“Any one returning to the Academy now after an absence of fifteen years will observe many striking changes, the most important of which are: The disappearance in large part of the annual and semi-annual examinations; the introduction of the intermediate examinations, that is examinations during the academic term, at the completion of some part of the term-course; the large increase in written recitations with corresponding decrease in oral; a great increase in practical and semipractical work in connection with the descriptive courses; the greater amount of time permitted for recreation exercises. These changes have greatly modified methods deemed of much importance for sixty years prior to 1890, yet it can be confidently asserted that the changes have enabled cadets to acquire a greater amount of information with less effort upon their part.... Cadet schools should always be training, developing and character-forming schools, as they control the students at the best formative period.” Since 1840 the following changes have been made in the subjects taught, to-wit: In 1853 Practical Military Engineering was added. In 1857 Spanish was added. In 1873 Ethics and Logic were dropped. In 1882 General History was added and Physical Training was made a distinct course. In 1909 Military Hygiene was added. Text books have been changed or revised from time to time since the Academy was founded. Colonel Charles W. Larned, Professor of Drawing at the Academy, in a recent article in _Munsey’s Magazine_, said: “The improvements now in progress at the Military Academy ... include not only an architectural renewal, but a revision of the entire curriculum, both of which are undertakings of transcendant importance to the institution.... “It has been a difficult task to harmonize the various discordant buildings of other styles, which cannot be sacrificed, with the prevailing Tudor style; more especially as the topography of the site restricts the plan within confined limits. The architects have succeeded, however, in evolving a scheme which, when completed, will have both unity and coherence, and a picturesqueness unequaled on the continent. The rugged, climbing masses of semi-medieval Gothic structures that scale the granite cliffs and rise in towering succession to their crowning feature, the cathedral-like Chapel on Observatory Hill, will form a group of buildings in harmony both with their use and their environment, and worthy of the great institution they house.” And in speaking of what graduates have done, he said: “At the end of that tremendous struggle (the Civil War), all the armies in the field on both sides were commanded by graduates of West Point; nearly all the army corps, and most of the divisions. Out of sixty of the greatest battles ... in fifty-six the commanders on both sides were graduates; in the other four a graduate commanded on one side, and three of the four were won by graduates....