Military Review English Edition March-April 2014 | Page 18

character, competence, and commitment in its cadets,
midshipmen, and candidates. Despite the pleas
of “old grads” of the federal service academies to
maintain tradition and the way things were, change
is both appropriate and imperative. Over the course
of their histories, the service academies have continuously and systematically improved their academic,
military, and physical programs; these are widely
regarded as first class. In fact, among those who rate
universities, the federal service academies are perennially in the top tier across the board. The mandate,
reflected in the vision, purpose, and mission of each
academy to provide our armed forces with commissioned leaders of character, deserves a careful
philosophical review.
By 1891, West Point’s Board of Visitors recognized the imperative of character (moral) development was as important as physical and cognitive
development. Of note, they emphasized the development of character in cadets by also addressing the
character of the academy’s faculty. The Committee
on Discipline and Instruction reported the following
to the board:
Of the regulations, we can say that they
deserve our profound respect, for they are

the results of nearly a century’s experience.
They have constituted the rules of conduct
that formed the characters of the great men
who have graduated here... [The regulations] are now more nearly perfect than
ever before, because they provide for their
own improvement. Judicious changes have
been made all along their history, whenever experience clearly demonstrated the
advantages of modifications…The Cadet is
required to consider “duty the noblest word
in the language” . . . Hence on the matter
of discipline we conclude: That the rules of
the school, considered in the abstract—their
aims and methods; that the professors and
officers now on duty here—their character,
scholarship, skill and fidelity; that the results
of the regulations as administered—shown
in physical, moral and mental development
of the Cadet—all deserve the commendation
of the Board of Visitors. 4
Indeed, one key point in this passage is that appropriate modifications have been made “all along their
history” to improve the way West Point develops
cadets. However, it was not until 1947 that Gen.

U.S. Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, chief of staff of the Army, meets with cadets at the United States Military Academy during a visit to West Point, N.Y.,
13 October 2011. (U.S. Army, Staff Sgt. Teddy Wade)
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MILITARY REVIEW

March-April 2014