The longer a cadet remains at West Point, the clearer and finer becomes his point of view. During the first few months of his career, a glimpse of which we had in the previous chapter, he is so busy learning the mechanism of the drills, the care of his person and equipment, and familiarizing himself with all of the strange names and unusual customs of military life that his point of view is more or less clouded.
Little by little, during the summer encampment, as soon as the newness of his surroundings begins to wear away, he finds himself undergoing a change of heart; he experiences a new feeling and appreciation of his work and a sort of exhilaration of discovering the progress that he is making in his daily tasks. For example, instead of going out to parade in a dazed and mechanical manner, he marches forth filled with pride that he is really a member of so élite a Corps. He strives to do his bit with all his might. He lends a close attention to all commands so that no act of his will mar the appearance of his company, and does his utmost to 164 assume the correct position of a soldier that is incessantly dinned into his ears by the ever alert file closers. He feels that he is changing, but does not understand just how. In reality his point of view is swinging around, it is clearing up, and the new cadet is beginning to be animated with the spirit of West Point.
The scales seem to drop from his eyes. He is no longer concerned so completely with his troubles and difficulties, with his inability to get into his white trousers without mussing them badly, with his capacity for doing “wooden” things, or with all of the thousand and one little heartburns for things done and left undone.
On the contrary, the incidents of his surroundings that are unrelated to himself begin to interest him. With quiet amusement he watches the antics of the yearlings, envying them their careless nonchalant air. His heart goes out in sympathy to some fellow plebe who has just incurred the displeasure of an upper-classman. He secretly admires the military bearing of the cadet officers, the fit of their blouses, their erect and graceful carriage. To him they represent the ideal in the flesh toward which he is striving. There is a certain something about the manner in which they perform their duties that inspires the plebe to extra efforts. In the hope of receiving a word of praise from the cadet captain at inspection before parade, an extra rub is given to the rifle or breastplate, and more care is taken in climbing 165 into those stiff white trousers. He listens with the greatest interest to the chatter about the approaching Academic term and accepts with gratitude the counsels sometimes offered him by the cadet captain.
As the camp draws to a close, not only the captain but all of the upper-classmen give the plebe gratuitous advice about the coming Academic year. At every formation while awaiting the sounding of the assembly, little groups gather in the company streets and interrogate the plebes as to their previous mental training. A note of restlessness begins to pervade the camp as the month of September draws nigh. Once again the books must be taken down from the shelves and hours of study devoted to the solution of problems.
The plebe views the close of the camp with a sigh of relief mingled with not a little anxiety. It is true that he is glad to get into barracks where he will have a little more personal liberty, and be free from the incessant drilling, drilling. On the other hand, the opening of the Academic year fills him with some misgivings about his ability to master the studies and fulfill his ambition to become an officer.
Before he is really aware of the flight of the days, September the first has arrived. He leaves the life of camp where almost the entire day has been devoted to military exercises of one sort or another and plunges into the Academic work. A new sort of life begins and the routine of the day 166 is readjusted. With determination he sets out to climb the stony path of knowledge that alone will lead him to his commission. The branch of the service that he will eventually select is as yet unknown to him, but as he proceeds in his career at the Academy he will have a taste of the duties of each arm, and he will later on be able to choose his branch with intelligence.
The beauty about the West Point system of training officers is that it educates them for all branches of the Army, for the line and for the staff. When a man graduates, he is assigned either to the Corps of Engineers, the Ordnance, Artillery, Cavalry, or Infantry according to his choice based on his class standing. The highest men usually select the Corps of Engineers, although it is not unusual for a man who is recommended for the Engineers by the Academic Board to choose some branch of the mobile Army.
The curriculum to which our young cadet must devote nine months of the year is highly scientific and technical. The corner-stone of the course is mathematics, and the great mass of the structure is made up of the exact sciences. Primarily, the curriculum is designed to give the cadet a liberal education and to turn out a man with sharpened mental processes. It does not lay the greatest emphasis upon the training of cadets in the practical duties that pertain to any particular arm or corps. The reasons for this are very sound.
It is the belief of all officers who have given the 167 question of military education any thoughtful study that the first requisite of any army is a corps of officers trained in the essentials of their profession. What really does this mean? It simply means that officers of the Army should be well educated men, not only those who are to go into the technical branches such as the Engineers and the Ordnance, but the line officers as well. The authorities at West Point have therefore developed a broad scientific course, fully convinced that the mental discipline, powers of investigation, and accurate reasoning necessary in solving problems in the exact sciences are the same mental qualities that are needed whether in planning a great campaign, building a Panama Canal, or fighting the savage Moro in the distant Philippines.
The advisability of giving all cadets, those destined for the line as well as for the staff, the same education has been questioned more than once. As long ago as 1843, a Board of Officers, of which General Scott was president, made certain criticisms of the course of instruction. It is interesting to quote the answer made by the Academic Board, for the ideas set forth therein express in general the opinions held today:
The Academic Board believes that one of the most important objects of the Academy is to subject each cadet, previous to his promotion to a higher grade in the Army, to a thorough course of mental as well as military discipline to teach him to reason readily and 168 accurately to apply right principles to cases of daily occurrence in the life of a soldier. They are satisfied that a strict course of mathematical and philosophical study, with applications to the various branches of military science, is by far the best calculated to bring about this end, and that the present scientific course at the Academy, the result of the experience of many years, is in its main feature such a course.
They are aware that many of the cadets, as is the case with most of those who pursue a scientific course at other institutions, will have little occasion to make practical applications of the many mathematical problems that they meet, and that they may have passed over certain problems without thoroughly understanding their meaning in all their points. Still, if the course has been thoroughly taught, the reasoning faculties will have been strongly exercised and disciplined and a system of habit and thought acquired which is invaluable in the pursuit of any profession, and as desirable for the infantry or dragoon officer as for any other officer in the service. The officer whose mind has thus been disciplined and who is not forgetful of the duty he owes to the government that has furnished him with opportunities so valuable, will acquire facts and information in whatever station the interests of the service may place him. This discipline and system he will learn at an early age only, and nowhere so well as during his term of service at the Academy.
In recent years, strong influences have been brought to bear on the Academy to change the course so as to make it more practical. The 169 advocates of this change ignore the ends toward which West Point’s course works, heretofore successfully, and desire to see cadets leave West Point with what they call a practical knowledge of the different arms. This means that they wish the graduated cadet to join his regiment well versed in the routine work of the Army, and would have West Point take precious time from mental training to teach a more complete knowledge of the mechanism of the drills. If West Point followed this advice, the graduated cadet would have a difficult road in solving the big problems that will arise in his career. If in the West Point course emphasis were laid upon the practical work rather than upon the intellectual training, then the cadet would simply be storing up knowledge instead of learning how to think. When therefore any situation would arise, the tendency would be to make a requisition upon the storehouse for a solution. If there is no similar situation tucked away on the shelves of memory, that will serve as a guide, he will in many cases be at a loss how to proceed. Not so, however, if his mind has been trained correctly. He will work out his own solution.
Many people believe that the whole science of the military profession is embraced in a book of drill regulations whose practical demonstration on the drill and parade grounds constitutes all that is necessary to make a successful officer. They do not realize that battles are won first with the brain 170 and then with the sword. They rather regard the work of officers much the same as manual labor that anyone can do, and they do not admit that any great amount of mental training for the officers is necessary.
I do not wish to give the impression that there is no practical training at the Academy—far from it. But I am glad to say that it has been allotted its proper place in the course. Once the theory is mastered, the practical is quickly learned afterwards. Any cadet with a trained mind can readily learn the practical duties that may be demanded of him as an officer.
It is an astonishing fact that I have heard West Point methods criticised in the Army because a young graduate upon joining his regiment did not know how to make out a morning report! Why should he? The fact that any boy of average intelligence can learn to make one out in fifteen minutes should be a complete answer to all demands that cadets should be taught these trivialities at the Academy.
The criticism leveled at West Point by officers of the Army is unjust. Older officers expect too much of the graduated cadet. I have noticed that they demand of these young men, immediately upon joining, the same mature conception and efficient execution of certain duties as they themselves are able to display only after years of experience.
Upon graduation from West Point, I dare say 171 that there is no more highminded, well-trained, and efficient body of young men in the world. The graduates join their commands brimming over with youth, intelligence, enthusiasm, and energy and ruled by intense loyalty. They want to do what is right. They want to go forward in their profession. They make every effort to perform well their duties. All that they need are leaders among their superiors who will develop their aspirations. Sometimes they encounter a distinct air of hostility, occasionally a petty attitude on the part of some older officers whose one ambition is to “put them in their place,” and, too frequently, simply indifference. The result is that the young officers quickly become a prey to the red tape, the dull routine, the narrowness of post life, or to the mental inertia of prolonged duty upon the border where almost every stimulating influence is absent. If only there were enough good leaders to take this wonderful material that the Academy sends forth annually and develop it, there is no telling to what heights these young officers would rise.
But to return to our plebe who makes his début in Academic work September the first. The evening before has been spent in earnest preparation for the lesson in mathematics, and he sets forth on this early autumn day to grapple with the hardest study of his course.
First call for recitation is sounded at seven minutes before eight o’clock. The trumpeter, an enlisted man of the Army, blows “school call” 172 first in the area of barracks, then outside of the north sally-port, on the Plain side of the buildings. The call is repeated several times, and as its notes float out on the air, the barracks begin to disgorge the cadets, sometimes singly, but more often in groups of twos and threes. The more prompt ones pile out on the cement walk, standing near their places in the ranks to await the assembly. The majority are laughing and talking or discussing the lesson, while others, thirsting for knowledge until the last, keep their noses in their books. Their comrades sometimes tease them, calling them “tenth-boners” in good-natured derision, or steal up behind them and shut their books for them saying, “Oh, come off spec-ing tenths,” which means to desist from studying at the last moments to better the mark.
At one minute before assembly the cadet officer of the day, a straight young man in a red sash and red crossbelt (bound up, as Patsy O’Hara of 1904 wittily remarked, in his official red tape), takes his post in the center of the area and commands: “Form your sections!”
Instantly books are slammed, all noises, talking, laughing, skylarking, cease, and the scattered gray figures seem to magically form themselves into compact little squads under the direction of their section marchers who stand out in front counting them. The door of the Guardhouse opens and the O. C. (officer in charge) appears upon the “poop deck,” stern, implacable, almost sphinx-like, and 173 surveys coldly the formation. For the brief space of a few seconds all is quiet except for the occasional shuffling of a section that has misjudged its proper space. Then the trumpeter sounds the assembly. A few belated men are tearing to their places in ranks, running a race with the fading notes of the trumpet and landing bang! into the rear rank just in time to keep from being reported absent. The kind-hearted trumpeter often takes a deeper breath (especially in winter when he sees the belated ones recklessly dashing across the icy walks), and holds on to those last notes of assembly in a way that was never intended by the composer. God bless him!
Meanwhile the instructors are in the section rooms awaiting the arrival of their classes. Here and there in the windows of the rooms facing the area is an instructor gazing upon this class formation that is the same today as it was years ago, and that awakens in him a flood of memories of his own cadet days when he too set out to recite to an instructor who never seemed quite human. As he looks at the cadets forming, he realizes how distinctly the institution creates its types, and he is able to pick out certain individuals and say to himself:
“There goes so and so of my class!”
The great charm of West Point is that so many things never change. Some of the cadets, sons of graduates, are doing exactly as their fathers did at 174 their age, and again a few cadets are reacting the youth of their grandfathers.
While the instructor is watching the cadets in the area, the section marcher reports to the officer of the day all absentees in his section which he then marches off to the Academic Building. On the sections come in military formation straight to the classroom door. The halls of the building resound to the tramping of many feet as the cadets march along with muffled tread, thanks to O’Sullivan rubber heels that are fitted to every pair of shoes. When opposite the classroom door the section marcher commands:
“Section halt! Fall out!”
The cadets hang up their caps in the hall, file into the room, and stand rigidly at attention behind their desks. The section marcher enters, closes the door, takes his position in the center of the room facing the instructor, salutes, and reports:
“Sir, all are present,” or “Cadet Ducrot is absent.”
Mr. Ducrot now makes his acquaintance with Mathematics, the study that determines more than any other his standing at West Point. From the day that he commences his studies he feels that he must devote the greater amount of time to this subject, and with reason. A perusal of the tables of instruction shows that the greater proportion of time and weight is allotted to the mathematical studies. The total amount of time provided for in the course of instruction, including 175 riding and gymnasium, is 192,900 minutes. If gymnasium and riding are deducted (11,205 and 10,860 minutes, respectively) there are left 170,835 minutes devoted to Academic work. Of this amount the pure mathematical subjects are allotted 76,555 minutes, and the non-mathematical subjects, 94,280 minutes.
These figures represent the time that is actually spent in the recitation work. To give an accurate idea of the draught of these subjects upon the cadet’s time, however, we should estimate the amount of time required for preparation plus the time spent in the section room. The lessons are so assigned that these preparations take the average cadet twice the time allotted to the recitation. Thus, in subjects having an hour and twenty-five minute recitations, the average cadet is expected to spend two hours and fifty minutes in preparation; and in subjects having one hour periods, two hours of preparation. Practical Surveying and Drawing are subjects for which no preparation is required.
Adding the preparation time to the recitation time we find the total relative amounts of time as follows:
Mathematical Subjects. Non-Mathematical Subjects.
76,555 94,280
136,940 145,440
213,495 239,720
176
The time devoted to mathematical subjects is divided among only five departments, whereas the time divided among non-mathematical subjects is divided among nine departments. Again, each subject is weighted and the five mathematical subjects have almost as many units as the nine non-mathematical subjects. Out of the 2325 units required for graduation (leaving out of account the 200 allotted to conduct) the five mathematical departments have 1065 and the nine other departments have 1260. It is no wonder that Mr. Ducrot wishes to make an auspicious beginning in a study that is so important to his future career. The conduct of the recitation that he attends for the first time is about the same in every department. In Mathematics, which is an exact science, the system is perhaps a little more rigid than in some of the non-mathematical departments.
As soon as the cadets have taken their seats the instructor asks:
“Are there any questions on the lesson?”
The cadets are then at liberty to ask for an explanation of any part of the lesson that they have not been able to comprehend. The officer uses his judgment as to the amount of time to be thus consumed. Sometimes he will take up half the recitation period to clear up the obscurities of the lesson, but if he has one of the lower sections he sometimes has to be on his guard, for the cadets on the days of hard lessons astutely ask many 177 questions in order to consume the recitation period. I know one officer who always outwitted these youthful diplomats when they attempted to stave off the recitation. He would begin speaking so rapidly that no one could interrupt:
“Any questions-pages-one-two-three-four-too-late-close-your-books. Mr. Ducrot-take-the-first-front-board.”
Each cadet is sent to the blackboard with an enunciation, that is, some phase of the lesson to discuss, or perhaps the instructor may question a few men. The cadet writes his name on the board in the upper right-hand corner and proceeds to place upon the slate enough data to assist him in his recitation. In Mathematics, he solves his problem; in other subjects the topic that he will develop orally.
As soon as the cadet is ready to recite he takes a pointer in his hand and faces the instructor and stands at attention until called upon. In order to test thoroughly the cadet’s reasoning powers the instructor will sometimes lead him on along a false path, practically making the recitation himself, saying:
“Is not that so?” and again, “Is that not so?”
To which the lad, if not thoroughly sure of himself, will be betrayed into replying:
“Yes, sir!” “Yes, sir!”
Finally when the deduction has been rendered ridiculous, the officer will sharply say:
“That is perfectly absurd.” The cadet receives 178 a lesson that he does not forget. Once or twice as a cadet I was in this position and I know the feeling.
After each cadet is heard, he is given other problems with which to wrestle while the other cadets are reciting. When a principle of particular importance is to be demonstrated, all of the cadets are required to face about and give their close attention in order that they may all benefit from the instruction.
During a recitation a visit may be expected at any time from the Professor or Head of the Department. U............