The June, or annual examinations, commence on the first of the month. The first or graduating class alone is examined by the entire Academic Board, and the final relative standing of the cadets determined. The remaining classes are examined before the two committees of the Academic Board.
The June examinations take place in the presence of the Board of Visitors, the members of which are specially appointed in each year by the President of the United States, and whose duty it is to report to the Secretary of War, for the information of Congress, on the state of discipline, instruction, &c., &c., of the Academy.
The senior assistant professor or instructor of the branch under examination is ex officio a member of the Academic Board or of the committee thereof which conducts such examination; and the immediate instructor of the section to be examined is likewise associated with the Board or its committee so far as relates to the examination itself and the arrangement of the section in order of merit.
Classification according to Marks.
To assist the Academic Board in determining the accurate classification of any section about to be examined, the immediate instructor of that section hands to the Board, before the examination commences, a roll in the order of merit in which he considers the members should stand, based on the weekly credits which he had himself assigned.
At the close of the examination the same instructor hands to the Board a second roll in the order in which he conceives the members of the section should stand, judging by the result of the examination. The instructor then retires and the Board proceeds to deliberate.
Each member of the Board having kept careful notes of the examination, the relative standing of the cadets of a section in proficiency is determined by discussion.
The question next arises, who, if any, are to be pronounced deficient?—a dictum which inevitably entails discharge from the Academy, or putting down to a lower class.
The different sections composing the class, having been arranged in one class list in order of merit; one of the Board, usually the professor of the department concerned, supposing e.g. the class to consist of 50 members, may move that No. 50 be declared deficient. If the motion is negatived on discussion, the salvation of No. 50 proves also the salvation of all standing above him. But if the motion be carried, Nos. 49, 48, 47, &c., may be pronounced deficient in like manner, and so on, until a number is reached which is not condemned.
The examinations are entirely vivâ voce. Each cadet is subjected to a searching oral examination of from seven to ten minutes, illustrated on the blackboard where the subject admits of it. The daily record of the proficiency of a cadet in any subject forms, as already stated, by far the most important element in fixing his relative standing among his classmates: it is only exceptionally that the public examinations alter materially the order of merit which has been previously framed from the weekly class reports.