mportant benefit, or
that the same benefit may be attained without it. But no one pretends to
say that the education is not of the utmost importance; and, as Captain
Boynton shows conclusively, we think, it is impossible for any one to
attain it by unassisted study, either before or after entering the army,
while it is utterly out of the power of any private institution to give
a similar training.

Among the treasons incident to the Rebellion, none struck loyal minds
more painfully than the desertion of the national right by Southern
cadets and graduates of West Point. Some supposed that the diligent
inculcation of State-Sovereignty doctrine by every organ of Southern
opinion could not alone have caused this breach of plighted faith, and
it was charged against the education given at the Academy, that it was
based on "principles which permitted no discrimination between acts
morally wrong in themselves, and acts which, destitute of immorality,
are, nevertheless, criminal, because prohibited by the regulations of
the institution." The charge indicated a gross misconception of the
subject. The conduct-roll, which is to determine the standing of the
cadet according to a total of demerit-marks, must include in one list
delinquencies against all rules, whatever may be their source. But
besides this scale for classification, the military law, to which
cadets, as part of the army, are amenable, refers all immoralities and
criminalities to a military tribunal. It would be well, if our
collegians would try to estimate the effect, moral, intellectual, and
physical, of the training of the Academy, as contrasted with that which
they are receiving, and, in comparing a collegiate with a West-Point
graduation, to remember that the cadet has been on service, and would
have been discharged by his paymaster, if he had not done his duty,
while in the colleges the professors serve for the pay, and would lose
their bread and butter, if there were no degrees given.

_Roundabout Papers_. By W.M. THACKERAY. New York: Harper & Brothers.

We had scarcely finished reading this admirable volume of essays when
news of the author's death was transmitted across the sea. And now we
are to look no longer at our shelf which holds "Vanity Fair,"
"Fendennis," "The Newcomes," and "Henry Esmond," and think of the
writer's busy brain as still actively engaged over new and delightful
books destined some day to claim their places beside the
companion-volum