with puerile, inexperienced impatience: "On to Richmond! On to Richmond!"

Of the amount and variety of the soldier's occupation we can really know them only from living with him. But recently the writer has worked with the same soldiers on guard day and night against a treacherous enemy, camping, marching and fighting, surveying and building roads, building bridges of iron and wood, logging, building and operating sawmills, quarrying, erecting barracks and quarters,

building ships' docks, raising sunken steamers, building and operating telegraph lines, establishing and running government a dozen businesses and professions at once. It was done in the tropics, nor was it necessary or ever thought of for

The Military Academy at West Point.

The Artillery School.

The School of Submarine Defense. The School of Application for Cavalry and Artillery.

The Army Medical School.
The Signal School.

The Infantry and Cavalry School.
The Staff College.
The War College.
The Cooks' School.
The Bakers' School.
The Farriers' School.

To these add the Field Artillery, which as a whole is made and declared a continuous school of application for every man therein. In connection with the Signal Corps and coast defense besides, electrical instruction is made so complete and thorough as to render these services practical schools for electricians.

Altogether the school system covers everything from horse-grooming and kitchen scullery to higher engineering and the Monroe Doctrine. He who has nnished his school days looks with a shudder upon the list, and the brightest young civilian accustomed to think of the soldier's as an idle, easy, irresponsible life, finds himself on coming into the army utterly taken aback at the array of work laid out for him, and startled at the prospect of being "found" (deficient) on his very first. examination and having that fact made of record against him for posterity. The system speaks work. It says plainly, "Learn or leave," and every proposition of excuse from it is heard with so much questioning and contempt, and relief therefrom is made so difficult that performance is easier, more pleasant, and the general result.

Whatever, then, it may once have been, the army is now required to be studious. But not studious alone. All theory, except perhaps the Monroe Doctrine, is put into immediate practice by actual work and practi

cal training. For this, to accord

with the military boast of action and the soldier idea that action is. the finest thing in nature and the first quality of the soldier, seven months, the bulk of the twelve, are set apart. Under this system, while the bad may not be made good, the good are undoubtedly made better. The non-commissioned officers, disciplined and trained by drill and made responsible by service, have generally their value thereby so increased in the business world that the military service often cannot compete with civil life in the prices. it can pay to hold them to itself. The coast defense especially thus trains its non-commissioned officers to its own loss. A man, indeed, may come into the service unacquainted with labor; he learns it; with soft hands; they are hardened; ignorant of the use of the pick, the axe and the shovel; he goes out not so. He learns that these, no less than the sword, the musket and the bayonet are and almost have been the arms of the soldier.

The evidences of the soldier's work are not wanting to him who is willing to see them. All over his country, in the great West especially, there are thousands of miles of high-road that were originally laid out and made by the soldier, and today in use by his countrymen with no thought, be it not a sneer, for him who broke the way. The roads which he has opened, stretched out, would doubtless twice span this continent. The opening, making safe and the giving of the whole West to civilization, are in no small part his work. In whatever of civilization has passed to the Indians he has been an important factor, and in the location of the earlier transcontinental railroads he was a central figure.

These are a few of his labors. Their stupendousness does not speak of idleness, but of faithful work and patience withal. Yet, in general, his work has been done in

remote places, out of men's sight, and his labors have not been recorded. He has raised monuments to his own zeal, industry and faithfulness, but, undedicated and uninscribed, they stand unrecognized.

If his past, when looked at fairly, cannot be found idle, his present is assuredly busy. Wherever he appears to-day, in Alaska, in Cuba, in the Philippines, he is still at labor. By cable and telegraph he has brought Alaska to our door, and has bound together as one all the Philip pines. In Alaska alone he has "laid enough cable to reach from Newfoundland to Ireland, and built enough telegraph line to reach from Washington to Texas," and he lives with, keeps and operates them in lonely, desolate and dangerous places. Soldiers, serving still as soldiers, have located, laid out, and, by the labor of their own hands under killing heat, stalking disease, the awful cholera, have built in the Philippines great roads that are letting in the light upon their dark places. Soldiers have covered the islands with a network of telegraph lines that are subduing them to civilization. While still a soldier, our soldier has been constable, governor, treasurer, secretary, policeman, sanitary officer. Yet his work in the Philippines, while greater in variety and importance, has hardly been greater in bulk than that which he is doing here at home. We may look at it a bit:

Guard is a duty which falls to him regularly about one day in six, and to its continuous duty of the day adds a night without sleep. The bare suggestion of this is generally enough for the civilians. When not on guard our soldier rises generally about six, and on parade at once answers his name, the first duty of his day being thus one of responsibility. Or perhaps he is one of the cooks, and has risen to his duties two hours ago. As he is his own housekeeper, his next duty is

to set his home in order, make his bed, "sweep under his bunk," arrange his clothes and equipment. Then he cleans up about his barracks and quarters for the daily inspection, which is sure to come. Then breakfast, cooked and served by himself or his comrades, is quickly followed by sick call. Here all who claim sickness are examined by the surgeon, for, unlike the civilian, whether he shall discharge the duties of the day is a question not for him or his feelings, but for the cold judgment of another, the docWhatever the soldier may think, if the doctor says "duty,' duty it is.

tor.

Now all who were of the guard the day before go forth to the day's labor, "old guard fatigue," to do the thousand and one things that must be done, clean and beautity the whole post, tree-planting, lawnmowing, leveling, sweeping, digging, walk and street making, white-washing, hauling, the police of stables, barracks, corrals, yards. the handling, cleaning and moving of the vast stores of the Quartermaster, Commissary and Ordnance departments. In these labors is engaged the whole day in general onesixth of the entire garrison. The business of home-keeping and housekeeping, by itself costing millions in other departments of the Government, is in the army done by the soldier. Another sixth, the guard, with elaborate preparation of dress. and equipment, is at the formal ceremony and minute inspection at guard mount placed upon the duty of guard for the next twenty-four hours. More than a third sixth is cut out for teamsters, storekeepers, special laborers, salesmen, carpenters, plumbers, blacksmiths, tinners, saddlers, etc., necessary in the various supply departments, the Quartermaster's, Commissary and Ordnance; for clerks, messengers, etc., for various offices, with even gardeners for the cultivation of vege