Nations, as they become civilized, adopt other methods of discipline.  The drill becomes industrial.  Conquest and destruction give place to production in many forms.  And what trophies Industry has won, what skill has it exercised, what labours has it performed!  Every industrial process is performed by drilled bands of artizans.  Go into Yorkshire and Lancashire, and you will find armies of drilled labourers at work, where the discipline is perfect, and the results, as regards the amount of manufactured productions turned out of hand, are prodigious.

On efficient drilling and discipline, men’s success as individuals, and as societies entirely depends.  The most self-dependent man is under discipline,—­and the more perfect the discipline, the more complete his condition.  A man must drill his desires, and keep them under subjection,—­he must obey the word of command, otherwise he is the sport of passion and impulse.  The religions man’s life is full of discipline and self-restraint.  The man of business is entirely subject to system and rule.  The happiest home is that where the discipline is the most perfect, and yet where it is the least felt.  We at length become subject to it as to a law of Nature, and while it binds us firmly, yet we feel it not.  The force of Habit is but the force of Drill.

One dare scarcely hint, in these days, at the necessity for compulsory conscription; and yet, were the people at large compelled to pass through the discipline of the army, the country would be stronger, the people would be soberer, and thrift would become much more habitual than it is at present.

Military savings banks were first suggested by Paymaster Fairfowl in 1816; and about ten years later the question was again raised by Colonel Oglander, of the 26th Foot (Cameronians).  The subject was brought under the notice of the late Duke of Wellington, and negatived; the Duke making the following memorandum on the subject:  “There is nothing that I know of to prevent a soldier, equally with others of His Majesty’s subjects, from investing his money in savings banks.  If there be any impediment, it should be taken away; but I doubt the expediency of going further.”

The idea, however, seems to have occurred to the Duke, that the proposal to facilitate the saving of money by private soldiers might be turned to account in the way of a reduction in the army expenditure, and he characteristically added:  “Has a soldier more pay than he requires?  If he has, it should be lowered, not to those now in the service, but to those enlisted hereafter.”  No one, however, could allege that the pay of the private soldier was excessive, and it was not likely that any proposal to lower it would be entertained.