The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-15
Some of the Complaints and Criticisms That Are
 Made.
DOES SCHOOL NEED HELP?
! System Which Is Hard to Change Even if it Needs
 Changing.


 Military Academy holds interesting possibilities for West Point Constant precautions are required to prevent an institution from growing insti.n- tionalized AS new blood benahts the teaching staff, the suggestions of cut siders are often of peculiar force and pertinency Major Higginson, the man with an army record. who has kept abreast of the educational theor- ies of his time, and, in the midst of practical affairs, still retains a lively interest in academies, should be the man to help West Point
 Does West Point need help? Is there any truth in the charge that for the last dozen or score of years the national Military Academy has been marking time while mthods of peda- gogy have marched on? That tho con duct of the school is to-day substanti- ally what it was at its foundation is variously interpreted as a defect or as tribute to the genius and foresight of its founder. But granted it's aims to furnish a general training for the soldier, on which to specialize in act ual service, its methods must be ex- amined in the light of its product
 The most common complaint against the Military Academy is against its standard of entrance re- quirements As a government train ing school it is obliged to supplement the instruction of the public schools. By the present recruiting system it re- celves the college graduate and the Montana grammar school boy who has had perhaps one year in a city high school And often the raw Montana pleb makes the better officer. Raise the entrance requirements and West Point is made more difficult of access to those for whom it was especially i'm tended. The drawbacks of the present arrangement are, nevertheless, quickly apparent During the last dozen years the proportion of college-br red men at West Point has been steadily on the increase. In a recent gradu- ating class of seventy eight not fewer than forty had had at least two years of college training. The A. B. recites some five times a week in rhetoric and plane geometry for the maintenance of democratic ideal. The Military Academy is no respecter of persons For it's purposes the entire first-year class is an awkward squad Its aim is to turn out homogeneous type al the end of four years, a type distin- guished by it's industry and discipline, its efficiency for the service, and its devotion to the duty of an officer and genteman---a noble ideal. and one certainly, in most cases, realized. And yet il seems to rest on the assumption now admittedly false, that all men are of uniform pattern. Yet here, again granting its alm, the system is justifi- led. What the army wants Is not the of | ficer who can furnish plans for for | tification and nothing else. He may be required to design bake oven to- 1 day, to lead a cavalry troop neX' week
 The question of broadening the cur riculum goes back to the tifties and Jefferson Davis, who. as secretary oi war. proposed extending the course to five years, that the "humanities' might be added They were not add ed then. They have not been added since Psychology, economies. th' classics, history in it's larger aspects the academic element, in short i missed by those cadets who have hat a taste of such studies in college. No thing could be more unintelligent O more unfair than to compare the Ma tional Military Academy to the mod ern college which has branched of into electives. The man who pays hi
 money to the college is. in a measure in a position to dictate what sort o instruction he shall receive. Tn
 United States, paying it's military cad cts to go to school, has right to pro vide the instruction which shall mak them most useful in it's service. In deed, the discontent of the cadet themselves is not organic in its char acter II deals not with the systen as such: but with irksome details o discipline and routine which general, turn out to be of the utmost value il actual service.
 While the colleges have been inun dated by the lecture system, Wes Point keeps on with the recitation groups. Glasses of from 70 to l2' make this possible And the univer sity lecturer, with his assistants hi conpromises in section meetings, and his written tests looks back ol this small class unit with regret ant envy. Ten or fifteen cadets worl their problems in integral calculus sir times week under the eve of an in structor They are graded on eacl days work. At the end of the cours the instructor knows to a decima place what each man is worth. ant the rank which is so important in de termining what department of tn army the cadet shall ultimately join, i no arbitrary decision by guesswork a just estimate Of the mans ability.
 Where the system is weakest. if is weak at all is in the plan of de
 tailing army officers to instruction
 duty at West Point This brings tn
 institution many excellent teachers; also brings several poor ones. An oi 1 icer. may be detailed to teach descrir
 tive geometry because it is recalle
 that he was proficient in that subieC
 while he was in the academy. He ma
 have no aptitude for imparting h ! knowledge French and Spanish, tn
 two modern languages of the cours are now taught by civilians in ordt that the cadets may have the benef ; of native instructors. Formerly the were taught by officers with indifferel
 results. That it required nearly dozen years to effect this change fu nishes an idea of the difficulties whiC beset innovation. There are powe