ld.

To test the progress of the cadets in their studies, there are held
semi-annual public examinations. These examinations are strict and
severe, and all who fail to come up to the fixed standard are obliged to
withdraw from the institution, to allow some one else from the same
district to make the trial.

During their course of studies the cadets, as warrant-officers of the
army, draw pay barely sufficient to defray their necessary expenses. The
allowance to each is twenty-six dollars per month, but none of this is
paid to the cadet, but is applied to the purchase of books, fuel,
lights, clothing, board, &c.

This institution furnishes each year to the army about forty subaltern
officers, thoroughly instructed in all the theoretical and practical
duties of their profession. After completing this course, the cadet is
usually promoted from the grade of warrant-officer to that of a
commissioned officer, and is immediately put on duty with his regiment
or corps.

This system of appointment to the army has produced the most
satisfactory results, and has received the commendation of our best
military men, and the approbation of all our presidents and most able
statesmen. Nevertheless, it has occasionally met with strong opposition;
this opposition springing in part from a want of proper information
respecting the character and working of the system, and in part from the
combined efforts of those who from negligence or incapacity have failed
to pass their examinations for promotion, and of those who, from a
conscious want of qualifications or merit, feel assured that they cannot
obtain commissions in the army so long as this system of merit, as fixed
by examination, shall exist. Hence the effort to destroy the Military
Academy and to throw the army entirely open to _political_ appointment.

Several legislative bodies, acting under these combined influences, have
passed resolutions, giving various objections to the Military Academy,
and recommending that it be abolished. The objections made by the
legislatures of Tennessee, Ohio, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine,
are mostly founded on false information, and may be readily answered by
reference to the official records of the War-office. But it is not the
present object to enter into a general discussion of the charges against
that institution, except so far as they are connected with the
importance of military education, and the rules of military appointment
and pr