The mihtary post at West Point formerly was distinct from the Academy, and, until 1842, was sometimes under separate command; but at that time Congress very wisely put an end to contentions arising from a conflict of rank and authority between the Commander of the post and the Superintendent of the Academy, by providing that the latter should also command the post. While the requirements for examination, both for admission and graduation, have increased, and the training has become more thorough and proportionately severe with each decade of the history of "the Point," the superstructure has been reared, as we have already suggested, on the foundation laid by Major Thayer. From the first, the tendency of the Academy

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has been towards a spirit of democracy. Mere birth counts for less here than perhaps in any other university in the world, except our Naval Academy. It is an article of faith among army men that West Point graduates gentlemen, and yet it is conceded that not fifty per cent, of the cadets are born of distinguished or wealthy parents. The majority of the fathers of West Pointers are wage-earners; but their sons, almost without exception, go out after five years of training the finest types of physical manhood that the race has produced, with cultivated minds and poHshed manners, and a splendid sense of honour. Take a man who can ride, dance, fight, speak the truth in his own and several other languages, and pass a stiff college examination, and 3'ou have the kind of man that West Point is turning out b\^ the scores every year. While the standards of physical, mental, and moral excellence have been rigorously upheld at the Academv, and the instruction and drill have advanced with the progress of the world in science, many of the buildings erected at an earlier day, and still in use, have become antiquated and insufficient.