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80 and unequal operation of the conscription by ballot, and yet to  enlarge the army far beyond the limits which purely voluntary service would, in most countries, assign to it. The aims of military organizers are of the most ambitious kind, and the tendency of all the schemes is to embrace the whole male population in the national army — excluding only the very young and old, the infirm, and the holders of a few privileged offices — and to impart to every member of that army a military education.

Of these schemes the German is, as yet, the most complete, and has best established its military efficiency. It is well known that, according to this scheme, every able-bodied man in the Empire has his place in the list of the national forces, and for a certain period undergoes military discipline and drill. A distinction is made between those who wholly devote themselves to the profession of a soldier and those who belong to one or other of the branches of the reserve, and who, between the interval of actual service, or attendance on drill, pursue their ordinary civil occupations. The German scheme thus combines the advantage of a permanent Army, compactly organized, and devoted solely to keeping up military spirit and traditions and performing military exercises, and of a reserve army of almost unlimited size, sufficiently trained to be relied upon for service inside or outside the territory, as the case may be, and each individual man in which is a source for the diffusion of military zeal and ambition throughout the whole population.

The French are engaged in gradually transforming their military institutions after the same general type, and the same is true of the Russians. Other States which have enormous standing armies, as Austria and Italy, only differ from Germany in the degree of universality which attaches to the compulsory service prevailing among them. In Switzerland military service is universal and