Our Army is so small and so much scattered that it is very difficult to give the higher officers (as well as the lower officers and the enlisted men) a chance to practice manoeuvres in mass and on a comparatively large scale.  In time of need no amount of individual excellence would avail against the paralysis which would follow inability to work as a coherent whole, under skillful and daring leadership.  The Congress should provide means whereby it will be possible to have field exercises by at least a division of regulars, and if possible also a division of national guardsmen, once a year.  These exercises might take the form of field manoeuvres; or, if on the Gulf Coast or the Pacific or Atlantic Seaboard, or in the region of the Great Lakes, the army corps when assembled could be marched from some inland point to some point on the water, there embarked, disembarked after a couple of days’ journey at some other point, and again marched inland.  Only by actual handling and providing for men in masses while they are marching, camping, embarking, and disembarking, will it be possible to train the higher officers to perform their duties well and smoothly.

A great debt is owing from the public to the men of the Army and Navy.  They should be so treated as to enable them to reach the highest point of efficiency, so that they may be able to respond instantly to any demand made upon them to sustain the interests of the Nation and the honor of the flag.  The individual American enlisted man is probably on the whole a more formidable fighting man than the regular of any other army.  Every consideration should be shown him, and in return the highest standard of usefulness should be exacted from him.  It is well worth while for the Congress to consider whether the pay of enlisted men upon second and subsequent enlistments should not be increased to correspond with the increased value of the veteran soldier.

Much good has already come from the act reorganizing the Army, passed early in the present year.  The three prime reforms, all of them of literally inestimable value, are, first, the substitution of four-year details from the line for permanent appointments in the so-called staff divisions; second, the establishment of a corps of artillery with a chief at the head; third, the establishment of a maximum and minimum limit for the Army.  It would be difficult to overestimate the improvement in the efficiency of our Army which these three reforms are making, and have in part already effected.

The reorganization provided for by the act has been substantially accomplished.  The improved conditions in the Philippines have enabled the War Department materially to reduce the military charge upon our revenue and to arrange the number of soldiers so as to bring this number much nearer to the minimum than to the maximum limit established by law.  There is, however, need of supplementary legislation.  Thorough military education must be provided, and