cation I desired
by the study of law, history, rhetoric, and general literature.
Even now I think these latter studies have proved about as useful
to me as what I learned of the art and science of war; and they
are essential to a good general education, no less in the army than
in civil life. I have long thought it would be a great improvement
in the Military Academy if a much broader course could be given to
those young men who come there with the necessary preparation,
while not excluding those comparatively young boys who have only
elementary education. There is too much of the "cast-iron" in this
government of law under which we live, but "mild steel" will take
its place in time, no doubt. The conditions and interests of so
vast a country and people are too varied to be wisely subjected to
rigid rules.

But I must not be misunderstood as disparaging the West Point
education. As it was, and is now, there is, I believe, nothing
equal to it anywhere in this country. Its methods of developing
the reasoning faculties and habits of independent thought are the
best ever devised. West Point _training_ of the mind is practically
perfect. Its general discipline is excellent and indispensable in
the military service. Even in civil life something like it would
be highly beneficial. In my case that discipline was even more
needed than anything else. The hardest lesson I had to learn was
to submit my will and opinions to those of an accidental superior
in rank, who, I imagined, was my inferior in other things, and it
took me many years to learn it. Nothing is more absolutely
indispensable to a good soldier than perfect subordination and
zealous service to him whom the national will may have made the
official superior for the time being. I now think it one of the
most important lessons of my own experience that, while I had no
difficulty whatever in securing perfect subordination and obedience
in a large public school when I was only seventeen years old, or
ever afterward in any body of troops, from a squad of cadets up to
a body of men, others did not find it by any means so easy to
discipline me. What I needed to learn was not so much how to
command as how to obey.

My observation of others has also taught much the same lesson.
Too early independence and exercise of authority seem to beget some
degree of disrespect for the authority of others. I once knew a
young major-general who, in his zeal to prevent what h