58 
The importance of a Military Academy for the training 
of officers for the military service, and especially for the 
engineers and artillery, had been acknowledged even 
om the very outset of thé struggle for independence, 
We find even the Continental Congress appointing a com- 
mittee “to prepare and bring in a plan of a Military Acad- 
emy,” and the first Secretary of War, General Knox, in an 
official report to the President, discusses the subject at 
much length. The establishment of such an_ institution 
is known to have been a favorite object.of General Wash 
ington, and in his annual message in 1793 he suggests 
the inquiry, “ whether a material feature in the improve- 
ment” of the system of military defence “ ought not 
afford an opportunity for the study of those branches of 
the art which can scarcely ever be attained by practice 
alone”; and in 1796 he states that “the desirableness of 
this institution had constantly increased with every e¥ 
view he had taken of the subject.” 
An act of Congress of 1794 had provided for a Corps 
of Artillerists and Engineers, to consist of four battalions 
to each of which eight Cadets were to be attached, and 
made it the duty of the Secretary ef War to procure 
books, instruments, and apparatus for the benefit of said 
corps; and in 1798 Congress authorized the raising of 
an additional regiment, increased the number of Cadets 
to fifty-six, and empowered the President to appoint four 
of this “ Corps.” Of the four teachers, none were appoid 
prior to January, 1801, at which time Mr. George Barro? 
was appointed teacher of Mathematics, and the institutio?, 
“which was nothing more than a mathematical school for 
the few Cadets then in the service,” was nominally estab 
