REGULATIONS

RELATIVE TO

THE ADMISSION OF CADETS INTO THE MILITARY ACADEMY.

APPLICATIONS for admission into the United States Military Academy at West Point, should be made by letter to the Secretary of War. By provision of law, each Congressional and Territorial district, and the District of Columbia, is entitled to have one cadet at the Military Academy, and no more. The district appointments are made on the nomination of the member of Congress representing the district at the date of the appointment. The law requires that the individual selected shall be an actual resident of the Congressional district of the State or Territory, or District of Columbia, from which the appointment purports to be made. Also, appointments "at large," not to exceed ten, are annually made. Application can be made, at any time, by the candidate himself, his parent, guardian, or any of his friends, and the name placed on the register. No preference will be given to applications on account of priority; nor will any application be entered in the register when the candidate is under or above the prescribed age; the precise age must be given; no relaxation of the regulation in this respect will be made; nor will any application be considered in cases where the age and other qualifications of the candidates are not stated. The fixed abode of the candidate, and number of the Congressional district which he considers his permanent residence, must be set forth in the application. The pay of a cadet is $30 per month, to commence from his admission into the Military Academy, and is considered ample, with proper economy, for his support.

The appointments will be made annually in the month of February or March, on the applications made within the preceding year. The claims of all the candidates on the register will be considered and acted upon. No certain information can be given as to the probable success of the candidate, before the arrival of the period for making the selections. Persons, therefore, making applications, must not expect to receive information on this point.

As a general rule, no person will be appointed who has had a brother educated at the institution.

QUALIFICATIONS.

Candidates must be over sixteen and under twenty-one years of age, at the time of entrance into the Military Academy; must be at least five feet in height, and free from any deformity, disease, or infirmity, which would render them unfit for the military service, and from any disorder of an infectious or immoral character. They must be able to read and write well, and perform with facility and accuracy the various operations of the four ground rules of arithmetic, of reduction, of simple and compound proportion, and of vulgar and decimal fractions.

It must be understood that a full compliance with the above conditions will be insisted on-that is to say-the candidate must write in a fair and legible hand, and without any material mistakes in spelling. such sentences as shall be dictated by the examiners; and he must answer promptly, and without errors,

all their questions in the above-mentioned rules of arithmetic: failing in any of these particulars, he will be rejected.

It must also be understood, that every candidate will, soon after his arrival at West Point, be subjected to a rigid examination by an experienced medical board; and should there be found to exist in him any of the following causes of disqualification, to such a degree as will immediately, or in all probability may at no very distant period, impair his efficiency, he will be rejected:

1. Feeble constitution and muscular tenuity; unsound health from whatever cause; indications of former disease; glandular swellings, or other symptoms of scrofula.

2. Chronic cutaneous affections, especially of the scalp, or any disorder of an infectious character.

3. Severe injuries of the bones of the head; convulsions.

4. Impaired vision from whatever cause; inflammatory affections of the eyelids; immobility or irregularity of the iris; fistula lachrymalis, &c., &c.

5. Deafness; copious discharge from the ears.

6. Loss of many teeth, or teeth generally unsound.

7. Impediment of speech.

8. Want of due capacity of the chest, and any other indication of a liability to a pulmonic disease.

9. Impaired or inadequate efficiency of one or both of the superior extremities on account of fractures, especially of the clavicle, contraction of a joint, extenuation, deformity, &c., &c.

10. An unnatural excurvature or incurvature of the spine.

11. Hernia.

12. A varicose state of the veins, of the scrotum and spermatic cord, (when large,) sarcocele, hydrocele, hemorrhoids, fistulas.

13. Impaired or inadequate efficiency of one or both of the inferior extremities on account of varicose veius, fractures, malformation, (flat feet, &c.,) lameness, contraction, unequal length, bunions, over-lying or supernumerary toes, &c., &c.

14. Ulcers, or unsound cicatrices of ulcers likely to break out afresh.

III. ALDEN PARTRIDGE.

ALDEN PARTRIDGE, Captain in the United States Corps of Engineers, Professor and Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point, and the Founder of a class of institutions in which the military element is recognized and provided for as an essential part of the training of the American citizen, was born at Norwich in Vermont, on the 12th of January, 1785. His father was a farmer, in independent circumstances, served in the war of the Revolution, and took part in the capture of Burgoyne and his army at Saratoga. He brought up his son in the New England fashion, at such district school as the times and the country afforded in the winter, and at all sorts of work about the house and on the farm at other seasons, until he was sixteen years of age, when, being of studious turn, and fond of reading, he was allowed to fit for college, and entered Dartmouth in August, 1802. We have no knowledge of his studies in college, but it is presumed that his predilections were for the mathematics, and from the lateness with which he commenced his Latin and his subsequent declarations, his aversion was for the languages. Before completing his collegiate course he received the appointment of cadet* in the regiment of artillerists in the United States service, with orders to repair to West Point, and report himself to the commanding officer of the Military Academy at that place.

The Military Academy at the time Cadet Partridge arrived at West Point was very inadequately equipped with the men and material aids of instruction, although the two teachers appointed

* A Cadet in the military organization of the Army denoted a junior officer between the grade of lieutenant and sergeant, and was introduced from the French service. An Act of Congress, passed May 7th, 1794, provided for a Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, to consist of four battalions, to each of which eight cadets were to be attached, and authorized the Secretary of War to procure at the public expense the necessary books, instruments and apparatus for the use and benefit of said corps. In 1798, an additional regiment of Artillerists and Engineers was raised, increasing the number of Cadets to fifty-six. In 1798, the President was authorized to appoint four teachers of the Arts and Sciences necessary to Artillerists and Engineers. No appointment was made till 1801, and in 1802, the Military Academy was established at West Point, where the corps of Engineers was directed to repair with fifty Cadets, and the Senior Officer of the Corps was constituted Superintendent. Col. Williams was then Senior Officer of Engineers, and became, ez-officio, Superintendent, and continued such until 1812.

were abundantly capable in their respective departments. Jared Mansfield, especially, the teacher of natural philosophy, had won such reputation in mathematical studies that he received his commission as a captain of engineers from Mr. Jefferson for the very purpose of becoming a teacher at West Point, which he did by appointment in 1802, although in reality he did not perform his duties regularly, and then only for one year, having been, in 1808, appointed by President Jefferson to the responsible post of Surveyor-General of the North-western territory. Such instruction as was given was received by Cadet Partridge in 1806, and in July of that year, he was transferred to the Corps of Engineers, and in October, commissioned as first lieutenant. In November, 1806, he was appointed assistant professor of mathematics, Fedinand R. Hassler, a little later, having been made Professor in place of Capt. Barron, retired. From Prof. Hassler, he received great help in his mathematical studies, as he afterwards repeatedly acknowledged. In 1808, Prof. Partridge was called to act in place of the Superintendent in the absence of Col. Williams, and continued to do so, with brief intervals, until January, 1815, when he was appointed to the office which he filled till March, 1816. In 1809, Mr. Hassler resigned the professorship of mathematics, and the instruction before given by him devolved on his assistant, Mr. Partridge. In 1810, he succeeded, after repeated applications to the Secretary of War, in obtaining two field pieces, for practical instruction of the Cadets as Artillerists.

In 1812, the Academy was re-organized, and was made to consist of the Corps of Engineers and the following Professors, in addition to the teachers of the French language and drawing, viz.: one professor of natural and experimental philosophy; one professor of mathematics; and one professor of the art of engineering; each professor to have an assistant taken from the most prominent of the Officers or Cadets." The number of Cadets was increased to two hundred and fifty, and were directed to be arranged into companies of non-commissioned officers and privates, according to the directions of the commandant of Engineers, and be officered from that corps, "for the purposes of military instruction, in all the duties of a private, non-commissioned officer, and officer, and to be encamped. at least three months of each year, and taught all the duties incident to a regular camp." The age of admission was fixed, the minimum at fourteen, and maximum at twenty-one, and preliminary knowledge to be well versed in reading, writing, and arithmetic. It was further provided that any Cadet who shall receive a regular degree from the Academical Staff, after going through all the classes,

shall be considered among the candidates for a commission in any corps, according to the duties he may be judged competent to perform. The sum of $25,000 was appropriated towards the buildings, library, implements, &c. On this broad basis the Academy was progressively enlarged to its present capabilities of usefulness. Under the new arrangement of 1812, Mr. Partridge was appointed professor of mathematics, with the pay and emoluments of a major, which appointment was soon after, at the request of the Secretary of War, exchanged for that of professor of engineering, it being found more difficult to fill the latter post than the former. The duties of this professorship he continued to discharge from September 1, 1813, till December 31, 1816.

In 1808, Capt. Partridge was ordered by Col. Williams to take charge of the internal direction and control of the Military Academy as Superintendent, which duties he discharged until January 3, 1815, when, by regulations of that date, he was made the permanent Superintendent, which post he held till November 25th, 1816, and was finally relieved on the 13th of January, 1817.

By the regulation of January 3, 1815, the commandant of the Corps of Engineers was constituted Inspector of the Academy, and made responsible for instruction, and to report to the Department of War. Out of this appointment, and the instructions relating thereto, grew a difference of opinion, which resulted in the final withdrawal of Capt. Partridge from the institution, the resignation of his commission in the military service of the United States, and his subsequent devotion to the dissemination by lectures and personal efforts of the views which he had formed of the education required by the American citizen, and the establishment of institutions in which these views could be carried out.

After resigning his commission in the military service of the United States, Capt. Partridge was engaged, in the summer of 1818, as military instructor to a volunteer corps, and in giving a course of lectures on fortifications and other branches of military science to a class of officers and citizens in the city of New York. The views which he then presented on the best means of national defense were in advance of the "piping times of peace" in 1818, but have been since demanded to be eminently sound and practical by the terrible experience of 1861-1862.

His chief reliance for national defense was in the military habits of the great body of the American people-organized into suitable militia departments corresponding in the main to the limits of the several states, officered by men of the right capacity, scientific