The battalion staff consists of

1 Adjutant,

1 Quartermaster,

1 Sergeant Major,
1 Quartermaster Sergeant,"

The cadet companies are composed indiscriminately of the four classes into which the students are divided according to their respective years of residence, the period of residence being four years for all.

The cadet officers are taken from the first, or senior class; the sergeants from the second class; the corporals from the third class. The selection is not made with special reference to proficiency in study. Those are selected who have manifested the greatest military aptitude and respect for discipline in their own conduct; although cæteris paribus superior standing in study would be decisive.

Staff of Instruction

The general superintendence of the studies is exercised by the superintendent, acting with the Academic Board. The immediate staff of instruction is as follows:

The Academic Board consists of the Superintendent, the Commandant of Cadets, the Professors of the Academy, and the Instructors of Practical Military Engineering, and of Ordnance and Gunnery.

All the professors and instructors, with their assistants and acting assistants, have been educated at West Point, with exception of the chaplain, the professors of French and Spanish, and the sword master. All are regularly enrolled in the military service of the United States, and subject to military discipline.

Professors and Assistants.

The professor or chief instructor in each branch is responsible for the efficiency and uniformity of the system of instruction in his own department. To this end he has no special class or section assigned to him for tuition. His time is devoted to general superintendence, and is chiefly spent in visiting the halls of study of his assistants. He does, however, take the instruction of the different sections, each in their turn, as he sees fit, and occasionally assembles all the sections of his department for lecture.

The assistant and acting assistant professors or instructors are always appointed from among officers on the full pay of their regiments who have graduated at the Academy, on the recommendation of the professor or chief instructor of the branch in which there is a vacancy to be filled. These assistants are carefully selected through means of the data of their proficiency, temper, and general character, afforded by their record of four years' residence as cadets. They are, thus, all of them previously well known to the professors to whom they are to act as assistants, and to whom they are naturally inclined to defer from old associations.

The term of duty at the Academy of the assistant and acting assistant professors and instructors is fixed at four years, at the end of which period they return to regimental service. Duty at the Academy is obligatory on every officer who may be selected for it, and is considered as part of the general service which every officer who has graduated at West Point, owes to the country; practically those only are selected to whom the duty is not disagreeable.

Admission

Each congressional or territorial district of the United States (¿. e. each district entitled to return a member to Congress), is by law entitled to have one cadet receiving education at the Academy.

The nominations are made in each year by the Secretary of War, on the recommendation of the representatives in Congress of the several districts then unrepresented at the Academy, or whose

representatives are about to quit the Academy. In addition to these, the President of the United States may nominate ten cadets in each year, to be selected according to his own will and pleasure, from the community at large.

The number of vacancies at West Point in any one year varies according to the number of cadets who happen to complete their period of residence, and of those, who, not having completed their term, are yet discharged as deficient in studies or discipline, as hereafter explained. The number of yearly admissions varies from 50 to 70.

The date of admission in each year is the 1st of July, and the candidate for admission is required to report in person to the superintendent before the 31st of May, with a view to his qualifications being tested. But if sickness or any other unavoidable cause should interfere, he may present himself on the 28th of August. Except at the two periods above named, no admissions can take place.

Candidates must be over 17 and under 22 years of age, except in the case of any candidate who may have served faithfully as an officer or enlisted man in the army of the United States, either as a volunteer or in the regular service during the late civil war, who may be admitted up to 24 years of agc.

Candidates must be at least five feet in height; free from any deformity, disease, or infirmity which would render them unfit for military service; and from any disorders of an infectious or immoral nature. They must be able to read and write well, and be thoroughly versed in the first four rules of arithmetic, in reduction, in simple and compound proportion, and in vulgar and decimal fractions.

Although the examination for entrance is not difficult, the prescribed tests, both medical and intellectual, are rigidly applied, and many candidates are rejected.

The examination for entrance is not competitive, but simply a qualifying examination. The competitive system commences after a cadet is once admitted; it enters into every branch of instruction, and continues in full force to the end of his residence.

Subjects and Course of Study.

The length of the course of study, for all who may succeed in graduating, is four years; its nature, after the first year, is principally professional, and the course of study is identical for all the students. The subjects are not all studied simultaneously, separate periods of the course being devoted to certain subjects, as shown by the time tables annexed.

The relative importance of the different subjects is indicated by

the maximum marks of merit assigned to them respectively, at the summing up of the results of each student's attendance at the end of his fourth year, according to the following scale :—

Practical instruction in surveying; in fortification; in ordnance and gunnery, including the loading, pointing, and firing heavy guns; in drill, or, as it is termed, the tactics of the three arms; in interior economy and regimental duty; forms an important part of the training of the cadet at different periods during his residence. In addition, the months of July and August in each year are entirely devoted to practical instruction, the battalion being then placed under canvas and relieved from all study.

During his first year a cadet receives instruction in fencing three hours in each week, from 15th October to 1st April.

During his second year he receives instruction in riding three hours in each week, from 1st November to 15th March.

Throughout the whole of his third academic year, from 1st October to 1st July, he receives instruction in riding, excepting between the 1st February and 15th April.

Throughout the whole of his fourth academic year he receives instruction in riding, three days in each week.

Swimming is not taught at the Academy. There is a good gymnasium for the use of the cadets in recreation hours, but the tice of gymnastics is purely voluntary.

Classification for Instruction.

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The cadets are ranged in four distinct classes, corresponding with the four years of residence. Cadets of the first year constitute the fourth class; those of the second year, the third class; and so on. Cadets are promoted from one class to another at the end of the academic year, 30th June; provided only that they shall have

passed satisfactorily before the Academic Board in the examinations which are always held during June, failing in which, they are either kept back in their then class for another year, or, in the case of decided deficiency, discharged from the Academy.

Each class is divided into sections convenient for instruction in the different branches of study. The method of division will be best explained by taking the fourth or lowest class as an example.

The members of the fourth class are, on their admission to the Academy, arranged in alphabetical order, and are then formed into sections, averaging about 12 cadets for each branch of study. After the lapse of a month, transfers are made at the close of each week from one section to another, according to the results of the past week's attendance in study, and so continue until those most advanced are found in the first section; the next in order, in the second section; and so on.

During the first six months of residence, cadets are on probation, and only receive their warrant as cadets, provided they shall have passed satisfactorily at the January examinations held before the Academic Board, and that their conduct shall have been satisfactory.

Before receiving his warrant, each cadet is required to sign an engagement of service in the United States army for eight years, and to take an oath of allegiance to the National Government and Constitution.

The hours allotted to study are divided nearly equally between attendance on the instructors in the halls of study-or section rooms, as they are termed-and independent study in quarters. The attendance in the section rooms is termed recitation; the independent study in quarters, study.

The theory is, that during each recitation, every cadet of the section attending it, shall receive a thorough viva voce examination illustrated on the blackboard, and there is not much practical variation therefrom. Where there is any departure from it, it arises from the number of cadets in a section being too large to enable them all to be examined during the same recitation, which lasts an hour and a half, or an hour, according to the subject. Recitations in mathematics, in natural and experimental philosophy, and in civil and military engineering, occupy one hour and a half; in all the other branches of instruction, only one hour. Thus, when it appears in the time table that a class attends mathematics, for example, from 8 to 11, it is to be understood that the sections forming one half of the class attend their respective teachers in the section rooms during an hour and a half, while the other half of the class