Although Professor Ellicott rather emphasizes his assiduity in his application for extra compensation we must be grateful, at least, for the glimpse he gives us of the state of affairs in 1815.
Better days, however, were in store for West Point. That the War Department was not entirely insensible to the handicap under which those at West Point were working, is proven by the circumstance that at this particular time there was in Europe an officer, Major Sylvanus Thayer, who had been sent abroad “to prosecute inquiries and examinations calculated for his improvement in the military art.” He was given five thousand dollars for the collection of books, maps, and instruments for the Military Academy. Shortly after his return, he was made Superintendent, relieving Captain Alden Partridge whose administration had not been popular nor very successful. Although Captain Partridge was much criticized by the professors and cadets his farewell address to the “Gentlemen Cadets of the Military Academy” was so high-minded that I am tempted to quote it in full:
Before I take my leave of you, gentlemen, permit me to impress anew upon your minds some precepts to which I have frequently before this called your attention. Be attentive to your studies, and correct and gentlemanly in your deportment. Pursue with undeviating course the paths of virtue and true honor; and rest assured that although the vicious and the vain may affect to ridicule and despise, they will inwardly respect you, and that you will thereby ensure the applause of the good and the great, and, which is of more importance, the approbation of your consciences and of your God.
With the advent of Major Thayer began the golden age of the Academy. This officer was a veteran of the War of 1812 in which he had served with great distinction; he had studied the military schools of France, and had profited by his unusual opportunities to acquire a profound knowledge concerning the conduct of an institution such as the military school over which he was chief.
The great talents that Major Thayer possessed were well employed. For sixteen years he shaped the destiny of the Academy, and with such wisdom and foresight that the broad fundamental principles which he laid down for the school’s guidance, govern the institution today.
Major Sylvanus Thayer
“The Father of the Military Academy”
From the Painting by Thomas Sully, Library U.S.M.A.
To him, more than to any one man, is due the elevation of the Military Academy to its high rank among schools of learning both in this country and abroad.
Upon taking over the command, he immediately drew upon his genius for organization, with the result that the cadets were organized into a battalion of two companies, a “Commandant of Cadets” was created, the classes were for study purposes divided into sections, transfers were made between sections, and weekly reports, showing daily progress in studies, were rendered. Moreover, the system and scale of daily marks, the publication of the Annual Register, the introduction of the Board of Visitors, the check-book system, the preponderating influence of the blackboard, and the essential part of the modern Regulations are proofs of his untiring efforts as an executive. The above changes that he effected, and the reforms that he introduced, are a part of the modern organization of West Point. Perhaps no one method has so much influenced the quality of the instruction of the cadets as the blackboard recitations. Major Thayer insisted on this form, although old records show that it was introduced at West Point by Mr. George Baron, a civilian teacher, who in the autumn of 1801 gave to Cadet Swift “a specimen of his mode of teaching at the blackboard.” Today it is the prominent feature in Academic instruction.