The Project Gutenberg eBook ofChess Generalship, Vol. I. Grand Reconnaissance

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofChess Generalship, Vol. I. Grand ReconnaissanceThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Chess Generalship, Vol. I. Grand ReconnaissanceAuthor: Franklin K.‏ YoungRelease date: August 6, 2017 [eBook #55278]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Donald Cummings, Adrian Mastronardi and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net(This file was produced from images generously madeavailable by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHESS GENERALSHIP, VOL. I. GRAND RECONNAISSANCE ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Chess Generalship, Vol. I. Grand ReconnaissanceAuthor: Franklin K.‏ YoungRelease date: August 6, 2017 [eBook #55278]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Donald Cummings, Adrian Mastronardi and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net(This file was produced from images generously madeavailable by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

Title: Chess Generalship, Vol. I. Grand Reconnaissance

Author: Franklin K.‏ Young

Release date: August 6, 2017 [eBook #55278]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Donald Cummings, Adrian Mastronardi and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net(This file was produced from images generously madeavailable by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHESS GENERALSHIP, VOL. I. GRAND RECONNAISSANCE ***

CHESSGENERALSHIPBYFRANKLIN K. YOUNGVol. I.GRAND RECONNAISSANCE.“He who first devised chessplay, made a model of the Art Militarie, representing therein all the concurrents and contemplations of War, without omitting any.”“Examen de Ingenios.”Juan Huarte, 1616.“Chess is the deepest of all games; it is constructed to carry out the principal of a battle, and the whole theory of Chess lies in that form of action.”Emanuel Lasker.BOSTONINTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING CO.1910Copyright, 1910,By Franklin K. Young.Entered at Stationers’ Hall.All rights reserved.“Chess is the gymnasium for the mind—it does for the brain what athletics does for the body.”Henry Thomas Buckle.George E. Crosby Co., Printers, Boston, Mass.

BYFRANKLIN K. YOUNG

Vol. I.GRAND RECONNAISSANCE.

“He who first devised chessplay, made a model of the Art Militarie, representing therein all the concurrents and contemplations of War, without omitting any.”“Examen de Ingenios.”Juan Huarte, 1616.

“He who first devised chessplay, made a model of the Art Militarie, representing therein all the concurrents and contemplations of War, without omitting any.”

“Examen de Ingenios.”

Juan Huarte, 1616.

“Chess is the deepest of all games; it is constructed to carry out the principal of a battle, and the whole theory of Chess lies in that form of action.”Emanuel Lasker.

“Chess is the deepest of all games; it is constructed to carry out the principal of a battle, and the whole theory of Chess lies in that form of action.”

Emanuel Lasker.

BOSTONINTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING CO.1910

Entered at Stationers’ Hall.

“Chess is the gymnasium for the mind—it does for the brain what athletics does for the body.”Henry Thomas Buckle.

“Chess is the gymnasium for the mind—it does for the brain what athletics does for the body.”

Henry Thomas Buckle.

George E. Crosby Co., Printers, Boston, Mass.

YOUNG’S CHESS WORKS

“There are secrets that the childrenAre not taught in public school;If these secrets were broadcasted,How could we the masses rule?If they understood Religion,Jurisprudence, Trade and War,Would they groan and sweat and labor—Make our bricks and furnish straw?”Anon.

“There are secrets that the children

Are not taught in public school;

If these secrets were broadcasted,

How could we the masses rule?

If they understood Religion,

Jurisprudence, Trade and War,

Would they groan and sweat and labor—

Make our bricks and furnish straw?”

Anon.

TOThe MemoryOFEPAMINONDASTHE INVENTOROFSCIENTIFIC WARFARE

“I leave no sonsTo perpetuate my name;But I leave two daughters—LEUCTRA and MANTINEAWho will transmit my fameTo remotest posterity.”

“I leave no sons

To perpetuate my name;

But I leave two daughters—

LEUCTRA and MANTINEA

Who will transmit my fame

To remotest posterity.”

“For empire and greatness it importeth most that a people do profess arms as their principal honor, study and occupation.”—Sir Francis Bacon.

“There is nothing truly imposing but Military Glory.”—Napoleon.

“The conquered in war, sinking beneath the tribute exacted by the victor and not daring to utter their impotent hatred, bequeath to their children miseries so extreme that the aged have not further evil to fear in death, nor the youthful any good to hope in life.”—Xenocles.

“War is an element established by the Deity in the order of the World; perpetual peace upon this Earth we inhabit is a dream.”—Von Moltke.

“To become a good General one well may begin by playing at Chess.”—Prince de Condé.

Except the theatre of actual Warfare, no spot known to man furnishes such facilities for the practice of combined strategy, tactics and logistics as does the surface of the Chess-board.

To those familiar with the Science of Strategetics, it needs no proof that ability to play a good game at Chess, indicates the possession of faculties common to all great military commanders.

At a certain point, the talent of Morphy for Chess-play and the talent of Napoleon for Warfare become merged; and beyond this point, their methods of thought and of action are identical.

Opportunity to display, and in most spectacular fashion, their singular and superlative genius, was not wanting to either.

But unlike the ferocious Corsican, whose “only desire is to find myself on the battlefield,” the greatest of all Masters at Chess, found in the slaughter of his fellow-creatures no incentive sufficient to call forth those unsurpassed strategetical powers, which recorded Chess-play shows he possessed.

From this sameness of talent, common to the great Chess-player and the great military commander, arises the practical utility of the Royal Game.

For by means of Chess-play, one may learn and practice in their highest interpretation, mental and physical processes of paramount importance to the community in time of extreme peril.

From such considerations and for the further reason that in a true Republic all avenues to greatness are open to merit, scientific Chess-play should be intelligently and systematically taught in the public schools. “A people desirous of liberty will entrust its defense to none but themselves,” says the Roman maxim, and in crises, woe to that land where the ruler is but a child in arms, and where the disinclination of the people towards its exercise is equalled by their unfamiliarity with the military habit.

Despite the ethics of civilization, the optimism of the “unco guid” and the unction even of our own heart’s deep desire, there seems no doubt but that each generation will have its wars.

“Pax perpetua,” writes Leibnitz, “exists only in God’s acre.” Here on earth, if seems that men forever will continue to murder one another for various reasons; all of which, in the future as in the past, will be good and sufficient to the fellow who wins; and this by processes differing only in neatness and despatch.

Whether this condition is commendable or not, depends upon the point of view. Being irremediable, such phase of the subject hardly is worth discussing. However, the following by a well-qualified observer, is interesting and undeniably an intelligent opinion, viz.:

“All the pure and noble arts of Peace are founded on War; no great Art ever rose on Earth, but among a nation of soldiers.

“As Peace is established or extended the Arts decline. They reach an unparalleled pitch of costliness, but lose their life, enlist themselves at last on the side of luxury and corruption and among wholly tranquil nations, wither utterly away.

“So when I tell you that War is the foundation of all the Arts, I mean also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of men.

“It was very strange for me to discover this and very dreadful—but I saw it to be quite an undeniable fact.

“We talk of Peace and Learning, of Peace and Plenty, of Peace and Civilization; but I found that those were not the words which the Muse of History coupled together; but that on her lips the words were—Peace and Selfishness, Peace and Sensuality, Peace and Corruption, Peace and Death.

“I found in brief, that all great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in War; that they were nourished in War and wasted in Peace; taught by War and deceived by Peace; trained by War and betrayed by Peace; that they were born in War and expired in Peace.

“Creative, or foundational War, is that in which the natural restlessness and love of contest among men, is disciplined into modes of beautiful—though it may be fatal—play; in which the natural ambition and love of Power is chastened into aggressive conquest of surrounding evil; and in which the natural instincts of self-defenceare sanctified by the nobleness of the institutions which they are appointed to defend.

“For such War as this all men are born; in such War as this any man may happily die; and forth from such War as this have arisen throughout the Ages, all the highest sanctities and virtues of Humanity.”

That our own country may escape the common lot of nations, is something not even to be hoped.

Defended by four almost bottomless ditches, nevertheless it is a certainty that coming generations of Americans must stand in arms, not only to repel foreign aggression, but to uphold even the integrity of the Great Republic; and with the hand-writing of coming events flaming on the wall, posterity well may heed the solemn warning of by-gone centuries:

“As man is superior to the brute, so is a trained and educated soldier superior to the merely brave, numerous and enthusiastic.”

“The evils to be apprehended from a standing army are remote and in my judgment, not to be dreaded; but the consequence of lacking one is inevitable ruin.”—Washington.

“The progress of Science universally is retarded, because sufficient attention is not paid to explaining essentials in particular and exactly to define the terms employed.”—Euclid.

“The first care of the sage should be to discover the true character of his pupils. By his questions he should assist them to explain their own ideas and by his answers he should compel them to perceive their falsities. By accurate definitions he should gradually dispel the incongruities in their earlier education and by his subtlety in arousing their doubts, he should redouble their curiosity and eagerness for information; for the art of the instructor consists in inciting his pupils to that point at which they cannot endure their manifest ignorance.“Many, unable to undergo this trial and confounded by offended self-conceit and lacking the fortitude to sustain correction, forsake their master, who should not be eager to recall them. Others who learn from humiliation to distrust themselves should no longer have snares spread for their vanity. The master should speak to them neither with the severity of a censor nor with the haughtiness of a sophist, nor deal in harsh reproaches nor importunate complaints; his discourse should be the language of reason and friendship in the mouth of experience.”—Socrates.

“Many, unable to undergo this trial and confounded by offended self-conceit and lacking the fortitude to sustain correction, forsake their master, who should not be eager to recall them. Others who learn from humiliation to distrust themselves should no longer have snares spread for their vanity. The master should speak to them neither with the severity of a censor nor with the haughtiness of a sophist, nor deal in harsh reproaches nor importunate complaints; his discourse should be the language of reason and friendship in the mouth of experience.”—Socrates.

“The test is as true of cerebral power, as if a hundred thousand men lay dead upon the field; or a score of hulks were swinging blackened wrecks, after a game between two mighty admirals.”—Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.(Opening Address at Morphy Banquet, Boston, 1859.)

(Opening Address at Morphy Banquet, Boston, 1859.)

Men whose business it is to understand war and warfare often are amused by senseless comparisons made by writers who, as their writings show, are ignorant even of the rudiments of military art and science. Of course a certain license in expression of thought is not to be denied the layman; he cannot be expected to talk with the exactness of the man who knows. At the same time there is a limit beyond which the non-technical man passes at his peril, and this limit is reached when he poses as a critic and presumes to dogmatize on matters in regard to which he is uninformed.

The fanciful conjectures of such people, well are illustrated by the following editorialfaux pas, perpetrated by a leading metropolitan daily, viz.:

“Everyone knows now that a future war between states having similar and substantially equal equipments will be a different affair from any war of the past; characterized by a different order of generalship and a radically novel application of the principles of strategy and tactics.”

Many in the struggle to obtain their daily bread, are tempted to essay the unfamiliar, and for a stipulated wage to pose as teachers to the public.

Such always will do well to write modestly in regard to sciences which they have not studied and of arts which they never practiced, and especially in future comments on Military matters, such people may profit by the appended modicum of that ancient history, which newspaper men as a class so affect to despise, and in regard to which, as a rule, they are universally and lamentably, ignorant.

What orders of Generalship can exist in the future, different from those which always have existed since war was made, viz.: good generalship and bad generalship?

Ability properly to conduct an army is a concrete thing; it does not admit of comparison. Says Frederic the Great:

“There are only two kinds of Generals—those who know their trade and those who do not.”

Hence, “a different order of Generalship,” suggested by the editorial quoted, implies either a higher or a lesser degree of ability in the “general of the future”; and as obviously, it is impossible that he can do worse than many already have done, it is necessary to assume that the commander of tomorrow will be an improvement over his predecessors.

Consequently, to the military mind it becomes of paramount interest to inquire as to the form and manner in which such superiority will be tangibly and visibly manifested, viz.:

Will the general of the future be a better general than Epaminondas, Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Eugene, Frederic, Washington, Napoleon, Von Moltke?

Will he improve upon that application of the principlesof strategy and tactics to actual warfare which comes down to us of today, stamped with the approval of these superlative military geniuses?

Will the general of the future know a better way for making war than acting against the enemy’s communications?

Will he devise a better method of warfare than that whose motive is the concentration of a superior force upon the strategetic objective?

Will the processes of his prime logistic operations be preferable to those of men who won their victories before their battles were fought, by combining with their troops the topography of the country, and causing rivers and mountains to take the place of corps d’armee?

Will the general of the future renounce as obsolete and worthless that military organization founded centuries before the Christian Era, by the great Theban, Epaminondas, the father of scientific warfare; that system adopted by every captain of renown and which may be seen in its purity in the greater military establishments from the days of Rome to the present Imperial North German Confederation?

Will the general of the future renounce as obsolete and worthless that system of Minor Tactics utilized by every man who has made it his business to conquer the World? Will he propose to us something more perfect than the primary formation of forces depicted in Plate XIII of the Secret Strategical Instructions of Frederic II?

Will the general of the future renounce as obsolete and worthless those intricate, but mathematically exact, evolutions of the combined arms, which appertain to the Major Tactics of men who are remembered to this day for the battles that they won?

Will he invent processes more destructive than those whereby Epaminondas crushed at Leuctra and Mantinea the power of Sparta, and the women of Lacedaemon sawthe smoke of an enemy’s camp fire for the first time in six hundred years?

Than those whereby Alexander, a youth of eighteen, won Greece for his father at Chaeronea and the World for himself at Issus and Arbela? Than those whereby Hannibal destroyed seriatim four Roman armies at Trebia, Thrasymenus, Cannae and Herdonea?

Will he find out processes more sudden and decisive than those whereby Caesar conquered Gaul and Pompey and the son of Mithridates, and which are fitly described only in his own language; “Veni, vidi, vici”?

What will the general of the future substitute for the three contiguous sides of the octagon whereby Tamerlane the Great with his 1,400,000 veterans at the Plains of Angora, enveloped the Emperor Bajazet and 900,000 Turks in the most gigantic battle of record?

Will he eclipse the pursuit of these latter by Mizra, the son of Tamerlane, who with the Hunnish light cavalry rode two hundred and thirty miles in five days and captured the Turkish capital, the Emperor Bajazet, his harem and the royal treasure?

Will he excel Gustavus Adolphus, who dominated Europe for twenty years, and Turenne, the military Atlas who upheld that magnificent civilization which embellishes the reign of Louis XIV?

Will he do better than Prince Eugene, who victoriously concluded eighteen campaigns and drove the Turks out of Christendom?

Will he discover processes superior to those whereby Frederic the Great with 22,000 troops destroyed at Rosbach a French army of 60,000 regulars in an hour and a half, at the cost of three hundred men; and at Leuthern with 33,000 troops, killed, wounded or captured 54,000 out of 93,000 Austrians, at a cost of 3,900 men?

Will he improve on those processes whereby Napoleon with 40,000 men, destroyed in a single year five Austrianarmies and captured 150,000 prisoners? Will he improve on Rivoli, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram, Dresden, and Ligny?

Will the general of the future renounce as obsolete and worthless that system of Grand Tactics, by means of which the mighty ones of Earth have swept before them all created things?

Will his system surpass in grandeur of conception and exactness of execution the march of Alexander to the Indus? Will he reply to his rival’s prayers for peace and amity as did the great Macedonian; “There can be but one Master of the World”; and to the dissuasions of his friend; “So would I do, were I Parmenio”?

Will he do things more gigantic than Hannibal’s march across the Alps?

Than the operation of Alesia by Caesar; where the Romans besieging one Gallic army in a fortified city, and themselves surrounded by a second Gallic army, single handed destroyed both? Than the circuit of the Caspian Sea by the 200,000 light cavalry of Tamerlane, a feat of mountain climbing which never has been duplicated? Than that marvelous combination of the principles of tactics and of field fortification, whereby in the position of Bunzelwitz, Frederic the Great, with 55,000 men, successfully upheld the last remaining prop of the Prussian nation, against 250,000 Russian and Austrian regular troops, commanded by the best generals of the age?

Will he conceive anything more scientific and artistic than the manoeuvre of Trenton and Princeton by Washington? Than the capture of Burgoyne at Saratoga and Cornwallis at Yorktown? Than the manoeuvres of Ulm, of Jena, of Landshut? Than the manoeuvres of Napoleon in 1814? Than the manoeuvre of Charleroi in 1815, declared by Jomini to be Napoleon’s masterpiece? Will he excel the manoeuvres of Kutosof andWittsengen in 1812-13 and of Blucher on Paris in 1814 and on Waterloo in 1815; each of which annihilated for the time being the military power of France?

Will he devise military conceptions superior to those whereby Von Moltke overthrew Denmark in six hours, Austria in six days, and France in six weeks?

The sapient race of quill-drivers ever has hugged to its breast many delusions; some of which border upon the outer intellectual darkness. One of these delusions is that most persistently advertised, least substantial, but forever darling first favorite of timid and inexperienced minds: “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

Explanation of the invincible ignorance of the penny-a-liner is simple, viz.:

Of the myriad self-appointed educators to the public, few are familiar even with the rudimentary principles of Military Science and almost none are acquainted even with the simplest processes of Strategetic Art. Hence, like all who discourse on matters which they do not understand, such writers continually confound together things which have no connection.

Ignorant of war and the use of weapons; bewildered by the prodigious improvements in mechanical details, they immoderately magnify the importance of such improvements, oblivious to the fact that these latter relate exclusively to elementary tactics and in no way affect the system of Strategy, Logistics, and the higher branches of Tactics.

Of such people, the least that can be said and that in all charity, is, that before essaying the role of the pedagogue, they should endeavor to grasp that most obvious of all truths:

“A man cannot teach what he never has learned.”

Says Frederic the Great: “Improvements and newdiscoveries in implements of warfare will be made continually; and generals then alive must modify tactics to comply with these novelties. But the Grand Art of taking advantage of topographical conditions and of the faulty disposition of the opposing forces, ETERNALLY WILL REMAIN UNCHANGED in the military system.”

Naturally, the student now is led to inquire:

What then is this immutable military system? What are its text books, where is it taught and from whom is it to be learned?

In answer it may be stated:

At the present day, private military schools make no attempt to teach more than elementary tactics. Even the Governmental academy curriculum aims little higher than the school of the battalion.

Scientific Chess-play begins where these institutions leave off, and ends at that goal which none of these institutions even attempt to reach.

Chess teaches to conduct campaigns, to win battles, and to move troops securely and effectively in the presence of and despite the opposition of an equal or superior enemy.

Military schools graduate boys as second-lieutenants commanding a platoon. Chess graduates Generals, able to mobilize Corps d’armee, whatever their number or location; to develop these into properly posted integers of a grand Strategic Front and to manoeuvre and operate the army as a Strategetic Unit, in accordance to the laws of the Strategetic art and the principles of the Strategetic science.

By precept and by actual practice, Chess teaches what isNOTtaught in any military school—that least understoodand most misunderstood; that best guarded and most invaluable of all State Secrets—

The profession of

GENERALSHIP.

“Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch. Therefore it is good to be conversant with them; especially the books of such as themselves have been actors upon the stage.”—Sir Francis Bacon.

“At this moment, Europe, which fears neither God nor devil, grovels in terror before a little man hardly five feet in height; who, clad in a cocked hat and grey great-coat and mounted upon a white horse, plods along through mud and darkness; followed by the most enthusiastic, most devoted and most efficient band of cut-throats and robbers, the world has ever seen.”

“Many good soldiers are but poor generals.”—Hannibal.

“No soldier serving under a victorious commander, ever has enough of war.”—Caesar.

“Officers always should be chosen from the nobility and never from the lower orders of society; for the former, no matter how dissolute, always retain a sense of honor, while the latter, though guilty of atrocious actions, return to their homes without compunction and are received by their families without disapprobation.”—Frederic the Great.

At the terrible disaster of Cannae, the Patrician Consul Aemilius Paulus and 80,000 Romans died fighting sword in hand; while the Plebian Consul, Varro, fled early in the battle. Upon the return of the latter to Rome, the Senate, instead of ordering his execution, with withering sarcasm formally voted him its thanks and the thanks of the Roman people, “that he did not despair of the Republic.”

“Among us we have a man of singular character—one Phocion. He seems not to know that he lives in our modern age and at incomparable Athens. He is poor, yet is not humiliated by his poverty; he does good, yet never boasts of it; and gives advice, though he is certain it will not be followed. He possesses talent without ambition and serves the state without regard to his own interest. At the head of the army, he contents himself with restoring discipline and beating the enemy. When addressing the assembly, he is equally unmoved by the disapprobation or the applause of the multitude.“We laugh at his singularities and we have discovered an admirable secret for revenging ourselves for his contempt. He is the only general we have left—but we do not employ him; he is the most upright and perhaps the most intelligent of our counsellors—but we do not listen to him. It is true, we cannot make him change his principles, but, by Heaven, neither shall he induce us to change ours; and it never shall be said that by the example of his superannuated virtues and the influence of his antique teachings, Phocion was able to correct the most polished and amiable people in the world.”—Callimedon.

“We laugh at his singularities and we have discovered an admirable secret for revenging ourselves for his contempt. He is the only general we have left—but we do not employ him; he is the most upright and perhaps the most intelligent of our counsellors—but we do not listen to him. It is true, we cannot make him change his principles, but, by Heaven, neither shall he induce us to change ours; and it never shall be said that by the example of his superannuated virtues and the influence of his antique teachings, Phocion was able to correct the most polished and amiable people in the world.”—Callimedon.

GENERALSHIP

“In Chess the soldiers are the men and the General is the mind of the player.”—Emanuel Lasker.

“It is neither riches nor armies that make a nation formidable; but the courage and genius of the Commander-in-Chief.”—Frederic the Great.

“Ho! Ye Macedonians! Because together we have conquered the World, think ye to give law to the blood of Achilles and to withstand the dictates of the Son of Jupiter?“Choose ye a new commander, draw yourselves up for battle; I will lead against you those Persians whom ye so despise, and if you are victorious, by Mehercule, I will do everything that you desire.”—Alexander the Great.

“Ho! Ye Macedonians! Because together we have conquered the World, think ye to give law to the blood of Achilles and to withstand the dictates of the Son of Jupiter?

“Choose ye a new commander, draw yourselves up for battle; I will lead against you those Persians whom ye so despise, and if you are victorious, by Mehercule, I will do everything that you desire.”—Alexander the Great.

“It is I and I alone, who give you your glory and your success.”—Napoleon.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, My ways, saith the Lord.”—Holy Bible.

By authority indisputable, the ex-cathedra dictum of the greatest of the Great Captains, we have been informed that the higher processes of the military system, eternally will remain unchanged.

As a necessary corollary, it follows that these processes always have been and always will be comprehended and employed by every great Captain.

Equally, it is self-evident, that capability to comprehend these higher processes, united with ability properly to utilize them to win battles and campaigns, constitutes genius for Warfare.

Moreover, we are further informed by the same unimpeachable authority, that so irresistible is genius for warfare, that united to courage, it is formidable beyond the united financial and military resources of the State. In corroboration of this, we have the testimony of well-qualified judges. Says the Count de Saxe:

“Unless a man is born with talent for war and this talent is brought to perfection, it is impossible for him to be more than an indifferent general.”

In these days, more or less degenerate from the soldierly standpoint, the fantastic sophistries of Helvetius have vogue, and most people believe book-learning to be all-in-all.

Many are so weak-minded, as really to believe, that because born in the Twentieth Century, they necessarily are the repository of all the virtues, and particularly of all the knowledge acquired by their ancestors from remotest generations. Few seem to understand that the child, even of ultra-modern conditions, is born just as ignorant and often invincibly so, as were the sons of Ham, Shem and Japhet, and most appear to be unaware, that:

Only by intelligent reflection upon their own experience and upon the experiences of others, can one acquire knowledge.

The triviality of crowding the memory with things that may or may not be true, is the merest mimicry of education.

Real education is nothing more than the fruit of experience; and he who acts in conformity to such knowledge, alone is wise. Thus to act, implies ability to comprehend. But there are those in whom capability is limited; hence, all may not be wise who wish to be so, and these necessarily remain through life very much as they are born.

The use of knowledge would be infinitely more certain, if our understanding of its accurate application were as extensive as our needs require. We have only a few ideas of the attributes of matter and of the laws of mechanics, out of an infinite number of secrets which mankind never can hope to discover. This renders our feeble adaptations in practice of the knowledge we possess, oftimes inadequate for the result we desire; and it seems obvious that if Nature had intended man to attain to the superlative, she would have endowed him with intelligence and have communicated to him information, infinitely superior to that we possess.

The universal blunder of mankind arises from an hallucination that all minds are created equal; and that by mere book-learning,i.e., simply by memorizing what somebody says are facts it is possible for any man to attain to superior and even to superlative ability.

Such profoundly, but utterly mis-educated people, not unnaturally may inquire, by what right speaks the eminent warrior previously quoted. These properly may be informed in the words of Frederic the Great:

“The Count de Saxe is the hero of the bravest action ever done by man.” viz.,

A great battle was raging.

Within a magnificent Pavilion in the centre of the French camp, the King, the nobility and the high Ecclesiastics of the realm were grouped about a plain iron cot.

Prone upon this cot, wasted by disease, lay the Count de Saxe, in that stupor which often precedes and usually presages dissolution.

The last rites of the Church had been administered, and the assemblage in silence and apprehension, awaited the approach of a victorious enemy and the final gasp of a general who had never lost a battle.

The din of strife drawing nearer, penetrated the coma which enshrouded the soul of the great Field-Marshal.

Saxe opened his eyes. His experienced ear told him that his army, routed and disordered, was flying before an exultant enemy.

The giant whose pastime it was to tear horseshoes in twain with his bare hands and to twist nails into corkscrews with his fingers, staggered to his feet, hoarsely articulating fierce and mandatory ejaculations.

Hastily clothed, the Count de Saxe was placed in a litter and borne out of his pavilion into that chaos of ruin and carnage which invariably accompanies a lost battle. Around him, behind and in front, swarmed his broken battalions and disorganized squadrons; while in pursuit advanced majestically in solid column, the triumphant English.

Saxe demanded his horse and armor.

Clad in iron and supported in the saddle on either hand, this modern Achilles galloped to the front of his army; then, at the head of the Scotch Guards, the Irish Brigade, and French Household troops, Saxe in person, led that series of terrific hand-to-hand onslaughts whichdrove the English army from the field of battle, and gained the famous victory of Fontenoy.

“Furthermore,” declares this illustrious Generalissimo of Louis XIV;

“It is possible to make war without trusting anything to accident; this is the highest point of skill and perfection within the province of a general.”

“Most men,” writes Vergetius, “imagine that strength and courage are sufficient to secure victory. Such are ignorant that when they exist, stratagem vanquishes strength and skill overcomes courage.”

In his celebrated work,Institutorum Rei Militaris, that source from whence all writers derive their best knowledge of the military methods of the ancients; and by means of which, he strove to revive in his degenerate countrymen that intelligent valor which distinguishes their great ancestors—the famous Roman reiterates this solemn warning:

“Victory in war depends not on numbers, nor on courage; skill and discipline only, can ensure it.”

The emphasis thus laid by these great warriors on genius for warfare is still further accentuated by men whose dicta few will dispute, viz.,

“The understanding of the Commander,” says Frederic the Great, “has more influence on the outcome of the battle or campaign, than has the prowess of his troops.”

Says Napoleon:

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