the education, at the public expense, of a larger number of cadets than the public service calls for, whereby many of the graduates resign from the army, simultaneously with the arrival of the period at which they are liable to be called into its ranks. In our remarks upon the constitutional point rising from the objection, we have fully shown the details, and exhibited the weak foundation in fact for this assertion. But suppose it be true, that this is a consequence of the present organization of the school. If the latter be constitutional in its object, as we have shown, and it so happens that other benefits of great value to the nation at large, accidental but ancillary to the results of the primary and strictly lawful design of the establishment, flow from its existence, surely the charge of inexpediency is not made out. How is the fact in this respect? What becomes of the graduate who retires to the walks of private life? Is his military knowledge for ever lost to the nation? Or is it not likely to be called into action the moment when war shall ensue, and when the citizen soldiery shall be called into the field? To say nothing of the diffusion of knowledge among the mass of the people thus caused, in all the branches of learning acquired by the graduate, do not his tastes and habits lead him to associate himself with the volunteer militia of the country, and to impart to them an acquaintance with the elementary, and some of the more abstruse portions of military knowledge and training? And is not this a valuable object to be attained, where, as with us, the militia is held to be the bulwark of the nation? We have seen that in the beginning, Gen. Washington's favourite idea was to connect the academy, by its influence and aid, with the success of the militia defence. The graduates are Americans, with every tie of personal relationship and place of nativity, aided by the force of mental habits and patriotic associations, formed by the very nature of their education, to cause them to step forward manfully for their country's sake when needed. The sentiment of Mr. Jefferson in 1808, when he contemplated that "as these youths grow up and take their stations in society, they would naturally become militia officers, and in a few years, in the ordinary course of events, we should see a uniformity in our militia resulting from a spirit of emulation, which the reputation of having received a military education would naturally excite," was a just one. The amount, then, of the whole discussion is this; that so long as the military academy provides, by anticipation, (for that is the only mode in which it can operate,) as nearly as can be calculated, for the current wants of the service, in respect to furnishing skilful officers, it is not only a constitutional establishment, but the small, occasional overplus of graduates, who, unable temporarily to obtain posts in the army, resign and retire to private

life, there by the nature of things to join in the militia array of the nation, makes it none the less expedient.

Much has been said in the report of the select committee, as well as elsewhere, as to the alleged abuse of the appointing power in regard to the selection of youths for cadets. Now, it is to be observed that this, if an objection at all, is not one to the institution itself or its results, but to the conduct of the government in the exercise of a power in reference to individuals, before they enter its walls. If the fact be as asserted, let the proper remedy be provided by law; but surely let us not permit the influence of such a consideration to destroy the school itself, which is not responsible for the evil complained of. The complaint is, that in the appointments the sons of the rich are preferred to those of the poor. We suspect a want of foundation for this charge, for several reasons. In the first place, because it is the ad captandum vulgus so often practised by small politicians; and in the next, because the tendency of all concurrent circumstances is to the contrary. The cadets are selected by the president and war department from the respective states in proportion to their respective population, and almost uniformly, as to the persons, on the recommendation of the representatives from such states in congress. Now, during the last eight or nine years, the members of congress claiming to represent the popular, the workingmen's, or the poormen's party, or a party by any other name, as contra-distinguished from the party to which it is said the most wealth belongs, have had a large majority at Washington. Is it not likely that they have served their political friends before those who are unattached to them by any of the political friendships of the day? But the author of the report does not venture to make this charge as susceptible of proof, but only hints it after this fashion:

"That the sons of the rich have been preferred to those of the poor in the selection of cadets for the institution, is, also, a charge against the institution which has found a place in the suspicions, if not in the convictions, of many honest minds. To what extent, if any, it is founded in realities, the committee are unable to say. As a general remark, it

is equally true, it is the rich and influential in a community that are the first to seek, and most aspiring in the pursuit of, the partialities of government. Perhaps their inducements in this are stronger, from their superior prospects of success; and it would be very strange if these known principles of human action have not entered largely into the acquisition, by this class of citizens, of the privileges and preferment held out by government in the institution at West Point, though the fact be not susceptible of clear and tangible proof. A conviction, so naturally deducible from generaland acknowledged principles, can hardly require much additional proof, in detail, to give it currency. p. 27.

This is a curious sample of the reasoning of a committee

upon so important a subject, tending to the annihilation of a national establishment, which has formed a favouite part of the policy of every administration, without the basis of a shadow of fact, and by force of what may be termed a sophistical surmise. But the case is proven otherwise. The report of the subcommittee of the board of visitors for 1837, which took up the subject for examination, states distinctly the contrary, and previous reports of other boards, and of committees in congress, have all tended to the same conclusion. Every one has heard the somewhat musty proverb concerning the kind of houses in which those who throw stones should avoid living. Now it is but fair to apply the rule in kind to the author of the report of the select committee. What does he propose? In a word, that no person shall be admitted to his national school of practice until he shall have obtained in private schools an education (and in which he must be found qualified) "in the several branches of elementary and theoretical knowledge involved in the art of war." How is the poor man's son to get this? The cost of such instruction in private colleges and schools will exclude him from its acquisition. What follows?-this plain result of the plan of the author of the report, who is so anxious for the equality of rights and advantages-the exclusion of every poor man's son from serving as an officer in the armies of the United States! How is it in reference to the present academy? The only qualification for admission is a knowledge sufficient to enable him to read, write, and perform simple arithmetic, which the poor lad may obtain, in most of the states, by aid of the public or common-school fund. Which plan then is the best to prevent favouritism in appointments? We have stated these things because we have been desirous to relieve the present academy from an unjust and ungenerous attempt to excite prejudices against it in regard to a point upon which, perhaps, more than on any other, popular feeling is alive. At the same time, we would recommend that the states should select their own candidates, either by the election of the legislatures or by appointments of special authorities, or in any mode which may be devised to remove the possibility of the existence of favouritism. We cannot forbear, however, to quote the following passage from the "Letter of a Graduate" on this subject, as it speaks to the purpose:

"If, sir, there is one feature in the operation of this school which more than any other entitles it to the confidence and patronage of the people, it is the one that all classes of our fellow-citizens, from all corners of the republic, are there brought together, and educated, at a period of life when the heart is most susceptible of generous and noble feelings, and

1 Army and Navy Chronicle, June 29, 1837.

forms those ties of social brotherhood which, after a long career in the heartless ways of the world, death alone dissolves. At what other school, among all our large institutions, is the influence of wealth and rank so little felt? The poor boy here receives an education when his poverty would either entirely exclude him from every other celebrated college, or else would cause his admittance under all the discouragements of elemosynary disqualifications, subjecting him either to the degradation of courting and flattering those whose wealth gives them greater means of enjoyment, or else of becoming a kind of Paria among these superior castes, whilst pursuing his own humble career, unnoticed and unknown, until the energies of a superior mind, if he is of Nature's own gifted ones, enables him to soar above the grovelling votaries of Plutus.

"I, sir, have known the nephew of Andrew Jackson pass through the school with distinguished honours, when no one thought of the uncle but as the gallant general who had done the state some service. I have known a protégé of the same Andrew Jackson, when at the very pinnacle of his power, to be received into the school with the recommendations from him which a father's solicitude would prompt for a son, and in a few short months have seen the protected sent from school. I have seen a son of a general in chief put down a class lower, whilst his own father was the presiding officer of the board of visitors for that examination, when the son of a tailor of the cadets was placed at the head of the same class. I have seen a son of Henry Clay, when the father was "the observed of all observers," sent from the school, and another son retrieve the honour of the name, by bearing off the highest honours of his class, when the father had lost all political power, but that of which nothing can rob him—the well-earned fame of a profound statesman, and of the greatest of American orators. I have marked this promising son of a distinguished sire, struggle side by side, in the race of honourable ambition, and praiseworthy rivalry, with a New England ploughboy, whose life, until he was admitted into the Military Academy, had alternated between the humble labours of the plough and rake in the summer, and of the country school in the winter, and with a generous son of the south, who, too poor to bear the expenses of the luxury of an ordinary conveyance, walked from his native state to the seat of government to ask for his appointment. Nor are these anomalous cases; they are the habitual every-day operations of this hotbed of aristocracy. If, sir, there is one institution in our country which, in its practical results, more than any other, inculcates the truly democratical doctrine of thorough contempt for all the adventitious advantages of wealth and fortune, and proclaims the innate nobility of individual merit, it is this same Military Academy; for here alone the poor boy feels that a man is but a man, and that native talent, with good conduct, are the true sources of real respectability."-— pp. 12, 13.

The institution has been further attacked on account of the alleged enormity of the expenditure which its maintenance causes to the nation. When rightly considered, this appears to be as futile an objection as any other which ingenuity or malevolence may have brought to bear upon the subject. We have seen that the school now sends forth annually from forty to sixty graduates. Yet the annual cost of its maintenance, as evidenced by the official documents, does not exceed that of a first-rate frigate, being about one hundred thousand dolVOL. XXII.NO. 43

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lars, including the pay, forage, and subsistence of officers, professors, and cadets, and excluding the appropriations for buildings, repairs, and miscellanies, which are properly chargeable to West Point as a military post, like the current expenses of any other along the sea-board or elsewhere, and not as a military academy. Strictly speaking, too, the pay of the officers stationed at the point as instructers, and of those forming the military staff, should be deducted from this sum, for they receive the same compensation to which they would be entitled if stationed at any other post during the inactive times of peace. Assuming this as a basis for the calculation, the cost to the government of the education of each cadet does not exceed $2000, or about $500 per annum. Compare this with the pay, forage, and subsistence of the common private of the army, and what becomes of the oft-told charge of extravagance? Yet these cadets form part of the army, and in times of peace perform as severe duty as the common private. This is however the least return which is yielded to the government; that return is made a hundred fold in the supply of skilful, honourable, and faithful officers. But how short-sighted is the argument thus pressed against the institution, when it is remembered that if the government would retain the same, or an approximate, degree of military knowledge and skill in the country, which is now provided against the contingency of war, and abolish the school, a large standing army must be constantly maintained! Thus then it is that this establishment answers one of the great ends of government in providing for the national defence, by economical instead of extravagant means. To conclude this branch of the subject, if we may be permitted to speak ad hominem, it would appear as reasonable to take the round sum appropriated for the pay of members of congress in any given year, divide it by their number, and then enquire if either the merit or the services of the greater portion are not extravagantly compensated by the sums respectively paid them. We fear the comparison between cadet and congressmen would, in very many instances, be in favour of the former.

But the author of the report of the select committee combats with all sorts of weapons, and where he can find no ground upon which to maintain an open fight, he has recourse to ambuscade and stratagem. In this, unfortunately for his purpose, he becomes, as a learned but quaint writer has it, "self-victimated." He rushes against wind-mills, and sustains the same kind of disaster which the renowned knight of La Mancha brought on himself. We will take an example of this. The author argues much against the organization of the academy, on the

Report of military committee; R. M. Johnson, chairman.