Note 59 — JOURNAL. (continued 4)

If the results answer to the means employed, the pupils of West Point ought to turn out accomplished scholars in every branch of human learning, as well as ripe soldiers and skilful engineers. Their course of education consists of almost every study within the range of man's capacity; and as the school discipline is unusually strict, their hours of labour many, and of recreation very few, they should he able to boast of many "wise men" among their number. However it is here, I imagine, as elsewhere; where studies are pursued laboriously for a length of time, variety becomes a necessary relief to the mental powers, and so far the multiplicity of objects of acquirement may be excused; but surely, to combine in the education of one youth the elements of half a dozen sciences, each one of which would wear out a man's life in the full understanding of it, is not the best system of instruction. However, it is the one now universally adopted, and tends to give more smatterers in science than scientific men to the world. The military part of their education is, however, what the pupils of West Point are most exercised in, and, so far as one so ignorant of such matters as myself can judge, I should imagine the system adopted calculated to make expert artillerymen and engineers of them. Their deportment, and the way they went through their evolutions on the parade, did not appear to me very steady—there was a want of correctness of carriage, generally, and of absolute precision of movement, which one accustomed to the manœuvring of regular troops detects immediately. There are several large pieces of ordnance kept in the gun-room, some of which were taken from the English; and I remarked a pretty little brass cannon, which almost looked plaything, which bore the broad arrow and the name of Saratoga.