The young man swore
that it was so, and with considerable energy expressed his opinion
that all his health, and spirits, and vitality were being baked out
of him.
He seemed to have a strong opinion on the matter, for
which I respected him; but it had never occurred to him, and did
not then occur to him, that anything could be done to moderate that
deathly flow of hot air which came up to him from the neighboring
infernal regions. He was pale in the face, and all the lads there
were pale. American lads and lasses are all pale. Men at thirty
and women at twenty-five have had all semblance of youth baked out
of them. Infants even are not rosy, and the only shades known on
the cheeks of children are those composed of brown, yellow, and
white. All this comes of those damnable hot-air pipes with which
every tenement in America is infested. "We cannot do without
them," they say. "Our cold is so intense that we must heat our
houses throughout. Open fire-places in a few rooms would not keep
our toes and fingers from the frost." There is much in this. The
assertion is no doubt true, and thereby a great difficulty is
created. It is no doubt quite within the power of American
ingenuity to moderate the heat of these stoves, and to produce such
an atmosphere as may be most conducive to health. In hospitals no
doubt this will be done; perhaps is done at present - though even in
hospitals I have thought the air hotter than it should be. But
hot-air drinking is like dram-drinking. There is the machine
within the house capable of supplying any quantity, and those who
consume it unconsciously increase their draughts, and take their
drains stronger and stronger, till a breath of fresh air is felt to
be a blast direct from Boreas.
West Point is at all points a military colony, and, as such,
belongs exclusively to the Federal government as separate from the
government of any individual State. It is the purchased property
of the United States as a whole, and is devoted to the necessities
of a military college. No man could take a house there, or succeed
in getting even permanent lodgings, unless he belonged to or were
employed by the establishment. There is no intercourse by road
between West Point and other towns or villages on the river side,
and any such intercourse even by water is looked upon with jealousy
by the authorities. The wish is that West Point should be isolated
and kept apart for military instruction to the exclusion of all
other purposes whatever - especially love-making purposes. The
coming over from the other side of the water of young ladies by the
ferry is regarded as a great hinderance. They will come, and then
the military students will talk to them. We all know to what such
talking leads! A lad when I was there had been tempted to get out
of barracks in plain clothes, in order that he might call on a
young lady at the hotel; and was in consequence obliged to abandon
his commission and retire from the Academy. Will that young lady
ever again sleep quietly in her bed? I should hope not. An
opinion was expressed to me that there should be no hotel in such a
place - that there should be no ferry, no roads, no means by which
the attention of the students should be distracted - that these
military Rasselases should live in a happy military valley from
which might be excluded both strong drinks and female charms - those
two poisons from which youthful military ardor is supposed to
suffer so much.
It always seems to me that such training begins at the wrong end.
I will not say that nothing should be done to keep lads of eighteen
from strong drinks. I will not even say that there should not be
some line of moderation with reference to feminine allurements.
But, as a rule, the restraint should come from the sense, good
feeling, and education of him who is restrained. There is no
embargo on the beer-shops either at Harrow or at Oxford - and
certainly none upon the young ladies. Occasional damage may accrue
from habits early depraved, or a heart too early and too easily
susceptible; but the injury so done is not, I think, equal to that
inflicted by a Draconian code of morals, which will probably be
evaded, and will certainly create a desire for its evasion.
Nevertheless, I feel assured that West Point, taken as a whole, is
an excellent military academy, and that young men have gone forth
from it, and will go forth from it, fit for officers as far as
training can make men fit. The fault, if fault there be, is that
which is to be found in so many of the institutions of the United
States, and is one so allied to a virtue, that no foreigner has a
right to wonder that it is regarded in the light of a virtue by all
Americans. There has been an attempt to make the place too
perfect. In the desire to have the establishment self-sufficient
at all points, more has been attempted than human nature can
achieve. The lad is taken to West Point, and it is presumed that
from the moment of his reception he shall expend every energy of
his mind and body in making himself a soldier. At fifteen he is
not to be a boy, at twenty he is not to be a young man. He is to
be a gentleman, a soldier, and an officer. I believe that those
who leave the college for the army are gentlemen, soldiers, and
officers, and, therefore, the result is good. But they are also
young men; and it seems that they have become so, not in accordance
with their training, but in spite of it.
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