It was with a view, then, of fitting himself for command that Jackson broke away from the restraints of regimental life; not because those restraints were burdensome or distasteful in themselves, but because he felt that whilst making the machine they might destroy the man.  Those responsible for the efficiency of the United States army had not yet learned that the mind must be trained as well as the body, that drill is not the beginning and the end of the soldier’s education, that unless an officer is trusted with responsibility in peace he is but too apt to lose all power of initiative in war.  That Jackson’s ideas were sound may be inferred from the fact that many of the most distinguished generals in the Civil War were men whose previous career had been analogous to his own.* (* Amongst these may be mentioned Grant, Sherman, and McClellan.  Lee himself, as an engineer, had but small acquaintance with regimental life.  The men who saved India for England in the Great mutiny were of the same type.)

His duties at Lexington were peculiar.  As Professor of Artillery he was responsible for little more than the drill of the cadets and their instruction in the theory of gunnery.  The tactics of artillery, as the word is understood in Europe, he was not called upon to impart.  Optics, mechanics, and astronomy were his special subjects, and he seems strangely out of place in expounding their dry formulas.

In the well-stocked library of the Institute he found every opportunity of increasing his professional knowledge.  He was an untiring reader, and he read to learn.  The wars of Napoleon were his constant study.  He was an enthusiastic admirer of his genius; the swiftness, the daring, and the energy of his movements appealed to his every instinct.  Unfortunately, both for the Institute and his popularity, it was not his business to lecture on military history.  We can well imagine him, as a teacher of the art of war, describing to the impressionable youths around him the dramatic incidents of some famous campaign, following step by step the skilful strategy that brought about such victories as Austerlitz and Jena.  The advantage would then have been with his pupils; in the work assigned to him it was the teacher that benefited.  He was by no means successful as an instructor of the higher mathematics.  Although the theories of light and motion were doubtless a branch of learning which the cadets particularly detested, his methods of teaching made it even more repellent.  A thorough master of his subject, he lacked altogether the power of aiding others to master it.  No flashes of humour relieved the tedium of his long and closely-reasoned demonstrations.  He never descended to the level of his pupils’ understanding, nor did he appreciate their difficulties.  Facts presented themselves to his intellect in few lights.  As one of his chief characteristics as a commander was the clearness with which he perceived the end to be aimed at and