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turn by a system of military and naval Commissioners, who took charge of the Military and Naval Office, Fortification Office, Warship Office, Arms and Weapon Office, and Home Office. The Military College and Military Hospital were also attached to this Board of Commissioners. In the second year of the Restoration the post of Commissioner was abolished and the Military and Naval Department established, with jurisdiction over military and naval education, finance and discipline. An arsenal was attached to this department one year later, and during the following year two military garrisons were organized, as was also the Army Medical Corps. During this fourth year the department was subjected to thorough readjustment, and the line of demarcation between military and naval administration distinctly drawn. According to this arrangement the department was subdivided into the Army and Navy sections, the former to include the Education Office, Army Medical Office, Courts-Martial, Arsenal and Magazine, Staff Offices, ‘Three Services’ headquarters, and the three garrisons of Tokyo, Osaka, and Chinsei. This principle of the separation of the two branches of the service was completed in the following year, when the War and the Navy offices were formally separated and the former divided into the offices of Personnel, Education and Surgeon, Arsenal and Magazine, Imperial Household Guards, and Courts-Martial. The Non-commissioned School established that year was attached to the Education Office. In the sixth year the number of garrisons was increased to six—those of Tokyo, Sendai, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Kumamoto. In the seventh year the Remount Section and the Staff Board were created, while in the following year the offices of Arsenal and Magazines were superseded by the Central Arsenal and the Branch Arsenal, the latter located in Osaka. In the ninth year the Ordnance Council was organized, and in the eleventh year the Staff Board was superseded by the Central Staff Board and the Inspection Headquarters.

These changes and progressions of organization are given in detail to show the exceptional spirit of elasticity which prevailed, making it possible to adopt from year to year such reforms, however drastic, as seemed called for by the logic of events, without the interference of bureaucratic red-tape or prejudice against change.

During the next twenty years the Tokyo Gendarmerie was created, the Staff College was established, the Colonial Board was attached to the War Office, which had succeeded the Board, the Engineering Council was formed, the various schools enlarged and their scope increased, and the Military Paymasters’ School and the Military Supply Office brought into