Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/42

38 number of cadets for which the present barracks was built. The difficulty was the greater because of the limited space apparently at command. The steep hill on the south seemed an obstacle to additions in that direction, while the gymnasium on the west occupied ground that could otherwise have been used. Previous to the submission of the work to competition, there was a studied examination of the entire subject of enlargement by a board of officers detailed for the purpose, and one of the professors at the academy—Professor Larned of the department of drawing-—made a special study and comprehensive report.

Among the officers there was developed considerable difference of opinion and these divergent views have been set forth in a majority and minority report. The enlargement of barracks was a point upon which the difference of views was especially pronounced; in effect the problem that the architects were called upon to solve was, or seemed to be, solely to decide whether the barrack buildings should be extended on a line parallel to the west side of the plain, or whether a closed quadrangle should be formed by a series of so-called divisions south of the present sally-port and upon the line now that of the southerly side of the 'area-of-barracks.'

The successful architects, adopting neither of these suggestions, have happily (at least so it seems to an old graduate) hit upon an expedient by which all the advantage of expansion is gained, and