  “To become a good General one well may begin by playing at Chess.”—Prince de CondÉ. Except the theatre of actual Warfare, no spot known to man furnishes such facilities for the practice of combined strategy, tactics and logistics as does the surface of the Chess-board. To those familiar with the Science of Strategetics, it needs no proof that ability to play a good game at Chess, indicates the possession of faculties common to all great military commanders. At a certain point, the talent of Morphy for Chess-play and the talent of Napoleon for Warfare become merged; and beyond this point, their methods of thought and of action are identical. Opportunity to display, and in most spectacular fashion, their singular and superlative genius, was not wanting to either. But unlike the ferocious Corsican, whose “only desire is to find myself on the battlefield,” the greatest of all Masters at Chess, found in the slaughter of his fellow-creatures no incentive sufficient to call forth those unsurpassed strategetical powers, which recorded Chess-play shows he possessed. From this sameness of talent, common to the great Chess-player and the great military commander, arises the practical utility of the Royal Game. For by means of Chess-play, one may learn and practice in their highest interpretation, mental and physical processes of paramount importance to the community in time of extreme peril. From such considerations and for the further reason that in a true Republic all avenues to greatness are open to merit, scientific Chess-play should be intelligently and systematically taught in the public schools. “A people desirous of liberty will entrust its defense to none but themselves,” says the Roman maxim, and in crises, woe to that land where the ruler is but a child in arms, and where the disinclination of the people towards its exercise is equalled by their unfamiliarity with the military habit. Despite the ethics of civilization, the optimism of the “unco guid” and the unction even of our own heart’s deep desire, there seems no doubt but that each generation will have its wars. “Pax perpetua,” writes Leibnitz, “exists only in God’s acre.” Here on earth, if seems that men forever will continue to murder one another for various reasons; all of which, in the future as in the past, will be good and sufficient to the fellow who wins; and this by processes differing only in neatness and despatch. Whether this condition is commendable or not, depends upon the point of view. Being irremediable, such phase of the subject hardly is worth discussing. However, the following by a well-qualified observer, is interesting and undeniably an intelligent opinion, viz.: From the essay on “WAR,” read by Prof. John Ruskin at Woolwich, (Eng.) Military Academy.“All the pure and noble arts of Peace are founded on War; no great Art ever rose on Earth, but among a nation of soldiers. “As Peace is established or extended the Arts decline. They reach an unparalleled pitch of costliness, but lose their life, enlist themselves at last on the side of luxury and corruption and among wholly tranquil nations, wither utterly away. “So when I tell you that War is the foundation of all the Arts, I mean also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of men. “It was very strange for me to discover this and very dreadful—but I saw it to be quite an undeniable fact. “We talk of Peace and Learning, of Peace and Plenty, of Peace and Civilization; but I found that those were not the words which the Muse of History coupled together; but that on her lips the words were—Peace and Selfishness, Peace and Sensuality, Peace and Corruption, Peace and Death. “I found in brief, that all great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in War; that they were nourished in War and wasted in Peace; taught by War and deceived by Peace; trained by War and betrayed by Peace; that they were born in War and expired in Peace. “Creative, or foundational War, is that in which the natural restlessness and love of contest among men, is disciplined into modes of beautiful—though it may be fatal—play; in which the natural ambition and love of Power is chastened into aggressive conquest of surrounding evil; and in which the natural instincts of self-defence “For such War as this all men are born; in such War as this any man may happily die; and forth from such War as this have arisen throughout the Ages, all the highest sanctities and virtues of Humanity.” That our own country may escape the common lot of nations, is something not even to be hoped. Defended by four almost bottomless ditches, nevertheless it is a certainty that coming generations of Americans must stand in arms, not only to repel foreign aggression, but to uphold even the integrity of the Great Republic; and with the hand-writing of coming events flaming on the wall, posterity well may heed the solemn warning of by-gone centuries: “As man is superior to the brute, so is a trained and educated soldier superior to the merely brave, numerous and enthusiastic.” “The evils to be apprehended from a standing army are remote and in my judgment, not to be dreaded; but the consequence of lacking one is inevitable ruin.”—Washington. |
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