The extreme youth of the earlier cadets prevents surprise at the ludicrous state of discipline which prevailed, and creates wonder that the officers who joined so young, after such a training, were so good as they proved. If the truth were known, we should, doubtless, find that, while their intellectual training commenced at the Academy, their real discipline did not commence until they joined the Regiment. Not merely did the exigencies of the service curtail the stay of the earlier cadets at the Academy, but the abuses and jobbery which were rife in the last century rendered it possible for cadets to be at the Academy without any previous education at all. With a proclamation hanging on the wall that the Institution was created for teaching the "Mathematicks," we find piteous Masters protesting against the presence of cadets who could neither read nor write. There were cadets,—not in the Academy, but away in their homes,—drawing pay as such almost from their cradle; and not until the Academy had been a considerable time in existence was this abuse put an end to. Before the formation of the Company of Cadets, the pay of a Cadet Gunner was 1_s._ 4_d._ per diem; that of a Cadet Matross was 1_s._ When the company was formed, all cadets received the higher rate; and ultimately, although not until twenty years had passed, the pay was raised to 2_s._ 6_d._ When enrolled in a company, military duties were expected of them which were never dreamt of before: they carried arms, and mounted guard, the post where the cadet-sentry was placed being generally over the commanding officer's quarters. The officers of the company—in addition to the Master-General, who was its captain—were a Captain-Lieutenant, whose daily pay was 1_l._ 3_s._ 6_d._; a First Lieutenant, with 5_s._; a Second Lieutenant, with 4_s._; and a Fireworker, with 3_s._ But it was not for some time after its formation that the officers of the company were borne as supernumeraries in the Regiment. A Drum-major was also on the strength of the company. The number of cadets in the company, which had been almost immediately increased from forty to forty-eight, varied with the demands on the Academy during different wars. At the end of last century, and the beginning of the present, so heavy were the wants of the Regiment, and of the East India Company's service, that accommodation for cadets had to be sought for in the various private schools in Woolwich and its vicinity, and even in the Military College at Marlow. With the opening of the new Academy in 1806 this necessity gradually disappeared, the Government accommodation being sufficient.