It is this difficulty which is felt most by those responsible for the military readiness of European states, and which therefore has engaged their most anxious attention.  The providing of material of war is an onerous money question; but it is simple, and has some compensation for the expense in the resulting employment of labor for its production.  It is quite another matter to have ready the number of men needed,—­to train them, and to keep them so trained as to be available immediately.

The solution is sought in a tax upon time—­Upon the time of the nation, economically lost to production, and upon the time of the individual, lost out of his life.  Like other taxes, the tendency on all sides is to reduce this as far as possible,—­to compromise between ideal proficiency for probable contingencies, and the actual demands of the existing and usual conditions of peace.  Although inevitable, the compromise is unsatisfactory, and yields but partial results in either direction.  The economist still deplores and resists the loss of producers,—­the military authorities insist that the country is short of its necessary force.  To obviate the difficulty as far as possible, to meet both of the opposing demands, resort is had to the system of reserves, into which men pass after serving in the active force for a period, which is reduced to, and often below, the shortest compatible with instruction in their duties, and with the maintenance of the active forces at a fixed minimum.  This instruction acquired, the recipient passes into the reserve, leaves the life of the soldier or seaman for that of the citizen, devoting a comparatively brief time in every year to brushing up the knowledge formerly acquired.  Such a system, under some form, is found in services both voluntary and compulsory.

It is scarcely necessary to say that such a method would never be considered satisfactory in any of the occupations of ordinary life.  A man who learns his profession or trade, but never practises it, will not long be considered fit for employment.  No kind of practical preparation, in the way of systematic instruction, equals the practical knowledge imbibed in the common course of life.  This is just as true of the military professions—­the naval especially—­as it is of civil callings; perhaps even more so, because the former are a more unnatural, and therefore, when attained, a more highly specialized, form of human activity.  For the very reason that war is in the main an evil, an unnatural state, but yet at times unavoidable, the demands upon warriors, when average men, are exceptionally exacting.