Much loss and inconvenience have been experienced in consequence of the failure of the bill containing the ordinary appropriations for fortifications which passed one branch of the National Legislature at the last session, but was lost in the other. This failure was the more regretted not only because it necessarily interrupted and delayed the progress of a system of national defense, projected immediately after the last war and since steadily pursued, but also because it contained a contingent appropriation, inserted in accordance with the views of the Executive, in aid of this important object and other branches of the national defense, some portions of which might have been most usefully applied during the past season. I invite your early attention to that part of the report of the Secretary of War which relates to this subject, and recommend an appropriation sufficiently liberal to accelerate the armament of the fortifications agreeably to the proposition submitted by him, and to place our whole Atlantic seaboard in a complete state of defense. A just regard to the permanent interests of the country evidently requires this measure, but there are also other reasons which at the present juncture give it peculiar force and make it my duty to call to the subject your special consideration. The present system of military education has been in operation sufficiently long to test its usefulness, and it has given to the Army a valuable body of officers. It is not alone in the improvement, discipline, and operation of the troops that these officers are employed. They are also extensively engaged in the administrative and fiscal concerns of the various matters confided to the War Department; in the execution of the staff duties usually appertaining to military organization; in the removal of the Indians and in the disbursement of the various expenditures growing out of our Indian relations; in the formation of roads and in the improvement of harbors and rivers; in the construction of fortifications, in the fabrication of much of the _matériel_ required for the public defense, and in the preservation, distribution, and accountability of the whole, and in other miscellaneous duties not admitting of classification. These diversified functions embrace very heavy expenditures of public money, and require fidelity, science, and business habits in their execution, and a system which shall secure these qualifications is demanded by the public interest. That this object has been in a great measure obtained by the Military Academy is shewn by the state of the service and by the prompt accountability which has generally followed the necessary advances. Like all other political systems, the present mode of military education no doubt has its imperfections, both of principle and practice; but I trust these can be improved by rigid inspections and by legislative scrutiny without destroying the institution itself.