REMARKS BY THE EDITOR.
We publish the foregoing Memorial of Capt. Partridge, asking Congress to redress “the grievance” of the Military Academy, not because we have the slightest sympathy with the object or main arguments of the memorialist, but as specimens of the opinions held and propagated by a graduate, professor, and superintendent of the Academy, who did more than any other individual to introduce military instruction and exercises in schools not national or professionally military. We can not, however, put it forth without accompanying it with a few brief remarks.
To Capt. Partridge, more than to any one man, and to his pupils, and personal friends, as we believe, is due the popular objections which prevail respecting the United States Military Academy, except so far as the objections spring from the abuse of the mode of appointing Cadets. For nearly twenty years Capt. Partridge was never known to express any doubt of the constitutionality or usefulness of this institution. His objections first took shape and utterance when he was superceded in the superintendence by Colonel Sylvanus Thayer. Of the circumstances and results of his removal, and of the appointment of Col. Thayer, and the subsequent reorganization of the Academy, something has already been said in the History of West Point, in this volume, (p. 17-48,) and more will be said when we come to speak of the labors of Col. Thayer.
So far as these objections are directed to the constitutionality of the laws for establishing the Cadet Corps, as distinct from any other Corps of the army, or against training officers collected together and organized as a school, we think them preëminently frivolous. If any friend of the Academy would assure his doubtful faith in its constitutionality, let him read Capt. Partridge’s Memorial, asking the same Congress to establish a system of National Education, which he petitions to redress the grievance of a special school, that every civilized government holds to be indispensable to the right organization of its armies.
So far as these objections are aimed at the mode of appointment and promotion,—confining both to the patronage of one man in the country, or one man in a Congressional District, acting in either case without personal examination of the party to be admitted or promoted, and excluding others, it may be, better qualified,—we hold them to be valid. A more disgraceful record of failures, where an opportunity of selecting the most meritorious candidates existed, can not be shown.
While we believe that candidates are too often recommended and nominated to the appointing power, from family and party considerations, we have seen no reason to believe that the social condition or occupation of parents has influenced the appointments. On the other hand, the records of the Academy, as made out in this particular by the Cadets themselves, exhibit a fair representation from all classes and occupations of society.
According to an official Statement, prepared by Capt. Boynton, and published in his History of the Academy, of 5206 cadets admitted from 1842 to 1863 inclusive, the fathers of 1,300 were farmers or planters; of 681, were lawyers; of 672, were merchants; of 377, were mechanics; of 69, were physicians; of 256, were in the civil service; of 116, were clergymen; of 467, were in the army or navy; of 572, were editors, masters of vessels, &c. Of the whole number, 1,136 were orphans, 1,585 were in moderate, 534 in reduced, 62 in indigent, and 324 in independent circumstances. We shall publish the Statement in our next Number.
The views presented in the memorial of Capt. Partridge in 1841, have found advocates in and out of Congress before and since. They were anticipated by the Secretary of War (John C. Calhoun), under whose energetic administration of the Department in 1816, the Academy first assumed the organization of an efficient military school—a place of thorough scientific instruction in the knowledge not simply of military drill, but of the duties of an accomplished artillerist and military engineer; and they have been deepened by the radically vicious system of appointment to cadetship, in which personal and political considerations have in too many instances outweighed the merits of young men, whose natural aptitude and generous ambition would have found here the special field for their largest development and usefulness. These views found expression in the elaborate speech of Franklin Pierce, then a member of the House from New Hampshire, in the discussion of an amendment to the appropriation bill in 1836 (June 30), who “felt bound to oppose the bill in every stage of its progress”—mainly on the ground that “the institution conferred exclusive and gratuitous privileges.”
It is gratuitous, because those who are so fortunate as to obtain admission there, receive their education without any obligation, except such as a sense of honor may impose, to return, either by service or otherwise, the slightest equivalent. It is exclusive, inasmuch as only one youth out of a population of more than 47,000 can participate in its advantages at the same time; and those who are successful, are admitted at an age when their characters cannot have become developed, and with very little knowledge of their adaptation, mental or physical, for military life. The system disregards one of those great principles which, carried into practice, contributed perhaps, more than any other, to render the arms of Napoleon invincible for so many years. Who does not perceive that it destroys the very life and spring of military ardor and enthusiasm, by utterly foreclosing all hope of promotion to her soldier and non-commissioned officer? However meritorious may be his services, however pre-eminent may become his qualifications for command, all are unavailing. The portcullis is dropped between him and preferment, the wisdom of your laws having provided another criterion than that of admitted courage and conduct, by which to determine who are worthy of command. They have made an Academy, where a certain number of young gentlemen are educated annually at the public expense, and to which there is, in consequence, a general rush, not so much from sentiments of patriotism, and a taste for military life, as from motives less worthy—the avenue, and the only avenue, to rank in your army.