The plebe views the close of the camp with a sigh of relief mingled with not a little anxiety. It is true that he is glad to get into barracks where he will have a little more personal liberty, and be free from the incessant drilling, drilling. On the other hand, the opening of the Academic year fills him with some misgivings about his ability to master the studies and fulfill his ambition to become an officer. Before he is really aware of the flight of the days, September the first has arrived. He leaves the life of camp where almost the entire day has been devoted to military exercises of one sort or another and plunges into the Academic work. A new sort of life begins and the routine of the day is readjusted. With determination he sets out to climb the stony path of knowledge that alone will lead him to his commission. The branch of the service that he will eventually select is as yet unknown to him, but as he proceeds in his career at the Academy he will have a taste of the duties of each arm, and he will later on be able to choose his branch with intelligence. The beauty about the West Point system of training officers is that it educates them for all branches of the Army, for the line and for the staff. When a man graduates, he is assigned either to the Corps of Engineers, the Ordnance, Artillery, Cavalry, or Infantry according to his choice based on his class standing. The highest men usually select the Corps of Engineers, although it is not unusual for a man who is recommended for the Engineers by the Academic Board to choose some branch of the mobile Army. The curriculum to which our young cadet must devote nine months of the year is highly scientific and technical. The corner-stone of the course is mathematics, and the great mass of the structure is made up of the exact sciences. Primarily, the curriculum is designed to give the cadet a liberal education and to turn out a man with sharpened mental processes. It does not lay the greatest emphasis upon the training of cadets in the practical duties that pertain to any particular arm or corps. The reasons for this are very sound. It is the belief of all officers who have given the question of military education any thoughtful study that the first requisite of any army is a corps of officers trained in the essentials of their profession. What really does this mean? It simply means that officers of the Army should be well educated men, not only those who are to go into the technical branches such as the Engineers and the Ordnance, but the line officers as well. The authorities at West Point have therefore developed a broad scientific course, fully convinced that the mental discipline, powers of investigation, and accurate reasoning necessary in solving problems in the exact sciences are the same mental qualities that are needed whether in planning a great campaign, building a Panama Canal, or fighting the savage Moro in the distant Philippines.