They now go on from youth
to old age, from the drill to the retired pension, happy and
satisfied that there is no service on earth so good for them.[13]
With admirable _moral_, but little or no _literary_ education, the
native officers of our regiments never dream of aspiring to anything
more than is now held out to them, and the mass of the soldiers are
inspired with devotion to the service, and every feeling with which
we could wish to have them inspired, by the hope of becoming officers
in time, if they discharge their duties faithfully and zealously.
Deprive the mass of this hope, give the commissions to an _exclusive
class_ of natives, or to a favoured few, chosen often, if not
commonly, without reference to the feelings or qualifications we most
want in our native officers, and our native army will soon cease to
have the same feelings of devotion towards the Government, and of
attachment and respect towards their European officers that they now
have. The young, ambitions, and aspiring native officers will soon
try to teach the great mass that their interest and that of the
European officers and European Government are by no means one and the
same, as they have been hitherto led to suppose; and it is upon the
good feeling of this great mass that we have to depend for support.
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