In actual
warfare, the laying out and construction of regular forts or the
conduct of a regular siege is committed to professional engineers.
For field work with an army, therefore, the mental furnishing of the
West Point man was not superior to that of any other liberally
educated man. In some of our volunteer regiments we had whole
companies of private soldiers who would not have shunned a
competitive examination with West Point classes on the studies of
the Military Academy, excepting the technical engineering of
fortifications. [Footnote: It must not be forgotten that my
criticisms are strictly confined to the condition of military
education in our Civil War period. Since that time some excellent
work has been done in post-graduate schools for the different arms
of the service, and field manoeuvres have been practised on a scale
never known in our army prior to 1861. A good beginning has also
been made, both here and in England, toward giving the young soldier
a military library of English books.]
Let us look now at the physical and practical training of the cadet.
The whole period of his student life at West Point had more or less
of this.
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