Punishment tours are of one-hour duration, during which time the cadet walks an assigned beat. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons the Area is filled with cadets walking to and fro, like pendulums, each tracing in the gravel a little path. They resemble in their animation the goings and comings of a colony of ants. No cadet enjoys walking tours. It is viewed as a particularly disagreeable punishment, much worse than serving a confinement in one’s room, where he may “bone fiction,” chasing away the gloom of imprisonment with some interesting book. In the winter months the chill and snow fill their thoughts and hearts as they pace to and fro, beating their hands together for warmth. But it is in the autumn and spring when the athletic contests with outside teams take place that the misery of walking tours becomes terribly acute. The cheering of the fortunate cadets witnessing the games is like some magnet which draws and draws. The longing must be resisted and stifled while they continue upon their monotonous walk, chained to an inexorable task. The work demanded of a cadet is hard, but without the restrictions, obstacles, the petty annoyances, the young plebe that comes to West Point so plastic and yielding would never grow and develop. At first the limitations that surround him baffle and bewilder him for a time, but as the days pass by and he begins to be imbued with the spirit of the Corps, and to feel the traditions and atmosphere of West Point, he insensibly rises superior to every annoying restriction. He may indulge in occasional grumbling and ill-humor but what of that? He knows now that a reason exists for every obstacle, and he sees in the hardships a way that leads to the development of his higher self. His moral force is gradually crystallized and he gains the spirit of willingness to do his duty toward the Academy and his little bit in keeping strong the spirit of West Point. The main idea of West Point after all is to develop the mind and character of the cadet, to instill into him the proper ideas of discipline. It does not aim for a discipline where a man’s spirit or will is broken, so that he obeys through fear, but a discipline of the soul, wherein a cadet performs his duty for the deed’s sake. Without this high moral spirit, no army can be successful, despite the most brilliant galaxy of officers. CHAPTER VII THE DISCIPLINE OF THE MIND The longer a cadet remains at West Point, the clearer and finer becomes his point of view. During the first few months of his career, a glimpse of which we had in the previous chapter, he is so busy learning the mechanism of the drills, the care of his person and equipment, and familiarizing himself with all of the strange names and unusual customs of military life that his point of view is more or less clouded.