The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-06-21
THE MAKING OF AN OFFICER.
Discipline, Honesty and Thorough ness the Watchwords of West
 Point Education.

6Olut EuuCatloh.
 On the 16th of March, 1902. the Military Academy of West Point was officially es- tablished by Act of Congress, and on the 4th of July of that year the first academic year opened, with an attendance of ten cadets. The recent centennial celebra- ton was able to show parade of 800 cadets and the proud memory of hun di eds of noble sons who have fought and died for their country. or who, still iiv- ing, have proved that its training turns out the best class of officers in the world. Very appropriate. therefore. is the publi- cation of a book called Life at West Point. or Making of the American Army Officer" by H. Irving Hancock. civilian war correspondent and very excellently has MT. Hancock done his work. The book Is readable, instructive and thorough; the photographs are numerous and clear, and Colonel A. L. Mills, the present superintendent of the Academy. prefaces the book with an indorsement which makes 1t almost ofiicial.
 The curriculum at West Point Is of the severest sort It is "cramming' in the best sense of the word. Thoroughness coEcreteness, utility, with everything superfiuous and theoretical banished
 During the first year the cadet must master mathematics Up to conic sections sur, eying, French. infantry drill resu lations, the use of scouts and spies, the control of war correspondents in the field, and minor tactics relating to the march of an army. In his second year he must carry his thematics in the higher realms of differential calculus, be- gin Spanish, and take up mathematical drawing and military photography. In his third year he gets into mechanics. as tronomy, chemistry, geometry, and an awful study called wave motion, as weil as the more practical work of mapping. engineering and building. During his fourth and last year he gets down to real army work in fertilization. gunnery. organization and major tactics, while in between he Is all the time mastering every form of drill. infantry. cavalry and ar- tillcry. and, what is more important than all the rest, discipline and the manners of an officer and gentleman. Dancing, for instance, Is de rigueur, and honesty, patriotism and religion are instilled in no Idle fashion.
 Whether the attempt to make every cadet a higher methema tician is useful or not may be open to question:; the man who can really grasp the inwardness of parabolas, of calculi, of least squares" and of wave notion has to be born, not made. But knowledge of French.
 
 trigonometry elementary ballistics, prac- tical gunnery and engineering. and some history, geography, chemistry and min- eralogy, is as complete practical educa- ton as any man could wish for and capable of being practically instilled into the thickest head by such drastic methods as are employed at West Point The real secret of this successful cramming has perhaps been readily realized even by its organizers. The secret is, compulso- ry physical exercise of diverse and at tractive nature at frequent intervals. Be- tween lessons the cadets are forever be- ing drilled-gymnasium drill, riding. marching, scouting; and it is 'hesc drills. which seem to fill up every spare moment of every working day. that prevent mental staleness and reinvigorate the brain by the bracing of the body.
 An, if all of us could be compelled to use gymnasium. or even pair of dumb bells, for fifteen minutes half q dozen times a day! Then brain flag, melan- choly, and all the other ills which spring from dyspepsia and OVerwork would be unknown, but 1t is the compulsion that is lacking and no amount of good inten- tions ever yet enabled Il mar to observe system which he knows to be in- valuable. It is when you are brain- Jagged that you want to get back to natures infaliiole remedy muscular eXer- tion but it is when you are brain-fagged that you haven't the volition to apply tn, remedy. unless driven to 1t at the point of the bayonet.
 Above and before all in the training of West Point cadets, comes discipline; the habit of implicit obedience to orders, and the habit of expecting and exacting that obedience in subordinates. Disci- pline Is a habit entirely foreign to the democratic ideas of such a republic as ours; and the man who imposed 1t on our army and, through the army. on society, was the man who made the re- public. Washington is the real father # West Point. of ipilitarism of aristo- ,racy; no words were too strong to ex- press his contempt for volunteers, "un- ,asy impatient of command, ungoverna- )le," and never was a general so un- lpproachable to familiarity so stern to as the first of republicans. He 1t was who first advocated the estab- ishment of a training school for officers. md who actually established the grade If cadet" in l794. Now discipline, while for any army is never very ,onsonant with free institutions in discipline means implicit obedi- ,nce and respect for men of superior 'ank, whether those men are fools or not. and it is that respect for rank. fires oective of merit, which out of the army legenerates into toadyism and produces ,lass distinctions. The American army