The British soldier as he appears in the streets of London is the finest thing to look at in the military world. Although to the unused American eye most of these beings seem to be a little theatric in appearance, they are all that could be desired in uniform, build, and military bearing. In a nation of big men they have been chosen primarily for their height and their chest measurement, and they can scarcely be criticised for the somewhat exaggerated jauntiness which betrays a consciousness of their superior looks.

On the other hand, the American soldier as he is seen in the streets of a garrison city is not marked by either self-consciousness or noticeable bigness. His uniform is not showy, although it fits well, and the man inside of it is well set up; he is wiry, spry, and although of soldierly bearing, is more to be remarked for his alertness of movement. You would never think of calling him a magnificent creature; the keen face under the visored cap might be that of a young mechanic, business man, or student who had learned how to wear a uniform easily.

The recruit of the British army is chosen on physical grounds, and his obvious proportions seem to have been particularly desired. The American soldier, as we see him, talk with him, and hear what his officers have to say of him, seems to have obtained his place because he is a good all-around man, with no more muscle than intelligence, and with soundness of teeth considered as important as extensiveness of height.

The recruiting of the British army is admirably managed by some of the cleverest sergeants in the service. They must be able to tell at a glance whether an applicant is likely to pass an examination, and then they must paint the glories and possibilities of a soldier’s life in sufficiently alluring colors to persuade the prospective recruit to accept the “King’s shilling.”

The recruiting of the British army is always an interesting feature of the military life of London, and one may see it any week-day morning under the walls of the gallery opposite the church of St.-Martin’s-in-the-Fields. This church is on the upper edge of Trafalgar Square, in the busiest part of the city, and from nine o’clock in the morning the work goes on all day. The various branches of the service place signboards on the fence of the gallery court, upon which are hung bills that set forth in glowing language the advantages to be gained by enlisting in this or that service; also stating the requirements, pay, and allowances. All these boards are hung side by side, and there is an unwritten law that should a man be reading or looking at one board, the sergeant representing another branch of the service, or another regiment, is not permitted to speak to him until he has passed on. As soon as he has left the board, any of the recruiting officers is at liberty to speak to him.

There are from ten to twenty non-commissioned officers on duty at this place every morning; they are the finest types of men in the British service, and always appear in their best uniforms. They nearly all have the rank of sergeant-major, consequently their uniforms glitter with gold lace and attract the youth who have an eye for the military. One old sergeant-major is a particularly conspicuous character, being a veteran of the Crimea. He is a very old man, has been seen at this same spot, on the same service, for many years, and has become as well known to the Londoner as the very buildings themselves. His hair and beard are snow-white, and the years of campaigning have left their mark on his face; but his step is as youthful and elastic as that of any of the younger men on the same duty, and on his breast are the medals of many wars, most of them being ribbons one never sees except at Chelsea. He is the most energetic man on the recruiting detail, and he very seldom makes an error as to the eligibility of an applicant.

All day long the passers-by are scanned by these sharp old soldiers, and are invited to join the forces of the empire and attain the glory that, according to the “sar’-major,” is sure to be his portion. The dignity with which the recruiting is done is very pleasing, for these officers, uncommissioned though they be, wear their uniforms with the grace of a major-general. When they approach a man, they do so with an air of authority, in a straightforward manner, and although they depict the attractions of the service beguilingly, they seldom attempt to gain a recruit against his will. Most of those who loiter about the boards come with their minds made up to enlist, and do not need any great amount of persuasion. The grade of recruits taken in this manner is said to be rather low, as they are generally of the class that does not like to work, and has a mistaken idea that a soldier has an easy life.

Another method of recruiting the British army is by “recruiting marches” through the rural districts. With their most attractive uniforms, colors flying, and music piping, a battalion makes the entry into a town on their march in such engaging style that many of the youths of the place are sure to cast their lot with the army on the impulse of the moment; and in this way some of the best men are found, as in Great Britain the country lad seems to make the best soldier.

In the United States it has not been found necessary to resort to these expedients to gain recruits. The recruiting offices in time of peace show a small but steady stream of callers; they are not from the degraded classes, nor are they ignorant men; they are young men of various social grades who, in many cases, have been advised by older men to enter the army, or who think they see in its discipline, regularity of life, and opportunity for promotion a promising opening for three years of trial.

The rigidity of the examinations is in itself an attraction to the young American. There is no other line of work for which he must submit to such searching competitive tests as he finds in the recruiting office. Physically he must be perfect; unsoundness of eye, ear, lung, heart, liver, skin, limbs, extremities, or any other defect, will debar him no less than would his inability to read and write.

There is also in the United States a continual fostering of the military spirit among the youth by means of the cadet corps in the public and private schools. Again, the fact that so many boys in America are taught to ride and shoot has its natural influence in leading large numbers of them to think of the army. The patriotic instruction and the devotion to the flag which are now so prominent a feature in the public schools, have also an influence in turning the minds of many young men to the national service.

Two exceedingly strong attractions which the American army presents, and which are lacking in the British army, are the inducements of good pay and of promotion. The English recruit enlists for a period of twelve years, without the opportunity of ever becoming more than a non-commissioned officer, and for the sum of twenty-four cents a day; while the American enlists for three years, with the possibility of becoming lieutenant-general commanding the army, and for pay which, including ration and clothing allowance, a portion of which thrifty men can commute into cash, amounts to at least one dollar a day, and from that up to three dollars and a half a day, together with twenty per cent. increase on all pay for active service. The American government provides that the paymaster shall take charge of any funds that the men do not wish to draw, and it pays a high rate of interest on these deposits. Thus, large numbers of our men have saved several thousand dollars out of their pay, and yet have lived well and had money to spend all the time.

The chief spur, however, that acts on the enlisted man in the army of the United States is not the money, but the possibility that some day he may become an officer. To commission an officer from the ranks in the British army is almost unheard of; while, on the contrary, a large number of the American non-commissioned officers and men receive their straps every year. The one thing that I could never make an English officer understand was that it is possible for our government to commission men from the ranks. They could appreciate how these men might be fully qualified as to their military knowledge, but they could not comprehend how it would be possible for the West Pointer to associate with them or to meet them on an equal footing in society. They could not understand that many of the men in the ranks are in the same station in life as are the West Point graduates. That social possibility is the result of different conditions. Many officers’ sons who wish to follow in the footsteps of their fathers are not fortunate enough to obtain an appointment to the Academy; these boys always enlist, and, to the credit of our government, they rarely fail to get a commission if they can qualify in the examinations.

Moreover, the breeding as well as the intelligence of many of the men accepted for enlistment is of the same kind that is required of the applicants at West Point. In an army where every recruit must be able at least to read and write, it is impossible to find, even among the colored troops, any of that low-bred class of men which exists in large numbers in the British army. Before the war with Spain, when the army was on a peace footing, there were about five applicants for every vacancy; consequently the recruiting officer could choose with care, and an exceptionally high class of men entered the regular army.

It is a rare circumstance that puts a gentle-born Englishman into the ranks, and the discredit he suffers for enlisting is deep indeed; for soldiers and servants in England stand on the same footing. In the continental nations of Europe soldiering, while it is disliked, is considered as a matter of course, because it is compulsory upon all men to serve. But in England, where the service is voluntary, the private rank is not a nice place for the upper classes.

In New York, in Boston, in Chicago, it is not impossible to see the private’s blouse at a tea function or across the table at dinner, in the most refined society; after the instant’s surprise at seeing the insignia of the common soldier, it is remembered that he is present in his own right, irrespective of uniform, and he is admired for his unostentatious service of the flag.

Once a charming Larchmont belle told me, with the greatest pride, that she had a brother who was a soldier, and she showed me his picture. There were no straps on the shoulders, and the collar of his blouse was turned down.

“He is a private in the Seventh Artillery,” she said; “regulars, you know; and some day he will be an officer.”

“Some day ... an officer” tells the whole story; it indicates one of the vital differences between the British and the American soldier. When the former enlists in the army, he knows he will never get beyond a “non-com.;” while many of those who cast in their lot with the United States forces, do so with the anticipation that eventually they may hold the President’s commission.

At the outbreak of the South African War I met a young Englishman in London who was bubbling over with patriotic enthusiasm, and whose fixed idea was to go to the war, and to go quickly before it was over; but he told me that he had almost given up all hope of getting there, as he had exhausted every possible means of accomplishing his desire. He had been to the War Office to see every one, from Sir Evelyn Wood down; and although he was a relative of the Duke of Devonshire, and swung a great deal of influence, he could not make it; and yet he said that he “simply must go.”

“If you really want to go so much, why do you not enlist?” I asked.

“What! go as a Tommy?” he exclaimed; “why, I could not do that.” And, as a matter of fact, he could not, since the feeling against such a course is so strong that even in time of war it would not be countenanced by his social judges. I saw him again in the later months of the war, and he had attained his desire by going to the Cape on his own responsibility and recruiting a troop of colonials, afterwards receiving a commission to command it.

There are instances where men of social standing have enlisted in the British army, but they are very rare in comparison with those of the same class who answered the President’s call to arms at the beginning of the war with Spain; men who joined not only the volunteer branches of the American army, but who enlisted in large number as privates in the regular service.

General Hector Macdonald is an interesting exception in the British system. He rose from the ranks, and is to-day one of the best officers of the generals’ staff, and is loved, feared, and respected by his men.

For these various reasons it is easy to see why the personnel of the rank and file of the American army is much higher than that of the British. This is conspicuously true in the matter of mental attainments. In our army it is rare to find a man who is not fairly well educated, while the majority of the men in the ranks are considerably enlightened. There is not one illiterate man in the whole enlisted force.

On the other hand, the British army is dismally low in its standard of literacy. In the official report published in 1899, the illiterateness of the recruits receives scathing comment; only forty-five in one thousand were fairly educated; eighteen per cent. were utterly illiterate.

The same attractions tend to secure for the American army a larger proportion of healthy applicants than apply for admission in the British service. The official report which I have just quoted also states that thirty-five per cent. of all applicants for enlistment in the British army have to be rejected for physical disability.

In treating this subject before the United Service Institution in London, in 1899, Colonel Douglas, of the Royal service, described the recruits from the north, or country districts, as “sallow, downcast, nondescript youths, mostly artisans.” Regarding the recruits in general, he said: “It is significant that a good set of teeth is rare, except among the agricultural recruits. The old recruiting sergeant would have laughed at the recruits of to-day; the army of the past had in it many blackguards, but few degenerates. These are depressing conclusions, but it must be remembered that this refers to our peace army, which is recruited from the half-starved offscourings of the streets. The physique of the men who are offering themselves to-day, in time of war, is very different from this. There are shoals of Englishmen who cannot stand the drudgery and discipline of the ranks in time of peace, but who flock to the standard as soon as there is a chance of fighting. The recruiting sergeants say that nearly all of the material they are getting at present is of a better class. These men want to fight for the love of fighting, and not as a refuge from starvation. A few weeks of training licks them into shape. As long as the outbreak of war affords such a stimulus to recruiting as this, there is no need to despair of the British race.”

But as conditions now exist in both countries, England has much more difficulty in filling her ranks in time of peace than is encountered here. Her army is vastly larger than ours, and its attractions are vastly inferior. There is, accordingly, no ground for surprise that both in mental attainments and soundness of body the American recruit is measured by a higher standard; and it is not strange that the British government has such trouble in persuading enough men to enter the ranks that almost any sort of able-bodied man would be accepted. Most of the field musicians of the British regiments are mere boys, twelve to fifteen years of age; these youth are enlisted regularly into the army. The American forces employ grown men for the same service, but the difficulty in obtaining men makes such a force impossible in England.

Once a man has been enlisted, however, in the British army, no pains are spared to make him as good as the best of soldiers—not only in a physical sense, but also in the training of his brains.

As soon as the British recruit is accepted he is turned over to the drill sergeant, who proceeds to make a soldier of him; and in all the world no better man exists than the British drill sergeant for the special line of duty of whipping recruits into shape. He does nothing else, and consequently becomes very proficient at his calling. These drill masters are all alike; to see one is to see all. He is a species of soldier by himself, and there is nothing like him that I have ever seen. He does for the British army the work that is done by the subaltern officer of the American army. He is by no means gentle, but he is not unnecessarily severe, as is the German or French drill master; he merely understands his men better than any other master, and consequently gets better results from them in a shorter space of time. He takes a slouching youth, of slovenly gait, from Whitechapel, and in an incredibly short time turns him out into Hyde Park a dashing young soldier, or sends him to the Cape in khaki, as willing a fighter as can be found.

I have seen a German drill master strike a recruit for some trifling mistake or inattention; I have heard a Frenchman curse his squad by all the saints in the calendar; but I know of nothing half so effective as the quiet sarcasm that the English or Irish drill sergeant can command when he is completely out of patience with an awkward “rookie”; it is more deadly than oaths or blows; it always accomplishes the end. Up to the present, the British army has been almost built, trained, and run by non-commissioned officers, many of whom are superior to the officers over them in all but birth and breeding. These rankers are capable of commanding in so far as capability depends upon understanding every detail of their profession.

The majority of the English recruits are sent to the great camp at Aldershot, which is a camp only in name; for in reality it is a superb expanse of land, covered with perfectly appointed barracks and well-laid parades. At this training station the work of the young soldier begins in earnest, and for the better part of four months he is drilled, trained, and instructed in all branches of soldiering. The most interesting part of his work is that done in the gymnasium. The average English recruit does not carry himself in the manner of a soldier to the degree that an untrained American does, so that a more rigid training than in the United States is necessary. Moreover, the idea of the proper carriage of a soldier is so vastly different in the two countries that it is difficult to draw a comparison which will be understood by one who is not familiar with both armies. In the British army the old-time conventional idea of soldierly appearance still dominates the discipline; in the American army this idea is not absent, and I hope it may never depart; but nevertheless, the prevailing aim is to subordinate everything to simple effectiveness. Broadly speaking, therefore, one is tempted to say that the British soldier is trained for show, while the American is trained for comfort, for work, and for general usefulness.

The gymnasium at Aldershot is the best-equipped establishment of its kind that I have ever seen; there is nothing lacking that could add to the physical training of the recruits sent there for their preliminary teaching. For one hundred and ten days each recruit has one hour a day devoted exclusively to athletics, and in that time he is made to exercise in walking, running, climbing, boxing, fencing, and is instructed in the use of the bayonet. The men scale high walls and clamber over lofty scaffolding at double time; they go up and down swinging ladders and hanging ropes.

The headquarters gymnasium is just outside of the little town of Aldershot, among the miles of barracks that quarter so many thousands of the British army. It is a large brick building, recently put up, and contains every appliance known to athletic training, most of the apparatus having been imported from New York. The interior is bright and airy, handsomely decorated with flags, stands of arms, and trophies, making an attractive room in which to work. Just at the left is a smaller building for instruction in the use of the sabre and foil. Surrounding the buildings are large fields for out-of-door exercise, one side being a turf parade for walking, running, jumping, and the many drills in the use of the arms and legs. When the weather permits, the classes in bayonet, single-stick, and dumb-bells are taken to this field. On the other side of the buildings are all sorts of stationary apparatus similar to that inside; on that side also there are walls to scale, heights to climb, besides the ordinary bars and ladders. The best apparatus that the recruits use is a great frame that looks as if some one had started to build a house, and dropped the work as soon as the scaffolding had been finished. It is a square framework about fifty feet high and forty feet wide; from it hang ropes, ladders, poles, sliding-boards, and all kinds of devices by which ascent and descent can be made. The apparatus is of great value in training the eye as well as the muscle, for the recruits are put over it at double time, and the slightest false step would mean a bad fall and broken bones. It was the invention of Colonel the Hon. J.S. Napier, who has been in command at the gymnasium for some time, and to whose efforts are due the perfection of the system of training given, not only to the recruits, but also to all officers and men who care to continue their physical training.

The most useful drill given to recruits is the use of the “shelf.” This, as the name indicates, is a huge shelf on the side of the gymnasium wall. It is so high that a man cannot reach it as he stands on the floor, and to mount it he must have the assistance of one or more of his companions. The aim of the shelf drill is to train the men to go over walls and obstacles where there is nothing for them to use in pulling themselves up. In working together, one man makes a rest of his hands and gives to his comrade a “boost”; then the man thus assisted clambers up to the shelf, and turning, pulls up the man below him.

The American recruit is handed over to a subaltern officer, who is usually not long from West Point, and is fresh with the athletic enthusiasm and methods of the Academy. He takes the place of the British drill sergeant. He tramps side by side with the awkward recruit, and orders him to do nothing which he himself is not able to do in a perfected manner. This fact of itself establishes a wholesome and trusting relation between the enlisted man and his officer. The man looks up to his superior as to an instructor and parent. He learns to regard him not merely as his fugleman for parades and campaigns, but also as his preceptor, who knows him thoroughly and takes an interest in him. The motto of the American army is that the officer is the father of his men.

The young recruit gains his first comprehension of this as he is worked upon by his young superior in shoulder-straps. No familiarity is permitted; the etiquette is as rigid and unremitting as in any European army; the orders are stiff and stern; and yet the fact remains in the soldier’s mind, through his entire service, that his officer labored patiently over him for months, to impart to him from his own rich store of self-command and high bearing, of physical cleverness and military skill. The man never forgets his place, nor his officer’s either.

The American recruit receives a thorough course in all kinds of athletic drill, riding, fencing, walking, running. Especial attention is given to the “setting-up” exercises; these consist of a series of movements of arms, legs, and body which involve all the motions which are called for in any military action. The turning of the arms, raising and lowering them, propulsive motions, the limbering of the joints—every movement that can contribute to facility of action is a part of this extraordinary discipline.

Beyond this, and of most practical moment, is the American recruit’s training in making temporary trenches with bayonet and tin plate; in seizing and using temporary protections; in shooting from behind trees, rocks, hillocks, while showing as little of his body as possible. The consequence of this drill is that when in battle the American soldier can manage himself without depending on orders, and is an expert fighter.

In South Africa the British regulars could not be asked to make even temporary entrenchments; they had to wait for the engineer corps to come up and lay them out and dig them. But a company of American troops, with only the implements they carry, can scrape up a pile of dirt in front of them in less than five minutes sufficient to serve as their fort in an all-day battle.

The charge by rushes which the British had to learn on the battlefield is the trick which the American recruit is taught before he leaves the awkward squad. In this resourcefulness and practicality the colonial troops in the South African campaign were by many points superior to the British regulars, and showed that they had been trained to some extent by the same methods that have been found so effective for the American recruit.