In spite of the fact, or it may be because of the fact, that we are not a soldier people, the sentiment of the nation centres at West Point more really than even at the White House or the Capitol. Perhaps no nation on earth has ever seen a case parallel to that of the United States, that has gone through most of its history without a standing army worthy of mention, yet has persistently trained men (as few men have ever been trained elsewhere) in all the science of war and the practice of manly exercises, to find them in the hour of national stress the nucleus of an army of unexcelled strength. Within the confines of the Military i\cademy at West Point the United States has concentrated its standing army. Because the knowledge of this fact appeals to our imagination, and also for another reason, that the Academy is the concrete symbol of that altar of patriotism upon which so great a treasure of blood has been ofi^ered, it has become to us a place of sacred associations. We have seen how both of the contending parties in the Revolution recognised the military importance of

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the Highlands. The contest for the possession of Forts CUnton and Montgomery was iUustrative of the desire of the British to wrest the control of this natural gateway of the river from the Americans, and the resolution of Washington and his generals to maintain, as long as ])ossible, a supremacy upon which so much depended. It is not too much to say that the loss of the Highlands of the Hudson would probably have meant the downfall of the Continental cause. Never but once during that long struggle for freedom did the patriot army temporarily lose this point of vantage: that was when, after the reduction of the forts by Sir Henry Clinton in October, 1777, the chcvaux-dc-frisc and other obstructions were cleared away, the Americans hastily evacuated Forts Independence and Constitution, and the British fleet sailed up the river as far as Kingston.