[VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE AT LEXINGTON.]
HISTORICAL NOTICE.
The Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, was established in 1839, and was organized and conducted from the start on the plan of the Military Academy at West Point, by Col. Francis H. Smith, a graduate of that institution of the class of 1833, and professor there from 1834 to 1836.
The State makes an annual appropriation of $15,000 for its support, on the basis of which a certain number (usually 36) cadets are admitted without charge; in consideration of which they are required to teach in some school of the State for two years after graduation. In the selection of State cadets regard is had to their capacity to profit, and inability to pay the expenses of tuition and board, and an equal representation of each senatorial district. Any commissioned officer of the militia of the State can become a student for a period not exceeding ten months, and receive instruction in any or all departments of military science taught therein, without charge for tuition.
The course of instruction was from the start distinctly scientific, and since its return [from Richmond where it was removed after the destruction of its building and library, when Lexington was taken possession of by Gen. Hunter] in 1866, and its reorganization on its present basis of a general School of Applied Science, it has become even technic in reference to all the chief industries and natural resources of Virginia.
The origin and military character of the Institute are thus set forth by the Superintendent in an address to the Corps of Cadets, Sept. 10, 1866:
Peculiar circumstances gave to this Institution its distinctive military character. Here the State had a deposit of arms, in an arsenal, which had been established for many years before the organization of the Institution, and the annuity which had been formerly given to the public guard by the State, was transferred to the Virginia Military Institute, as the basis of its support. Upon this foundation the Virginia Military Institute was established, and as the duty imposed upon the cadet was military, so military discipline and military instruction became an essential and distinctive feature in the education it supplied. Besides daily exercises in the school of the soldier, company, and battalion in infantry, and of the piece and battery in artillery tactics, minute instruction is given in the class-room, upon all the theoretic branches of the military art, embracing, in addition to those enumerated, ordnance and gunnery, military strategy and military history, and the principles and practice of field and permanent fortifications.
It is not necessary that I should say any thing, at this time, to vindicate the completeness of the arrangements made in this institution for theoretical and practical military education. The sanguinary conflict which has just closed has fully tested its efficiency. One-tenth of the Confederate Armies was commanded by the éléves of this school, embracing three major generals, thirty brigadier generals, sixty colonels, fifty lieutenant colonels, thirty majors, one hundred and twenty-five captains, between two and three hundred lieutenants; and the terrible results of the battles, in numbering one hundred and twenty-five of these among the killed, and three hundred and fifty among the wounded, show that the éléves of this institution met the call of their country with an earnestness of devotion which places them in most honorable distinction for their heroic defense of what they believed to be right.[17]
We give the organization and course of instruction from the latest Circular, issued by the Superintendent.