If the knowledge we have obtained could be had elsewhere, the United States would not, at great expense, erect and maintain the military academy. If our country could dispense with us, we should not be commissioned and retained for years under pay without employment. We alone have been educated for officers. All the military science of the nation centres in us; no others are qualified to command. We are a caste by ourselves--a military nobility, on whom the fortunes of the country depend.” Censure not these young men for their opinions. They are the legitimate fruits of your legislation--fair and just inferences from your enactments. But they are not, therefore, the less to be regretted. Such enactments are calculated to draw a wide line of separation between the cadets and their fellow citizens; to foster a spirit of pride and arrogance, and self-sufficiency, on the part of the former, mixed with scorn and contempt of the multitude, to be returned by the latter with feelings of envy and detestation. Have not these consequences resulted? Does not, even now, an ill feeling exist between West Point and the country? My next objection to the academy is, that the expenses are exorbitant, and greatly disproportioned to the benefits. A report made by the Secretary of War at the present session of Congress, states the expenditures to have been upwards of four million of dollars. Over seven hundred thousand dollars of that sum is the cost of the grounds, buildings and fixtures, in the nature of capital, which cannot be considered as entirely wasted, though they are of little value in any other respect than as connected with this institution. The residue amounting to 3,291,500 dollars, is stated as the current expenses of the institution--the cost of educating the cadets. This would amount to an annual expenditure of about 130,000 dollars. The number of cadets who have graduated, including those who are expected to graduate on the 30th of June next, amounts only to 1,231; each graduate, therefore, has occasioned an expense to the nation of three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars; or, if we take only the current expenses, deducting what may be considered as an investment of capital, the cost of each amounts to 2,673 dollars. But the amount thus reported by the Secretary of War, I understand, includes only the direct and immediate expenditures for the institution, and omits many expenses which the academy has indirectly occasioned. A friend who has carefully investigated the matter, and whose general accuracy I cannot doubt, makes the cost of each cadet who graduates this year amount to five thousand dollars. All of the expenditures direct and indirect, by reason of the military academy, I have no doubt, exceed five millions of dollars, which is the cost of educating 1,231 persons in military science sufficiently to qualify them for subaltern officers in the army. A part of them have taken their commissions, and are employed in the public service.