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usefulness, are the more honourable to their authors. These measures are regarded by those officially connected with you, and by the friends of the institution, as proofs of a generous ambition, and as pledges of future usefulness and honour. See to it, my friends, that these expectations be not disappointed.

After the demands already made upon your time, you will not expect me to say much as to the methods of creating and cultivating the literary taste. In general, this is to be done by the faithful and repeated perusal-the diligent study-of the best authors in the various branches of literature. The instructions given by the Professor of Rhetoric, and the text-books employed in this part of your studies, will have directed you to the principal works in each department; and the proper study of a comparatively small number of these, will be sufficient to impart a perception and relish of their beauties. In this case, too, the desire will not only "grow by what it feeds on;" but whilst it increases in strength, it will also be mellowed and refined.

As a means of giving method and certainty to the knowledge you have acquired, and of improvement in other respects, exercises in writing and speaking, will be found of essential

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use. Such exercises, and especially those of the former kind, besides their general influence, will bear directly on the duties of your profession.

The military officer, as he advances in his career, has constant occasion for the use of the pen. He should therefore make it his study, to acquire, as soon as may be, the talent of writing in a clear and correct style. There is no species of business-papers, in which neatness and perspicuity are more desirable, than in the everyday reports and orders of the service. In general orders, and in important despatches, there is often room for the higher graces of composition; and good taste is always needed in preparing them. Unless you early addict yourselves to the habit of writing, and study with care the best models, there is danger that you may acquire a loose mode of narration, and a boastful and inflated style; than which nothing is more offensive in a military paper.

The orders and despatches of the greatest of living captains,-Wellington-recently published, have all the simplicity and severe elegance of a classic; and those of our own Washington deserve almost equal praise. The addresses and bulletins of Napoleon, though admirably adapted to the times in which they appeared, and to the

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soldiers and people for whom they were intended, can seldom be safely imitated by the American soldier. They are, however, worthy his diligent study, as memorials of the rapid and daring genius of their author, and as one of the instruments of his success.

Such of your number, as before their entrance on military studies, enjoyed the advantages of classical instruction, should snatch, if it be possible, some portion of each day, to recall and extend their knowledge of the ancient writers. The laborious courses of study and exercise pursued in the academy, will not allow those of you who have no acquaintance with the classic tongues, to acquire them whilst here; but after your entrance into the army, you will find ample opportunity to do so, provided you begin without delay and pursue the object with zeal and perseverance. As the philosophy of grammar is the same in all languages; and as the French, which forms a part of your daily studies, is, in a great degree, derived from the Latin, you will find an accurate knowledge of the former, of much assistance in mastering the latter. This consideration should incite you, not to rest contented with such attainments in the French, as may merely enable you to un

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derstand the mathematical and military text-books contained in this language. There are also other reasons for giving your best efforts to the critical study of its structure and idioms. Independently of its connexion with the science of your profession, the literature contained in it, along with much to be reprobated and shunned, is rich in productions of the highest merit.

But whatever may be your attainments in other languages, or whether you be confined, by necessity, or of choice, to your own tongue, you will find in the latter an abundant supply of admirable works. He who will make himself familiar with the English Bible, with the essays of Addison, Johnson and Goldsmith; and with the poetry of Shakspeare and Milton, of Pope and Cowper, will almost certainly acquire a soundness and delicacy of taste, which will enable him to select from the tree of knowledge-still the tree of good and of evil-such of its other fruits as may safely be received.

It is essential to the acquisition of a true literary taste, that the moral nature be assiduously cultivated. It contains the deepest and purest fountains of the beautiful and the sublime; and he, whose soul is fullest of the generous emotions-who has most frequently sought, "in the

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quiet and still air of delightful studies, the bright countenance of truth"-and who, with greatest faithfulness, has walked in the way of her commandments-will, other things being equal, be the best fitted for deriving pleasure and advantage from intellectual pursuits. It is for this reason, that I have placed the Bible at the head of the brief catalogue just given. Apart from its authority, on all questions of morals, as a revelation from Heaven, it contains more of beautiful and touching narrative; of pure and practical moral teaching; of sublime poetry and eloquence; than is to be found in any other book. Our common version, with the spirit of an original work, gives us, perhaps, the best specimen to which we can resort of pure and idiomatic English. Well then may it be made the basis of all intellectual culture; the touch-stone of doctrine; the standard of excellence in thought and in expression. It has peculiar claims in a mere literary point of view, on the attention of the soldier. The earliest of triumphal songs is to be found in the history of the Exodus; and after the lapse of thousands of years, it is yet unrivalled. In many of the later compositions of the Hebrew muse, there is the like union of the martial spirit with the highest fervours of devotion; and