When there are too many officers on a Staff they cannot always find the work and occupation essential for their mental and physical welfare, and their superfluous energies soon make themselves felt in all sorts of objectionable ways.

Experience shows that whenever a Staff is unnecessarily numerous the ambitious before long take to intrigue, the litigious soon produce general friction, and the vain are never satisfied.

These failings, so common to human nature, even if all present, are to a great extent counteracted if those concerned have plenty of hard and constant work.

Besides, the numbers of a Staff being few, there is all the greater choice in the selection of the men who are to fill posts on it.

In forming a Staff for war the qualifications required include not only great professional knowledge and acquaintance with service routine, but above all things character, self-denial, energy, tact and discretion.".