When a new class of cadets reports at West Point, it is composed of men as diverse in appearance, in points of view, and in character as the parts of the country from which they come. But after they have been at the Academy for a couple of years a marked change occurs, and by the time they are ready to graduate they have undergone a complete metamorphosis. In some mysterious manner they seem to have been leveled to a certain standard, like some scraggly hedge that has been scrupulously trimmed by its painstaking guardian. The fat ones have lost their extra pounds; the thin ones have made good their deficit; the round-shouldered have straightened up, and the hollow-chested have filled out. Instead of a heterogeneous looking lot of men, they give the impression of having been made from the same die. And then too there is a uniformity about their point of view. Whereas at entrance their whole thought was colored by the life from which they came and by what they hoped to be, once enrolled in the Corps, they quickly and involuntarily 277 have found themselves worshiping identical ideals—the ideals of Duty, Honor, and Country. They have discovered at West Point certain standards that have been approved by other men, and they have gradually adopted them as their own. But the real stamp of West Point appears in their faces. The imprint is evident wherever a group of the cadets are gathered together, but it is never so apparent as at the graduation ceremonies when the cadets individually mount the platform to receive their diplomas. Then one can see a certain look in the eye and a certain feeling of strength about the features that is the same. It is the look of men who have accomplished something and of the strength that comes from character.

What, you ask, is this leveling influence at the Academy? It comes from discipline, the discipline of the body, the discipline of the mind, and the discipline of the soul. It is the one governing factor in the success of West Point. All three kinds of it begin on the day that the cadet reports ............