NEW YORK'S TEN THOUSAND 471 



uniform; but the penalty for departure from the right line of conduct 

 is so terrible, so inflexible, as to fasten upon him — if not naturally 

 straight — a mechanical equivalent for straightness that, become habit, 

 tends to render him immune to temptation. Some graduates have gone 

 fatally wrong ; but the percentage of such is amazingly small. 



Then there is the Naval Academy at Annapolis, whose methods are 

 virtually identical with those of West Point. Both these institutions 

 ought to be visited and much time spent in acquiring the proper point of 

 view. The post-graduate schools of the army should also have some 

 attention paid to them; but more influential will be found the schools 

 for molding the man-in-the-ranks, one of which is at Fort Slocum on 

 Davids Island, near New Eochelle. Still more interesting and instruct- 

 ive will be the training-schools for naval apprentices. Of these there 

 are four, one at Newport, R. I., another at San Francisco, and still 

 others at Norfolk, Va., and at Lake Bluff, near Chicago, while the 

 school for the revenue cutter service, now located at Arundle Cove, 

 Maryland, but to be removed to New London, Conn., will furnish 

 material for study. The navy department has printed an instructive 

 booklet : " The Training of a Man-0'Warsman," well worth attentive 

 consideration. 



When the methods of all these, as well as many private institutions, 

 have been carefully examined, and their force and meaning in each par- 

 ticular case been thoroughly digested, then will come the difficult task 

 of application, of deciding as to what shall be included and what 

 avoided in a school for New York's ten thousand. As to the location of 

 the school, undoubtedly it ought to be so situated as to be quite separate 

 and apart from civilian pressure, at least from civilian contamination. 

 At the same time no attempt should be made to effect isolation or undue 

 exclusiveness ; on the contrary, proper provision should be made for 

 visitors, relatives of the police cadets and others, and these should be 

 invited to rather than prohibited from acquiring full knowledge of the 

 processes of the institution. The locality selected ought to be within 

 convenient distance from the city, with the view of affording easy 

 access and opportunity for the graduating class (such as is now given 

 during the six months probationary period) of accompanying regular 

 patrolmen on certain tours to gain a practical, first-hand knowledge of 

 actual duty. As a site none could be more suitable than either Wards 

 or Eandalls Island, though it is not probable that either — so admirably 

 fulfilling some of the city's greatest needs, by the Manhattan State 

 Hospital on the former and the department of public charities in the 

 latter — could be made available. If the rapid growth of the city were 

 not likely to render Pelham Park unsuitable in the near future, that 

 site could be made to serve the uses of the proposed academy. But this 

 consideration can safely " await the event " ; if once the founding of 



