The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-09
WEST POINT.

The report of the late board of visitors to
the United States Military Academy bears
equal witness to the care with which it has
been prepared and to the ability and indepen-
dence of the eminent scholar upon the board
to whom, doubtless, we mainly owe it, and
who has every right to be heard respectfully
upon all subjects pertaining to education.
The board have deserved well in departing
from the blind panegyric which we have been
used to see in official reports upon West
Point. 1t is a common enough belief that
we have the first military school in the world.
Rigid comparisons would easily show that we
have not. And even if we had, we have not
realized the ideal of military school, and,
until we have, indiscriminate praise can do
nothing but harm.
Looked at purely as place of professional
education, West Point has this grave defect,
that it has a Procrustean standard to which
all pupils must be stretched or shortened to
iit There is a careful wedding, to be sure,
of the lazy and the grossly incapable, but even
at the end of the course the interval between
the head of a class and the tail is immense.
At one end are young men perfectly prepared
to 90 into the most intricate problems of the
military art and ''to be limited as the board
puts it, 'only to the boundaries of know
ledge upon military subjects At the other
are men who have just managed
to pull through the course, and who have
struggled with a dislike and an inaptitude for
its higher departments Their heads are full
of things which they have been at infinite
pains to acquire, but which they can with
entire ease forget, and which, in the line OF
the army, will never be of any use to them
Nevertheless, they may be as fit for the rou-
tine duties Of the servicea the eager students
| at the head of the class. whose ardOr for
| military knowledge has not been wholly salts
| fed by the academic course, but who would
| be glad to go on far beyond it. But the pace
of the squadron is the pace of the slowest
! horse, and some are urged beyond their
strength while some have not had theirs fairly
! tested. In Europe, notably in France, this
| problem is solved by the establishment of
| service. With us, it is partially solved by
| sending promising engineers to Willet's Point
| and promising artilleristS to Fortress Monroe
| for what is in fact, though not in name, q
| postgraduate course. But by this device the
| graduates lose the benefit of academic in
| struction, which it should seem they ought to
have. The board propose to solve the prob
| lem by setting up special course within the
| academy itself for the more forward cadets,
and graduating them, by consequence,
into what may be called the scientific
| branches of the service. With the resources
available, this is perhaps the best expedient
we can adopt But the instruction given in
this manner would not be equal to that of a
special school, with its special staff
and selected students. But by whatever
means the end is to be secured, it is certainly
desirable to have different courses adapted to
the differences of the youthful mind and the
different requirements of the various arms.
| BY this means, too, government would spare
| itself the maintenance and instruction of the
youth who after two OF three years, find that
they cannot master the present course, and
are sent back into society with stigma which
sticks to them, more or less, all their lives
With less eXacting general course, most OF
these might succeed and become useful anC
even brilliant officers; and with more eX
acting special course, they would at least be
hindered from hampering the progress Ot
brighter men.
As apace of education, in the general sense
the deficiencies of West Point are still more
marked. The board especially and Justly
animadvert on the low standard for admission
Surely, at the age at which boys are admitted
to the academy, more preparation ought to be
demanded of them than that they be able tC
read and spell, and apply the four GROUND
rules of arithmetic. Nine out of ten of them
it is safe to say, do more than this. Yet, fol
the sake of the ignorant tenth boy, the nine
are forced to waste a good part of the frs
year in mere review. An education, in the
scholastic sense, they do not receive
The want of elegance, or even the facility
of expression, which the board note, il
directly attributable to this cause. Tha
the course is strictly military is not al
answer to this objection. For clear an(
concise style of expressions is equally necessary
to a soldier as to civilian. 1t may be said
that the military schools of Europe do no
provide for this literary element in theil
courses of instruction. No more they do
but they insist upon it as preliminary.
candidate for admission to st. Cyr, or the
Polytechnique, is required to pass general
examination of very wide scope-an examina.
ton so thorough that it is doubtful if the
average graduate of West Point could sus-
tain it.
If he could, it would be by virtue of his
own outside reading and not by virtue OF
what he has been taught at the academy, ol
what the academy insists upon his knowing
before he enters it. by this it happens that,
whereas graduate of West Point is sure tc
be an educated soldier, graduate of one OF
the French schools is sure to be both an edu.
Gated soldier and an educated man.
Nevertheless, the Military Academy, as il
Is, is a credit to the country, and the warm
praise the board bestows upon its praise,
worthy features is all the more valuable be-
cause it is discriminating.
THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF THE
INCOME TAX.
From the n. Y. Times
All taxes are unpopular. new tax, till we
are accustomed to it, is specially unpopular.
The tax upon incomes is to Americans a COM
paratively new and unfamiliar burden, and
| therefore seems to be the least accountable