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MODE OF APPOINTING OFFICERS, AND TENURE OF OFFICE.

These institutions, when passed under the control of the State, should be governed by officers appointed by their Boards of Directors. Under this aspect of things, both the general government and the State might be represented in the appointing power. A two-thirds vote should be necessary for the election of all commissioned officers, who, in turn, could, in like manner, elect their subalterns. The tenure of office should be for life, or during good behavior. No removal should be made but upon good cause, and by the same power that created the officer, sitting as any court with open doors; and the defendant should be allowed time and counsel to prepare his defence. Two-thirds of the court should agree upon the judgment pronounced, which should also be final.

It seems almost superfluous to suggest that invalid officers should have the preference given them in appointments of this kind. Indeed, there is every reason why they alone should be selected to fill such positions. Their familiarity with forms of military administration and discipline, without which such an establishment could not be carried on; their knowledge of the character and tastes of the inmates, many of them having been their old companions in arms -- their official tenure being for life, and thus freed from the effects of political vicissitudes -- all these things would conspire to render them just, humane, and independent administrators of the trust of government reposed in their hands.

TERMS OF ADMISSION.

In order to gain admission into a Military Home, the invalid should present the certificate of an examining Pension Surgeon, setting forth the character of his disability, and its effects upon his ability to earn his living, and to this should be added the affidavits of two respectable and disinterested freeholders residing in the same town with him, and knowing him personally -- setting forth the following facts, viz:

1st. That he has no home, or cannot support himself at his home upon his pension; or,

2d. That he requires the care of an attendant which he cannot afford to supply for himself.

The following condensed reports relating to the history, statistics, and operations of the French Hopital des Invalides and the Prussian Invalid House, at Berlin, will give some general idea of the manner of conducting such institutions in Europe, together with the results obtained from them. It will be found that, wherever well administered, they prove a source of immense benefit, not only to invalid soldiers, but also to the general public, which, otherwise, would constantly be called upon to distribute charity in unmethodical forms to this class of persons. By reducing benefactions to a system, duly regulated and carried on with precision and justice, there is found to be economy in it, and the certainty that few if any unworthy persons will obtain support under this form of dispensation; whereas, when the public undertakes to distribute assistance indiscriminately, it is rarely the case that the unworthy do not come in for a share, and thus diminish that properly belonging to the meritorious. We have among many Asylums selected these two, because the most thoroughly organized and efficiently managed institutions of the kind in Europe; and while we could not, for reasons hereinbefore stated, wish to see their system adopted and imitated among us, without alteration, there is still so much of good in the practical details of these establishments as to render them worthy of close study. And in this connection we have also added some details of the object and purposes accomplished by our own Soldier's Home at Washington.

FRANCE.

France, from the earliest time a warlike nation, has ever exhibited a grateful appreciation of the labors of her military class, and given it preferred claims upon public regard. The common sentiment everywhere recognized, that a country owes to its defenders an honorable support, whenever wounds or disease incurred in the public service unfit them to provide for themselves, has received large attention, and been practically incorporated into French legislation from time immemorial. Charlemagne, remembering like Augustus, the services of his veterans, cast about him for means wherewith to support them at the public cost, and finding wealth nowhere more abundant, or more uselessly employed, than in the monasteries, compelled those institutions to accept his invalid soldiers as beneficiaries, where, under the designation of lay monks, they received an alimentary pension. These persons, afterwards known as oblati, became a recognized class under all succeeding dynasties. They lived in ecclesiastical houses, and performed, in return for their support, such minor offices as bell-ringing, sweeping, etc., etc.

The wise and refined Philip Augustus was the first monarch who bethought himself of collecting the scattered veterans in one national institution. His successors, to a greater or less extent, followed his example, although it was not till the reign of Louis XIV. that anything like a permanent institution was established.