Year: 1863

tS " OS S0lueu ny IL. One common, IN.


flexible, audi might say despotic rule gov.


erns the recitations of every pupil, and that


Is that he must know what he attempts tc


recite, or else fall out and go down in his


standing until he reaches point where he


is found deficient, and then dismissed the


Academy. Ifhe is the son of the President


of the United States his standing or falling
is governed by one rule. No allowance is


made to any man for want of capacity. The


school does not undertake to supply that


fatal lack. And when Isay this, i do no,


wish obe understood as meaning that men


of Indifferent Sapacity do not graduate


here They do; menrnot only of indiffer-


snt but even poor capacity. The graduat-


ing class this year numbered tw wenty-five,


and while there were three or four very
bright men init there were three times


that many mediocre men, and as many


more, almost, who were not even everage.


One ortwo ofthem were men who had been


found deficient in the beginning, when Cam


erOn was Sec of War, and whom. he sent


back after bong so found. Thanks to Con-
gFess that pernicious and demorslizing


practice on the Part.of such men as Gam,


eron and Floyd, who both re.appointed a


number, Is now broken up and made for
ever impossible. IA man of Indifferent


mind can graduate at West Point if he can
keep above q certain minimum of tsgeneral
merit" as it is called. Soldierly conduct
rates just precisely as a study at the Acad-
emy; and itsa studious but not very bright
man can count up in conduct the difference
between him and the standard in class he
can go through. The difference between
the two, competitors for the first place in
the graduating class this year was Just
tWo-tenths, SO closely is the standing of
cadets calculated and summed up in their
merits throughout the whole course. A
man is marked every day for just such a
recitation, as he makes. Ifhe makes what
is called a 'smax" (maximum) he is coun.
ted up three it mathematics, which by the
way counts higher than any other study,
ortwo in some other study or one in an
other, just according as the study itself
ranks. The man who can make the most
maximum recitations of course graduates
at the head of his class. General
Mcclellan was famous for so doing
while here. So also was Rosecrans.
L listened to several of what is called
"maxes," and they were, sure enough, SUI
perb recitations. In one of them. Cadet
Meigs, son of the Quartermaster General,
who graduated head, was required to 90
to the board and delineate NapoIeon's first
invasion of Austria, and show all the
strategical and tactical movements tenn
braced in it, and wherein, by his brilliant
combinations he disappointed and defeated
the allies. You will note that the whole
campaign had to he mapped out on the
blackboard and -all the roads, rivers, for
ests and natural and artificial points made
apparent. This, too, had to be done with
out the slightest idea on the part of the
young man as to where, in all his year's
course of engineering, he would be called
upon to recite. AT West Point, every re-
citation, in everything, no odds what, had
to bermade Oh the -blaolEsboArd. Thereof
tations in French and Spanish flor instance,
were made in this way: A paper With so
many lines in English on it, was promis.
cuously drawn by the Cadet. The origi-
nal and the grammar of it, in English, had
to be written out, and the whole of
it recited in the fewest possible words


Ehe recitations are severe. A cadet
depends on himself alone-no one prompts
him, neither his teacher nor his fellow at
the board. If he can make the recitation
he makes it, and if he cannot he fails The
whole spirit of the institution is of course
military-in other words, despotic. 1t
must be so to be school of the high order
which it is. "A cadet is thrown upon him
selfin every point of view, and not less
upon his honor than his merits. As an IL
lustration of this latter point let me state a
peculiarly of this school, At most col.
leges 1t is considered not only a tolerable
but even rather smart sort of thing fora
student to eVade discipline by some trick
of preVarication in the way of an excuse.
AT West Point no such thing is known
When a cadet states any thing as fact no
professor or officer ever thinks of question
ing 1t. a young man who should, in order
to save himself from demerit mark that
would be the last of the number necessary
to dismiss him, make a false statement,
wonld be cut by all his classmates and by
them driven from the institution. No ca.
det at West Point ever doesa dishonorable
thing and has any standing there after
wards.


But have already far transcribed the
limits proposed to myself in this letter.
And yet have not told you half that 1
could tell you and that would like to tell
you. regard itias important that the peo-
pie of the country should be much better
informed than they are about this great
school. As an American citizen 1 feel
proud that we have such school, AL.
though, as 1 remarked awhile back, it
has its faults. Yet they are those Inherent
in human nature, aud not in the school,
a trlend of the institution might we'll
point to its chief professors as specimens
OF the school itself They are soldiers and
citizens and cholars-nOt esteeming them.
selves by any exclusiVeness or pretension.
The plaincst and most approachable men
you see at West Point and its chief officers.
And would be unpardonably neglectful
were / to fail to instance the Superintend-
ent himself, Col. Bowman, as a happy IL
lustration of the culture of heart and head
which this institution affords. For many
years preyiousito being called here he had
charge Of some of the most Important gov
ernment constructions in the way of forts,
Custom Houses, &c. Some of our people
at Wheeling will remember his being there
several times while the Custom House was
building. He had chief charge of the
building of Fort Sumter.


had intended in this letter to give
tn inf