IV. EXAMINATIONS-GENERAL AND PROFESSIONAL-FOR A COMMISSION.

Two examinations, one in general and the other in professional knowledge are required of all candidates for a commission upon or soon after their entrance into the army, unless they can bring a certificate of having successfully completed the regular course of a gymnasium, in which case they are excused from the first.

These two examinations, through which alone admission is obtained to the rank of officer, are so important, and hold so prominent a position in the Prussian military system, that we propose to preface our account of the nature and extent of each of these examinations by a short tabular statement of the circumstances under which the candidates for each arm of the service respectively pass them.

1. The Preliminary or Ensign's (Portepée-fähnrich) Examination. According to a special law, any young man above seventeen and a half and under twenty-three years of age, whether he be a private or a corporal, if he has served six months in the army, and can obtain from the officers of his company a certificate of good conduct, attention, and knowledge of his profession, may claim to be ex

amined for the grade of ensign or (Portepée-fähnrich.) If he succeed in this examination, he is recognized as a candidate, an aspirant for a commission; but his prospect of obtaining a commission is subject to a variety of subsequent conditions.

In practice, a young man who aspires to a commission applies to the colonel of the regiment and usually obtains a nomination before he actually joins; and, as the examination is entirely of a civil character, he is usually glad to try and pass it at once. Having recently come from school, he feels probably better prepared than he is likely to be at any subsequent time: for on joining the corps, he will have for some time to conform to the life of a private soldier, to sleep and mess with the men, and to mount guard in his turn; and with the drill and exercises, and the marching and manoeuvring with the troops, he will have enough to occupy him to prevent his preparing for the examination. The two qualifications for the ensign's grade are, the test of the examination and the six months' service; but it appears to be indifferent in what order they are taken, whether service comes first and examination after, or vice versâ.

The examinations take place quarterly, at the beginning of every January, April, July, and October. They are held in the great garrison towns by local military boards, consisting of a president and five examiners. Applications for permission to be examined must be made at least a fortnight before, and must be accompanied by certificates stating the candidate's birth, parentage, &c.; certificates of diligence and good conduct from the schoolmasters or other teachers who have instructed him; and of bodily fitness from an army surgeon.

The local board of examiners is appointed by the general officer in command of the army corps, the centers of examination corresponding in present practice with the localities assigned to the division or army-corps schools, nine in number, presently to be described.

The first part of the examination is on paper; a viva voce examination follows.

On paper the young men have to write three themes or compositions in German, to translate two passages, one from Livy or Sallust, another from Cæsar's Commentaries, Cicero's Epistles, or Quintus Curtius; to translate sixteen or twenty lines from French into German, and two passages, a longer and a shorter, from German into French. They have one question in common arithmetic, one in equations, progressions, or logarithms; one in geometry, one in

trigonometry; they have one in mathematical or physical geography, one in the general geography of Europe and its colonies, and one in that of Germany and Prussia. There is one question in Greek or Roman history; one in the earlier German history; one in modern; and one in Prussian history. They have also to show that they are acquainted with the common conventional signs used in representing the surface of the earth in maps; and they have to copy a small map of a group of hills.

The time allowed for each question is about three quarters of an hour or an hour; for each German theme, it is as much as an hour and a half or two hours.

The questions are of a comprehensive character; e. g. Give a history of the campaign of 1813, or of the life of Alexander the Great; enumerate the rivers flowing into the Mediterranean Sea, with the principal towns situated upon each of them. The German themes are, first, a curriculum vitæ, an account of the candidate's life, which is, however, not supposed to count in the result, and is merely for the examiner's information; second and third, two themes on some sentence or proverb, for the first of which the examiner assists the candidate by vivâ voce questions and corrections in drawing up the preliminary outline of arrangement; for the second he is left entirely to himself.

There is a subsequent vivâ voce examination in all the subjects, drawing excepted. The candidates are taken in small classes, not exceeding seven in number, and are examined together, but not in public.

The results of the examination are considered according to the system of predicates or epithets, sometimes also called censures. The candidates' answers are characterized as excellent (vorzüglich,) good (gut,) satisfactory (befriedigend,) insufficient (nicht hinreichend,) or unsatisfactory (ungenügend. Numerical values are attached to each of these epithets; "excellent" is marked with 9; "unsatisfactory" counts as 1; and according to the amount of importance attached to the different subjects the marks thus given are multiplied by a higher or lower number, by 5 in one case, by 3 or by 1 in others. German, Latin, and mathematics have all the highest estimate of 5, and are each five times more important than drawing, which is marked by 1; geography, history, and French, are each valued at 3. A young man who gets the predicate "excellent," in German, will receive 45 marks, his 9 being multiplied by 5; whereas the same predicate for history would obtain him only 15, and in drawing only 5 marks.

A report is then drawn up, and according to the marks or predicates, the candidates are pronounced as admissible with distinction, admissible with honor, or simply admissible; or their re-examination. after six months, their re-examination after a year, or their absolute ⚫ rejection, is recommended.

This report, with the candidates' certificates, is forwarded to the supreme military examinations board at Berlin, and, if approved by them, is submitted in their quarterly report to the king; and the result, when sanctioned by him, is communicated to the respective corps.

The candidates are all informed not only of the practical result, but also of the particulars of their examinations; they are told in what subjects they have failed, and in what they have succeeded. The candidates can not, under any circumstances, try more than three times.

The young men who pass, are thus, so far as their qualification in point of knowledge is concerned, pronounced admissible to the ensign's grade. They have of course to complete their six months' service with the troops. Yet even when this is completed, a vacancy in the list of ensigns must be waited for, and months may pass before the aspirant receives the distinctive badge, the special Swordknot, which marks his superiority to the corporals, and shows that he has gained the first step that leads to a commission.

The examination that has now been described is obviously one for which preparation may be made in the common public schools, and under the usual civilian teachers. A young man of seventeen need not have been positively destined to the military profession, nor have gone through special preparation for any length of time beforehand. The boards of local military examiners are content to take them as they are offered, inquiry only being made as to their birth and connections, and their previous behavior at school or under tuition.

In fact, those who have passed successfully through the full course of a school which prepares for the universities (a gymnasium,) are excused the ensign's examination. The certificate they have received on going away from school, upon the abiturient's or leaving examination, as it is called, is considered quite sufficient; except in

the case of candidates for the artillery or engineers, who are ex. pected to show greater proficiency in mathematics; and certainly a boy in the head class of a gymnasium ought to be able to pass the preliminary examination with perfect ease and with credit. The amount of knowledge required and the particular subjects selected are not those of the first, and are scarcely those of the second class of a gymnasium; and the assertion was even made that a boy from the upper third class might very well hope to pass for an ensigncy. Possibly a little extra tuition from the preparatory establishments, which are said to have sprung up with the special function of "fabricating Fähnrichs" might in this instance be required.

The official programme is here given, and may be compared with the studies prescribed in the upper classes of the Cadet House at Berlin, (see the account of that school.)

1. In their own language, good legible handwriting, a correct style, free from orthographical or grammatical mistakes, facility of expression in writing and speaking; some evidence of a knowledge of German literature.

2. In Latin, facility in understanding the Latin prose writers ordinarily read in the second class of a Prussian gymnasium. A written exercise in translation from Latin into German; grammatical analysis of some passages.

3. In French, facility in reading and in translating from German into French, and French into German, grammatical analysis of French sentences, and a knowledge of syntax.

4. Mathematics:

(a.) Arithmetic and Algebra;-familiarity with the ordinary rules for the extraction of the square root of whole numbers and of fractions; Proportion and its applications including questions in Partnership and Compound Proportion; the theory of powers and roots, with integral and fractional, positive and negative exponents. Equations of the two first degrees, with one or more unknown quantities; Logarithms, Logarithmic Equations, Arithmetical and Geometrical Progression, and practice in the application of the various theories.

(b.) The complete elements of Plane Geometry, measuration of rectilineal figures and of the circle, transformation and division of figures; the first elements of the application of Algebra to Geometry.

(c.) Plane Trigonometry, Trigonometrical functions and their Logarithms. Use of trigonometrical tables. Calculation of particular cases of triangles, regular polygons, and segments of circles.

In consideration of the especial importance of this discipline for officers of the artillery and engineers, a higher predicate (i. e. a greater number of marks) will be required in the exercises of candidates for these two services; the knowledge expected in their case will be, though not more extensive, more thorough and deep.

5. Geography:-The general principles of Mathematical and Physical Geography, knowledge of our planetary system, of the motions of the Earth, and of the phenomena immediately dependent upon them. Readiness in drawing from memory the outlines of the more important countries, with their principal mountains, rivers, and cities. General outlines of Political Geography, in the case of the mere states out of Europe; a detailed account of the elements of European statistics, more particularly in the case of Germany and Prussia.

6. History:-A knowledge of the more remarkable events in the history of great nations, of the general connection, causes, and consequences of these events; a knowledge of the remarkable men of all such nations down to the present time. Special knowledge of the history of Greece, Rome, Germany, Prussia, with particular reference in this last case to its external growth, inner