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 is engaged in study in quarters. At the end of the first hour and a half those sections which have attended recitation return to their quarters to study, while their places are taken by the remaining sections which have been up to that time engaged in study in quarters.
Each teacher, as a general rule, has two sections specially assigned to him for instruction, excepting the professor or head of each department who, as has been already explained, devotes his time to general superintendence, and takes the different sections for his personal instruction at such times and in such order as he may judge best.
Before proceeding to the section rooms the different sections parade in the barrack square by sound of bugle, under the superintendence of the cadet officer of the day; the roll is then called by the senior cadet, who is termed the section marcher, who reports absentees to the officer of the day, and marches his section off to the section room by direction of the latter. Arrived in the section room, the section marcher causes the cadets to take their seats in the order of their names on the roll, and then hands them over to the instructor. When dismissed by the instructor, the section marcher forms his section as before, marches it back to the barrack square, reports all infractions of discipline which may have taken place either in study or on the march to the officer of the day, and then dismisses his section by the latter’s permission.
There is no system of private tuition recognized at the Academy. Each cadet must depend on his own exertions, aided by the explanations given by the instructors in the section rooms, and by the occasional assistance he may derive from his more advanced comrades.
The allotment of so large a portion of time to independent study is a great departure from the practice of military schools in Europe; and it is a remarkable feature in the West Point system that no continued supervision is exercised over the cadets when studying in quarters beyond that which is supplied by the discipline of the cadets themselves. The senior of the two cadets inhabiting each room is responsible for discipline and orderly behavior. The officer of the day (cadet) visits each room during the hours of independent study; and the officer in charge, who is detailed daily from the assistant instructors of tactics, also visits the rooms at his discretion.
Routine of Daily Work.