It is necessary that the study of the military sciences should be
encouraged and rewarded, as well as courage and zeal. The scientific
military corps should be esteemed and honored: this is the only way of
securing for the army men of merit and genius.
The general staff in times of peace should be employed in labors
preparatory for all possible contingencies of war. Its archives should
be furnished with numerous historical details of the past, and with all
statistical, geographical, topographical, and strategic treatises and
papers for the present and future. Hence it is essential that the chief
of this corps, with a number of its officers, should be permanently
stationed at the capital in time of peace, and the war-office should be
simply that of the general staff, except that there should be a secret
department for those documents to be concealed from the subalterns of
the corps.
Nothing should be neglected to acquire a knowledge of the geography and the military statistics of other states, so as to know their material and moral capacity