Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/541

* MILITARY ACADEMY. 487 MILITARY ARCHITECTURE. The I'ollowiiij; vi-ar an imrca.se of forty cadets was auUiori/.ed, and in 180S loti became eligible, but, owing to the lack of provision for them at the Academy, very few of them were enabled to re)>ort for instruction. The Academy jjasscd through many vicissi- tudes about this time, and in March, 1812, was without a single instructor. Students entered without any mental or [)liysical examination and without any regard to age. The War of 1812, however, called the attention of the Government to the pressing needs of the Academy. Only 71 students had been graduated in its first ten years, and President Madison called the attention of Congress to the necessity of making the Acad- emy a scientific as well as a military college, in consequence of which, on April 2!), 1812. the Academy was reorganized upon the principles which underlie its present organization. In 1818 the rules approved by President Monroe went into effect and provided that the assign- ment of cadets to the ditl'erent corps in the army and their relative rank must depend upon their general merits, to be determined by a competent board of examiners, and that cadets should not be promoted until after they had received a di- ploma. Colonel Sylvaniis Thayer was appointed Superintendent of West Point in 1817, and suc- ceeded in making the institution famous among the military schools of the worlil. In 1815 he was sent by the Government to Eurojie. to study mili- tary schools, and during the sixteen j'ears of his superintcndcncy ( 1S17 to 183:t) completely re- organized the curriculum of the United States school. He organized the .system of divisions of classes into sections; organized the corps of cadets into a battalion ; and created the position of commandant of cadets. In 18,33 he took is- sue with President Andrew Jackson reganling de- tails of management and resigned his post. In 1838 it was again offered him, together with con- cessions that gave him almost absolute control, but he declined to accept. From this time on little change has been made in the organization of the Academy other than those natural to the progress of time. The Civil War (1801-6.5) brought West Point into considerable prominence throughout the civ- ilized world ; so much so that since then its methods have been carefully studied by the ex- perts of nearly every great Euro]iean country. Every one of the commanding generals on both sides in the great War of the Rebellion who earned high military honors was a graduate of West Point, The authorized number of cadets in 1903 was 481, and the number of instructors 81. The course of instruction is to a large extent mathe- matical and professional. The curriculum in- cludes: Mathematics, drawing, nattiral and experimental philosophy, chemistry, chemical physics, mineralogv'. .geology, electricity, history; international, constitutional, and military law; the French and Spani.sh languages, drill legiila- tions of all arms of the service, civil and military engineering, the art and science of war, and ordnance and gunnery. The superintendent is assisted by a military staff, and the instruction is given by an academic staff, consisting entirely of army officers, with the additional rank of pro- fessors, assistant professors, and instruotors of the several departments in which they serve. In 1902 the requirements for candidates seek- ing admission were raised, which, while it makes the entrance examination more ditlicult. greatly assists the student during his period of in- struction at the Academy by reducing the amount of work he is called upon to do during his course. The system of training ollicers at West Point is regarded as more complete than that of any other country; but perhaps the greatest dillerence is the West Point method of holding the student firmly to his studies dur- ing his four years' course. lie mingles little with the outside world, except in his furlough at the close of two years, so that the four most impressionable years of his life are spent in a training and environment well calculated to pro- duce a thorough soldier. The Academy has been described as a model institution by many dis- tinguished European military authorities, and in the reorganization of the methods of military instruction in England many of the 'est Point ideas were suggested. The Vest Point cadet uni- form (see Uniforms, JIilitary) is the famous cadet gray. Bibliography. Consult: Mansfield, Tiw Uniled fStates Academy at West Point (Hartford, Conn., 1803) ; Farley, West Point in the Early Hixties (Troy, N. Y..' 1902) ; Boynton, History of West Point and Its Military importance During the American I'evolution (New York, 1804); Han- cock, Life at West Point (New York, 1902) ; Cullum, rHoyrophical Rcfiister of the O/ficrrs and Graduates of the United Htutcs Military Academy (3 vols., New York, 1808-79) ; and the Annual Reports of the Superintendent of the Academy (United States Government Printing Office, Washington). MILITARY ARCHITECTURE. The vari- ous branches of architecture and engineering used by military science in defensive works of different kinds. The reader is referred to the article Fortification for the military discus- sion of this subject. The more important details of military architecture will be found described under their own titles. Egypt. The fortified cities and forts of Egypt are the earliest yet explored, though doubtless earlier ones were erected in Babylonia. The earliest completely fortified city in good preserva- tion is El-Kab. which formed a parallelogram of about 1500 by 2000 feet. The walls were of brick, over thirty feet thick, and less than thirty feet high, with gates only on two sides. There were no towers, no ])roject ions, no curved lines, no moats, simplj- a plain sharp-angled parallelogram, and the gates were merely open- ings. Such walls have been found at Thebes, Heliopolis, and in many other cities. Eg>'ptian engineers, however, were siifficiently skillful in the Middle Empire to take advantage of the natural defensive features of rocky situations, and to abandon the defective rectangular ground- plan; this is evident at Kiuumeh and Semneh at the Second Cataract, built to protect Egypt from Nubian invasions. Crude brick was the material, projecting buttresses strengthened the walls at intervals, and there were stations where archers could protect the approaches; the wide moat which encircled the fort was defended by a low stone wall : the interior of the fort was filled up solid to the level of a chemin-de-ronde. The Hittite wars made the Eg^'ptians acquainted with the far more advanced systems of Western Asia. Towers, bastions, elaborately fortified gates, and