Well would it be in this disorganizing age, if, instead of prostrating this, every State had within her borders a similar institution as a nucleus of order, discipline, and obedience. The following extract of a letter from an officer who stands high in the service, may not be uninteresting to the reader. February 16, 1843. “I send you herewith a part of the information which you required in your last letter. The Military Academy is a great honour to the country, and is so understood abroad. I have frequently heard foreign officers express their opinion, that it was equal to any institution in Europe, and I was particularly gratified when I was abroad, to find the English officers so jealous of it. They seemed to understand very distinctly, that, although the policy of the country prevented our sustaining a standing army, that we had yet kept up with the age in military science; and stood ready prepared with a body of officers, well educated in scientific knowledge, to supply a large army for efficient and vigorous operations. “The whole number of graduates at the Academy since its foundation, is 1167. Of this number there have died in service, 168. There have been killed in battle, 24. Of those wounded in service, there is no record. The number of those who have died since 1837, is 1 major, 17 captains, 21 first lieutenants, and 9 second lieutenants. “The rank of those killed since 1837, was 1 lieutenant-colonel, 2 captains, 3 first lieutenants, and 2 second lieutenants. The rank of those killed previous to that time can only be ascertained by great care in revising the Registers. The enemies of the Academy have charged, that men have been educated and resigned without performing service in the army. This is not so. Besides, the term of service in the Academy, where they are liable at any time to be called upon and sent to the extremes of the Union, they are obliged by law, to serve four years after they have graduated, and in fact, they seldom do resign, unless they are treated unfairly by government, and the proportion of resignations of officers appointed from civil life, is much greater than from those that have graduated at the Academy. A large number of resignations took place in 1836, which was attributable to high salaries offered for civil engineers, and to the general disgust which pervaded the army, upon the constitution of two regiments of dragoons, when the appointments were made almost exclusively from civilians, and officers of long-standing and arduous service in the army found themselves outranked by men of no experience, and who had done no service. You can have no idea of the injustice which was done on that occasion. The ambition of many of the officers was broken down, and they retired in disgust.”