aristocratic England they are shunned by the richer students. Their expenses for the first year of their college residence ought not to be over $300, and are frequently kept below $200 by the prudence of the individual. If, at the first annual examination of the college they obtain a place in either the first, second, or third classes, they are entitled to receive assistance from the college funds. So privileged, they pay no rent for their rooms, and their commons, or food, is furnished to them free of expense. They are, however, made to feel the humiliation of their position. They dine off the remnant dishes of the fellows' table, after the latter have risen. There is certainly no lack of provisions, which are of a luxurious quality, and are cooked in the best style. The head cook of Trinity College receives a salary of $3,500 a year, and has about thirty assistants.