I deny utterly the expediency and the right to educate at the public expense, any number of young men who, on the completion of their education, are not to form a portion of your military force, but to return to the walks of private life. Such was never the operation of the Military Academy until after the law of 1812; and the doctrine, so far as I have been able to ascertain, was first formally announced by a distinguished individual, at this time sufficiently jealous of the exercise of executive patronage, and greatly alarmed by what he conceives to be the tendencies of this Government to centralism and consolidation. It may be found in the report of the Secretary of War, communicated to Congress in 1819.
Mr. Pierce, afterwards President Pierce, quotes with approbation the suggestion of Col. Williams in a report to Mr. Jefferson in 1808—that the plan should be large enough to take not only minor officers, “but also any youth from any of the States who might wish for such an education whether designed for the Army or Navy, or neither, and let them be assessed to the value of their education, which might form a fund for extra or contingent expenses.”
These are the true doctrines upon this subject; doctrines worthy of the administration under which they were promulgated, and in accordance with the views of statesmen in the earlier and purer days of the Republic. Give to the officers of your army the highest advantages for perfection in all the branches of military science, and let those advantages be open to all in rotation, and under such terms and regulations as shall be at once impartial toward the officers, and advantageous to the service; but let all young gentlemen who have a taste for military life, and desire to adopt arms as a profession, prepare themselves for subordinate situations at their own expense, or at the expense of their parents or guardians, in the same manner that the youth of our country are qualified for the professions of civil life.
I am far from desiring to see this country destitute of a Military Academy; but I would have it a school of practice, and instruction, for officers actually in the service of the United States; not an institution for educating, gratuitously, young gentlemen, who, on the completion of their term, or after a few months’ leave of absence, resign their commissions, and return to the pursuits of civil life.
There has already been expended upon the institution more than three millions, three hundred thousand dollars. Between 1815 and 1831, thirteen hundred and eighteen students were admitted into the Academy; and of all the cadets who were ever there, only two hundred and sixty-five remained in the service at the end of 1830. Here are the expenses you have incurred, and the products you have realized.
When the War of Secession broke out, and graduates of the Academy then in the army,—like many other Southern men, in the civil service of the United States, imbued with the political doctrines and sympathizing with the domestic institution, on which the War was based—sided with the political leaders of their several states, the opposition to the institution took another direction. The record of the War silenced these objectors. According to Gen. Cullum’s Biographical Register of the Graduates of the Military Academy, out of 1,249 graduates living at the beginning of the Rebellion, 99 in civil life and 184 from the army, joined in the war against the United States. Three-fourths remained faithful. Of 821 graduates in the Army at the time, 184 (about one-fifth) joined in the Rebellion. Of the 99 in civil life all but one were residents in slave territory. Of 350 graduates who were born in or appointed from slave States, 162 remained loyal. Of the 292 loyal graduates in civil life, at the date of secession, 115 re-entered the Army—all below the age of 45, except those who were disabled for active duty, and most of these served in civil capacities. One-fifth of all the graduates who served in the battles of the Rebellion, one-fifth laid down their lives, and more than one-half were wounded in defence of the flag.
[IV. AMERICAN LITERARY, SCIENTIFIC, AND MILITARY ACADEMY.]
AT NORWICH, VERMONT.
The American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy, at Norwich, Vermont, was opened on the 4th of September, 1820, by Capt. Alden Partridge, and continued under his personal superintendence and instruction, assisted by several professors, until April 1st, 1825, when it was discontinued at Norwich, and reopened at Middletown, Connecticut. The catalogue of the officers and cadets published August, 1821, contains a prospectus from which we make extracts to exhibit the aims of that school and of this particular class of institutions at that date.
TERMS OF ADMISSION.