 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
Maryland State Archives Adam Goodheart Collection MSA SC 5826 msa_sc5826_3_1-0025 Enlarge and print image (884K) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
Maryland State Archives Adam Goodheart Collection MSA SC 5826 msa_sc5826_3_1-0025 Enlarge and print image (884K) |
| msa_sc5826_3_l-0025 ©Maryland State Archives - 25 - a school by prohibition, I think, of very doubtful policy, I am inclined to the belief that the use of French wines instead of tea and coffee, at breakfast and dinner, the better plan to eliminate the taste for those emasculating practices. The deficiencies in the mode of feeding the cadets may be best illustrated by comparing the appearance of a class of Cadets, with a corresponding class of Midshipmen, The latter tho' exposed to a somewhat malarious climate from being better fed, are much more robust and healthy in appearance. Next to cleanliness of person, nothing contributes more to the discipline and courage of the soldier than his feeding. These things are not beneath the consideration of an Officer who aspires to be a General, because an ill-fed soldier is never a good fighter, and is not able to undergo the hardships and starvation which, in spite of the best laid plans, almost always occur on the day of battle, the day to which every young soldier should look forward, as sure to come, and when all his faculties mental and bodily will be exercised to the greatest power he can com- mand. In other pursuits, the eventful day when you are to be tested can be postponed or evaded, and time taken to prepare yourself, but in the military career, that is not the case. None but the supreme head of the Army can post- pone or change the day of trial, and the true soldier must be always ready to give all that he has to the country he has engaged to serve, and to do it in the most effectual way. I might here say something on the deficiency in practical instruction in the sciences at West Point, but that will be better seen when I come to that part of my Recollections when I was called upon to do some astronomical work in which I was presumed to be proficient. The intense study and labor it required to enable me to do those duties, will explain how much I had to learn after leaving the Academy. On one occasion, in after life, when in a position to do so, I labored to have a fifth year added to the course, not as was done, when |