388 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT-VI 



which was afterward carried out by law, that officers from 

 the United States army should be detailed by the Secretary 

 of War to each of the principal institutions as military 

 professors. My reasons for this were based on my recol- 

 lections of what took place at the University of Michigan 

 during the Civil War. I had then seen large numbers of 

 my best students go forth insufficiently trained, and in 

 some cases led to destruction by incompetent officers. At 

 a later period, I had heard the West Point officer whom I 

 had secured from Detroit to train those Michigan students 

 express his wonder at the rapidity with which they learned 

 what was necessary to make them soldiers and even offi- 

 cers. Being young men of disciplined minds, they learned 

 the drill far more quickly and intelligently than the aver- 

 age recruits could do. There was still another reason for 

 taking the military clause in the Morrill Act seriously. 

 I felt then, and feel now, that our Republic is not to 

 escape serious internal troubles ; that in these her reliance 

 must be largely upon her citizen soldiery ; that it will be a 

 source of calamity, possibly of catastrophe, if the power 

 of the sword in civil commotions shall fall into the hands 

 of ignorant and brutal leaders, while the educated men of 

 the country, not being versed in military matters, shall 

 slink away from the scene of duty, cower in corners, and 

 leave the conduct of military affairs to men intellectually 

 and morally their inferiors. These views I embodied in 

 a report to the trustees ; and the result was the formation 

 of a university battalion, which has been one of the best 

 things at Cornell. A series of well-qualified officers, sent 

 by the War Department, have developed the system admir- 

 ably. Its good results to the university have been acknow- 

 ledged by all who have watched its progress. Farmers' 

 boys, slouchy, careless, not accustomed to obey any word 

 of command; city boys, sometimes pampered, often way- 

 ward, have thus been in a short time transformed: they 

 stand erect ; they look the world squarely in the face ; the 

 intensity of their American individualism is happily modi- 

 fied; they can take the word of command and they can 



