of nations towards war. The tendency of standing armies to produce the evil against which they are supposed to be the safeguard, if it were not obvious on the face of the facts, is too well established by reiterated experience to need argument here. The professional soldier, if he have really the instinct of the soldier within him, and be not a mere carpet knight or loafer in taverns or clubs, cannot choose but chafe at the inaction of peace, with its slow promotion, its monotony and enforced idleness, and the waning importance to which it inevitably consigns him; and cannot but welcome every chance which offers him a stage for practice and the éclat of active service in the field. When the class is a large one, its influence must work powerfully in exacerbating every international difference into war; and the peril will be at its height when the Government itself is under the influence of military traditions. On the other hand, where, as with us, the Government is in the hands of the civil population, the danger takes another form. The decision of peace and war is now thrown upon persons who, under ordinary circumstances (for actual invasion is too rare an occurrence to be taken into calculation), are but slightly and remotely identified with the event. War, it is true, brings even to the citizen who remains at home an increase of taxation; a friend or relative will now and then be found in the lists of killed and wounded; but, against this, there is the agreeable excitement of reading of battle-fields, and the proud consciousness of belonging to a nation that is winning glory by martial deeds. Where those with whom rests the momentous decision have only this sort of remote

and moderate interest in the awful results, what wonder if nations should sometimes rush into war "with a light heart"? But note how all these conditions are reversed, where the military force is the people itself. The army now exists as a profession only for an infinitesimal fraction of the nation; and war for the able-bodied masses means in the first place a vexatious interruption of their proper pursuits, with loss and sore anxiety for their families; and then, for themselves, the fiery ordeal of the actual campaign, almost wholly uncompensated in their case by the éclat and the rewards that await the professional soldier. To be sure, while nations were merely hordes of warriors, war would be their natural vocation, and perhaps pastime; but that a nation engaged in industrial pursuits, and in full career of civil life, should turn aside from its fields, its workshops, its desks and books, to gird on its armour, and throw itself into war, for any reason short of the gravest, for any reason not tantamount to self-defence this is not easily conceivable. It will be said that Prussia has done so, if not in the present, at least in former wars. But, without entering here into the morality of the Danish and Austrian contests, it suffices to remark that Prussia is in truth not a fair example of the influence of a national army. Her army undoubtedly belongs to that type; but, owing to the immense active force kept on foot in time of peace, it possesses also not a few of the attributes of a standing force. And even of the army of Prussia, M. de Laveleye testifies, referring to the war of 1866, that "no warlike enthusiasm animated the Prussian armies. The men, summoned to their flag, set out

with regret for a war generally condemned; but, once in the regiment, they desired to sustain the military honour of the corps, and to do their duty bravely.” "I have had the opportunity," adds M. de Laveleye, "of reading several letters written by soldiers campaigning in the army of Bohemia before Sadowa. 'We will do our duty,' they wrote; 'the better we fight the sooner we shall have achieved our task, and the sooner we shall return to our homes,'reasoning characteristic of the labourer who desires to accomplish his work, not of the soldier, for whom war is a career."* Every newspaper teems with evidence that this is at the present moment the prevailing feeling in the rank and file of the German armies.

If anything were wanting to complete the argument for the pacific tendency of the principle of popular armies, it is found in the fact, that the strength of the system lies in defence. This is universally recognized by those who have studied those organizations, and is

It cannot be denied that the words of M. de Laveleye, while reassuring as regards the influence of the popular principle in the Prussian army, suggest uncomfortable thoughts. This people, so little prone to war, may, it seems, be made the powerful instrument in waging a war of which it does not approve. Here, no doubt, is a real danger. But let us not mistake its character. So far as it is incident to the military system at all, it is not the wide popular basis of the army that favours it -on the contrary, this acts as a hindrance and check-but the aristocratic organization of the higher ranks, which keeps the officers in intimate accord with the aims of the dynasty, and with the classes on whose support the dynasty rests. But in truth, the source of the danger is less in the military system than in the political constitution of Prussia; and the remedy lies, not in abandoning the popular organization of the army, but in bringing the government under parliamentary control-not in curtailing, but in developing the democratic principle.

indeed very obvious. It follows that, were civilized countries generally organized upon this principle, aggressive wars would be unsuccessful wars. Here is surely a weighty plea, thrown by the policy for which I am contending into the scale of peace-one which, we may hope, would have its influence even where better reasons might not prevail.

VI.

THOUGHTS ON UNIVERSITY REFORM

A-PROPOS OF THE IRISH EDUCATIONAL CRISIS OF

1865-6.

A MOTION, made by an Irish Member at the close of the last Parliamentary session, which received little and rather slighting notice at the time, has raised some issues, both practical and theoretical, in the province of education, of very grave importance. The motion was a demand for a charter for a Roman Catholic College established some twelve years ago in Dublin, and commonly known as "The Catholic University," though hitherto without the power of granting degrees. It was met on the part of the Government by a counter proposal, to the effect, that, instead of constituting a new university in Ireland by the grant of a charter, the Catholic establishment should be affiliated as a distinct college to one of the universities which now exist; to wit, the Queen's. This compromise was eagerly embraced by the mover, and in general by the representatives of the Catholic party in Parliament, Mr. Hennessy being the single dissen

* Theological Review, January 1866.