many are not able to give more than two hours
or an hour and a half, as at Colchester, per
week. Even in those corps where special classes
are looked on with favour by the commanding
officer, the attendance rendered by each man has
not exceeded fifteen or sixteen hours weekly;
in others it has been as low as from one to five
hours. So that we cannot wonder if the average
progress of the men is not very rapid, and if the
saying still hold true in the army schools, of
knowledge under difficulties. Certainly
knowledge under difficulties when "a soldier who
does not know his alphabet is told that the
course of the bullet under the influence of powder
is a curved line called the trajectory, and this is
done in a schoolroom with blackboard and easel,
and with diagrams and written explanations
which must be incomprehensible to a wholly
uneducated mind." But great results are
sometimes attained. One man, THOMAS WHITE from
Battle, Sussex (he deserves to be mentioned),
after eight years' service in the Royal Artillery
sent in papers at the general examination which
many a young collegian could not have achieved.
They were grand papers,bristling with x's and any
number of A B C D's, algebraic sums worked
out as if by magic, trapezoids and triangles, and
perpendiculars, and diagrams, and all manner of
odd-looking cabalistic signs; while the historical
questions, and other things which a plain body
could better understand, were answered as if
from a dictionary. Thomas White, now sergeant,
ought to have a pleasant future before him if
the consciousness of well-doing may give pleasant
thoughts and happy days to a man, with
perhaps more substantial advantages in the time
to come.

There was some confusion at first respecting
the dress of the army schoolmasters. A blue
frock coat with braid, silk sash, sword and waist
belt, and a forage cap with red cloth band,
resembled too closely the undress uniform of a
commissioned officer to be pleasant either to the
schoolmaster himself, or to his superiors. This
has now been altered; and the chevrons on the
arms of the blue frock-coat, with the suppression
of the sash, sufficiently distinguish the
army schoolmasters who rank only as non-
commissioned officers next below regimental
sergeant-majors from the commissioned officers.
There are seven superintending schoolmasters,
who are commissioned officers with the relative
rank of ensign. These have from seven to eight
shillings a day, with free quarters or lodging
money in lieu, and a shilling a day for servant's
wages; there are one hundred and twenty-eight
army schoolmasters, beginning from three
shillings a day, and rising sixpence a day every two
years, up to the maximum of six shillings and
sixpence at fourteen years' service; and they too
have free quarters and fuel provided for them,
with a pension of from two shillings and
sixpence to three shillings a day after twenty-one
years' service. The assistant schoolmasters have
two shillings a day. When marching with
troops, the army schoolmaster has his marching
allowance of two shillings and sixpence a day;
when detained, he has his detention allowance of
three shillings and sixpence a day; he has free
second-class passage, and when on board pays
one shilling a day for himself, fourpence for his
wife, and a penny for each child, as food money.
When moving with troops, he is allowed three
hundred-weight of baggage, and has the right
to have conveyed for him ten hundred-weight if
travelling with his wife; he has a right to only
six hundred-weight if his wife be not with him,
and four hundred-weight if he be unmarried. He
may marry if leave be asked and obtained, but
not otherwise; he is not allowed to take private
pupils—for the Army, like the Church, is a
jealous mistress; and he has an orderly told off
to keep his rooms clean, and, if need be, to
prepare his meals: for which he, the orderly,
receives one shilling a week.

Then, there are schoolmistresses; which
certainly reads oddly at the first; for we are so little
accustomed to think of the soldier as a family man,
or of the barrack square as a nursery-ground, that
it looks almost like a joke to read of "army
schoolmistresses," pupil teachers, and monitresses.
The first of these it is desirable should be as
much over twenty-one years of age as is
convenient; the post is one of peculiar danger and
difficulty even for the steadiest, wherefore the
authorities discountenance the employment of
young unmarried women as much as possible
(but there are always many applications from
that class), and encourage the appointment of
the wives of non-commissioned officers, and,
better still, the wives of the schoolmasters
themselves. A schoolmistress gets thirty-six,
thirty, or twenty-four pounds a year, according
as she is of the first, second, or third class;
after twenty-four years' service she has a pension
of two shillings a day; she has the same pay as
the schoolmaster when travelling with troops or
when detained, but only half the amount if she
be the schoolmaster's wife; she has her three
hundred-weight of baggage if moving with
troops, which does not allow of much spare
finery; and she has the right to the conveyance
of four hundred-weight if unmarried, and of six
hundred-weight if married, save to a trained
schoolmaster, or if not travelling with her
husband. There are three weeks' holidays twice in
the year, in summer and winter; and the life
seems to be pleasant enough, though dangerous
and needing extra caution in the way of walking.

The pupil teachers must be from seventeen
upwards; they begin at a salary of six pounds, and go
gradually up to the maximum of eighteen pounds;
and the monitresses are girls from thirteen to
seventeen, with a salary of four pounds for their
captaincy over their little bands of twenty-five.
For, our schoolmistresses are not wanted to
soften the hard dose of learning to Paddy, or
Sawney, or John; they are wanted for Paddy's,
and Sawney's, and John's children thus
recognising the family in the most emphatic way
possible to an administration, and acknowledging
individual rights under the uniform as they were
never acknowledged before. But as we said,
young unmarried women are discouraged as