Amongst those profited by the new state of
things was Maurice Savage. The pride which
he had originally felt in wearing a red coat,
had not been discouraged; and he had learnt
from Mac Manus that to be "smart " was the
first step towards the promotion which the
old soldier had, all along, so unambitiously
neglected. Maurice, therefore, took pains
with his personal appearance, and it was not
long before he attracted the adjutant's attention
at guard mounting, and, instead of being
told off for the usual tour of duty, was very
frequently ordered to fall out as an orderly
for the day, in which situation a private
soldier enacts at humble distance the part of
aide-de-camp—without any increase of pay,
but with a little more personal liberty than if
he had his eight hours' sentry to perform.
As an "orderly," his attendance on the adjutant,
who sometimes selected Maurice specially
to convey his orders, led him to observe the
advantages which accrued to those men who
were most regular in their attendance at
school.

This was even then an optional course, and
in the earlier days of Mac Manus and a few of
the old soldiers of the regiment, had no
existence; but when Maurice joined the service,
the acquirement of education was every day
becoming more widely extended, and at the
present time, happily, we have it to say, the
most effectual step towards advancemen
in the army lies through the school-room
doors.

The Limited Enlistment Bill is a vast
improvement, moreover, on the old system,
which was generally for life; for now, a
young man may enter the service at eighteen,
and be dismissed at twenty-eight a perfectly
educated man. This phrase is no hyperbole,
for education in the army is not confined at
present, as it was of yore, to the mere rudiments,
sufficient to render the possessor of them
capable of writing out the orders or of paying
a company but embraces a well grounded
knowledge of history and geography (leaving
the locality of "Novy Skoshy" no longer a
matter of doubt), and a competent acquirement,
not only of arithmetic and mathematics,
but of geometry, algebra, mensuration, and
fortification; so that, on returning to "civil
life," the soldier is not compelled to fall
back on the little mechanical knowledge which,
peradventure, he owned before he exchanged
the cobbler's awl, or the tailor's needle, for
the musket and bayonet, but may earn an
honourable existence by teaching those
sciences which he has acquired in his
military capacity.* The difficulty which the
schoolmasters of regiments now have, is, not
the task of employment in teaching, but
positive overwork, the consequence of the
avidity with which the men who have joined
the battalion attend the classes. The barrack
library—successful rival of the barrack
canteen—towards the support of which the
soldier now cheerfully pays his penny per
month, convincingly proves that the desire
for education has taken root in the British
service, and we trust the time is not far
distant when the reproach will be removed
from our army of being, in point of intellectual
cultivation, so far behind the armies of
France and Prussia.

*That genius will make its way in spite of every obstacle,
is too trite a theme for us to insist upon in this place, but
during the two hundred years' existence of a standing army
in England, how few have been the instances of private
soldiers elevated to distinction by the force of education.
Coleridge is not an example, for he owed his advancement
to the accidental discovery of his being an educated man
before he enlisted in the dragoons; but the late Mr. William
Sturgeon, of Manchester, was one of those rare exceptions.
He was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and disliking that
employment, at the age of nineteen entered the Westmoreland
Militia, and two years later enlisted in the Royal Artillery.
"While in this corps," says a recent biographical notice of
him, "he devoted his leisure to scientific studies, and
appears to have made himself familiar with all the great
facts ot electricity and magnetism, which were then opening
on the world. His subsequent career has created for him a
name in the annals of scientific discovery."

We have said, that when the spirit of
emulation awoke in the breast of Maurice Savage,
the education of the men was in no wise
compulsory; they were not then required,
even as recruits, to attend school for two
hours a-day, and afterwards continue at their
own will and pleasure to be students; but,
still, it frequently happened that a man
preferred the request to be allowed to pick up
the crumbs of knowledge that fell from the
schoolmaster's table,—and Maurice Savage
was one of these. It followed, in proportion
to his assiduity, not that he became estranged
from his comrades, but that he rose superior
to the greater part of those by whom he was
surrounded. His newly awakened desire for
study brought with it another notable advantage;
it kept him from those haunts of
idleness and vice where nothing is learnt but
that which tends to degradation and leads to
crime.

It is the misfortune of most of our colonies
that spirits are excessively cheap, and that
even the little pocket-money which comes to
the soldier may, if he is so disposed, at any
moment, purchase liquor enough to make him
"the worse for it." When once he gets a
taste for the rum and whiskey, which are so
abundant in the North American garrison
towns, his demoralisation becomes as complete
as that of the Red Indian, who is now seldom
seen in quarters except as an object for men
to make sport withal as he exhibits his
drunken antics. The vice of drinking, growing
by that it feeds on, cannot continue to be
indulged in by the soldier, out of the pittance
which, if saved, might, in the course of time,
accumulate, in the Regimental Savings Bank,
to a respectable sum; his own respectability
being insured the while. To obtain the
unhallowed gratification, he runs in debt at the
low grog-shops; and to pay his debt—for the
villainous storekeeper threatens to complain,
though he knows be cannot claim the amount,
the credit of the troops having been " cried