he army and for the country this system ends here,
and all further advancement is made by mere seniority, or by executive
favoritism, the claims of merit having but little or no further
influence. Indeed, executive patronage is not infrequently permitted to
encroach even upon these salutary rules of appointment, and to place
relatives and political friends into the higher ranks of commissioned
officers directly from civil life, "regardless alike of qualifications
and of merit," while numbers "of sons of the poor and less influential
men," who have served a probation of four or five years in military
studies and exercises, and have proved themselves, in some thirty
examinations made by competent boards of military officers, to be most
eminently qualified for commissions, are passed by in utter neglect! Our
army is much more open to this kind of favoritism and political
partiality, than that of almost any of the governments of Europe, which
we have been accustomed to regard as aristocratic and wholly unfriendly
to real merit.

In the Prussian service, in time of peace, the government can appoint no
one, even to the subordinate grade of ensign, till he has followed the
courses of instruction of the division or brigade-school of his arm, and
has passed a satisfactory examination. And, "no ensign can be promoted
to a higher grade till after his promotion has been agreed to by the
superior board or commission of examiners at Berlin, and his name has
been placed on the list of those whose knowledge and acquirements
(_connaissances_) render them qualified (_aptes_) for the responsible
duties of their profession. The nomination to the grade of
second-lieutenant is not, even after all these conditions are fulfilled,
left to the choice of the government. When a vacancy occurs in this
grade, the subaltern officers present to the commandant of the regiment
a list of three ensigns who have completed their course of study; the
commandant, after taking the advice of the superior officers of the
regiment, nominates the most meritorious of these three to the king, who
makes the appointment." The government can appoint to the engineers and
artillery only those who have been instructed as _eleves_ in the Berlin
school of cadets and the school of artillery and engineers, and these
appointments must be made in the order in which the pupils have passed
their final examination. In these corps the lieutenants and second
captains can be promoted