ad any more
trouble at West Point, though I did have much difficulty in helping
younger men out. I had the great good fortune never to be compelled
to report a cadet for any delinquency, nor to find one deficient
in studies, though I did sometimes have, figuratively speaking, to
beat them over the head with a cudgel to get in "phil" enough to
pass the academic board.

I had then a strong impression, which has grown still stronger with
time, that "equations A and B" need not be developed very far into
the "mechanics of molecules" to qualify a gallant young fellow for
the command of a squadron of cavalry; but this is, in fact, generally
and perfectly well understood at West Point. The object there is
to develop the mental, moral, and physical man to as high a degree
as is practicable, and to ascertain his best place in the public
service. It is only the hopelessly incorrigible in some respect
who fall by the way. Even they, if they have stayed there long
enough, are the better for the training they have received.

In this congenial work and its natural sequence I formed for the
first time the habit of earnest, hard mental work to the limit of
my capacity for endurance, and sometimes a little beyond, which I
have retained the greater part of my life. After the short time
required to master the "Analytical Mechanics" which had been
introduced as a text-book since I had graduated, and a short absence
on account of my Florida debility, which had reduced me to 120
pounds in weight, I began to pursue physics into its more secret
depths. I even indulged the ambition to work out the mathematical
interpretation of all the phenomena of physical science, including
electricity and magnetism. After three years of hard labor in this
direction, I thought I could venture to publish a part of my work
in book form, and thus submit it to the judgment of the able
scientists whose acquaintance I had made at the meetings of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science.( 1)

INTEREST IN ASTRONOMY

While I was engaged in this work upon physics, a young gentleman
named Drown came to West Point, and asked me to give him some
private lessons in mechanics and astronomy, to perfect his
qualifications as a teacher. I went over those subjects with him
in about one hundred lessons, including a few in practical astronomy.
He was the most ardent student I have ever known. Like,