586 
UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY AT WEST POINT. 
lery, one to the Cavalry, and two to the Infantry. The Adjutant is a 
Cavalry officer, and so is the Officer of Police. No particular arm can 
well be said to have a manopoly. The Professor of Law is a Deputy- 
Judge-Advocate-General, and the Professor of History, Geography, and 
Ethics is the Chaplain. 
There is no mention of any non-commissioned staff, and probably 
none exists, as the officers appear to instruct in all details themselves, 
while the cadets perform the duties, and hold the ranks of Staff- 
Sergeants, Sergeants, and Corporals of the Cadet Battalion. 
Admission, How Obtained. 
Admission to the Academy is not by open competition, but by 
nomination, subject to a qualifying entrance examination. Each Con¬ 
gressional District or Territory in the United States is entitled to have 
one cadet at the Academy, who is appointed by the Secretary of War 
at the request of the Representative or Delegate in Congress of the 
said District or Territory. The appointments are made one year in 
advance. In many districts a local competitive examination is held in 
order to decide to whom the nomination shall be given. In addition 
to the above, the President of the United States has the privilege of 
appointing ten cadets “at large,” not ten annually, but ten altogether, 
appointed from time to time, so that there are always ten cadets from 
“at large”* at the Academy. These are generally the sons or nephews 
of army officers, but those cadets appointed in the ordinary way may 
be of any social standing, and whether they be the sons of capitalists 
or the sons of wage-earners, they are all held to be equal, as the 
principles on which the Academy is governed are strictly Republican. 
The Entrance Examination. 
The nominee must report himself at West Point early in June. Soon 
after his arrival he is subjected to a rigid physical examination by a 
Board of Army Surgeons, by whom an average of 13 per cent, are 
rejected, and it is interesting to find that nominees for the United 
States Academy are recommended to get themselves examined, as a 
preliminary trial before leaving their homes, by a “ skilled army 
surgeon ” in preference to the “ family physician.” 
When the nominee has passed the physical examination he has to 
undergo a literary examination in elementary subjects. This examin¬ 
ation is qualifying, not competitive. To pass he must be well versed 
in reading, writing and arithmetic, and have a knowledge of grammar, 
geography, and the history of the United States. In spite of the low 
standard of this test, an average of 32 per cent, of the nominees fail. 
The examiners are officers of the Academy Staff. 
Joining the Academy. 
The nominees who fail in either of the entrance examinations return 
whence they came, while those who pass proceed to join the Academy 
at once without going back to their homes. They must now hand over 
to the Treasurer a sum of £20 to cover the expense of their first outfit, 
which costs about £18. Cadets on joining receive a “Warrant of 
