Cadets love to lay aside the restrictions of their everyday routine life, put on their athletic uniforms and most care-free manners, and wander among the beautiful hills that are all around West Point. They like to enjoy the emotions that spring from a close communion with Nature, both in the winter, when the afternoons are short and the valleys quickly fill up with purple lights, and in the summer, when the country is extravagantly clothed in luxuriant foliage. If the day of the cadet has been warped by all sorts of petty annoyances, all that he has to do is to climb to Redoubt No. 4 or go to Fort Putnam, and feast his eyes upon a scene of unsurpassing beauty in order to have his cramped soul straightened out and to be lifted above his material surroundings. What greater pleasure does his life afford than to lie in the warm spring sunshine of Fort Putnam and drink in the panorama below? All of the cares of his daily existence drop away under the spell of a mysterious kind of an influence that fills his being and stirs his innate nobility. He is thankful that he is privileged to live in such a wonderful and beautiful place. Its effect is like that of some drug that soothes and calms, that gives him a kindly feeling toward humanity, and that makes him glad to be alive. On all sides he is affected by Nature who has done her best to develop all of his spirituality and to awaken his finer sensibilities. Wherever he wanders or wherever the eye roves, there is a scene to admire, almost reverentially. No less appealing than the hills is the river with its many moods. And there are the buildings whose beauty likewise exerts a subtle spiritual influence and acts as a stimulant to the development of the cadet’s æsthetic tastes. His Barracks, his Recitation Halls, his Riding Academy, his Gymnasium, his Mess Hall, and especially his Chapel, built as they all are from the natural rock of West Point’s hills, seem to grow right out of their surroundings as if God planted them there as a part of His natural design. Their presence is ever a reminder to the cadet that he has consecrated his life to an ideal, for on their exteriors are carved in conspicuous places the shields of his Alma Mater and of his country, bearing their motto of duty and honor. The walls of the interiors are hung with the portraits of famous sons of the Academy, whose devotion to their country and to an ideal serves as an inspiration to the cadet and makes him sensible to the value of moral qualities.