usefulness would necessarily be limited by circumstances which would not affect ordinary infantry; but common sense would readily dictate the positions of attack or defence in which their peculiar powers would render the best service, and military science would suggest the most efficient manner of directing their operations.  Such a force, however, would necessarily form but a small portion of any army; and we have dwelt upon the subject solely from the conviction that its importance is too great to allow it to be neglected, while it is yet too little known to be appreciated as it deserves.

We turn now to the ordinary rifle-practice, which has come of late years to be considered in Europe almost as the one thing needful for the soldier, while with us it has been gradually sinking into disuse for a quarter of a century.  When called upon to send an army into the field, we find that more than half of its members have never fired a gun, and even of those who have, not one in a hundred has had any instruction beyond what he has been able to pick up for himself, while popping at robins and squirrels with a ten-dollar Birmingham shot-gun; and every account we receive of a skirmish with the enemy elicits exclamations of astonishment that so few are hurt on either side.  It may relieve in some degree the prevalent dread of fire-arms (which is a primary cause of this general ignorance of their use) to discover that it requires no small amount of skill to hurt anybody with them; and when the fact comes to be equally appreciated, that ignorance lies at the bottom of all the unintended mischief that is done with them, it is probable that proper instruction in their use will be considered, as it ought, a necessary part of a boy’s education.  It had been better for us, if this matter had been sooner attended to. Let us lose no time now.

Reader! are you a man, having the use of your limbs and eyes, and do you know how to put a ball into a rifle and bring it out again with a true aim?  If not, it is time you were learning.  Provide yourself with a rifle and equipments, and find some one to give you the first lessons in their use, and then practise daily at target-shooting.  Do not excuse yourself with the plea that you have no intention to enter the service.  If the work of preparation is left only to those who mean to become soldiers, it will not be done; but if every man proves his appreciation of its importance by taking an active interest in its promotion, the right men for soldiers will be forthcoming when they are needed, and the most important element of their military education will have been acquired; and it is not impossible that the day may come when you yourself will feel that the power you have thus obtained is worth more to you than all you learned in college.  Are you too old and infirm for such service, or are you a woman, and have you the means of equipping another who is unable to do it for himself?  If so, it will not be hard to find an able-bodied young man who will gladly take charge of a rifle, on the condition that he is to be its owner at the end of six months, if he can then place ten successive shots in a circle of a foot in diameter at two hundred yards.