ACADEMIC DUTIES.

There are two terms of academic instruction: September 1-December 23, and January 2-June 4. A semiannual examination is held December 26-31, and an annual examination June 5-12. At the December examination cadets who are found to be proficient in subjects they have completed during the preceding term are arranged according to merit in each subject. At the June examination they are similarly arranged and they are also assigned general standing in the class as determined by their standings in the various subjects. When a subject of study is completed during a term an examination concluding the work in that subject is sometimes held. Cadets deficient in studies at any examination are discharged from the academy unless for special reasons the academic board recommends otherwise. Cadets exceeding at any time the maximum number of demerits allowed for six months are reported to the academic board as deficient in conduct.

DEPARTMENT OF TACTICS.

ALL CLASSES.

New cadets report for duty at the Military Academy on July 1. They are quartered in barracks and are given Infantry recruit instruction, military courtesies, map reading, gymnastic and calisthenic exercises, and instruction in all forms of athletics until they join the corps on August 28.

Practical instruction for the first and third classes is given during the summer at Camp Dix, N. J., and for all classes from September 1 to June 1 at West Point in Infantry, Cavalry, Field Artillery, and Coast Artillery tactics.

During the summer at Camp Dix cadets of the first class are given instruction and act as officers in rifle, pistol, and Field Artillery target practice with the third class. They receive instruction in the use of machine guns, special Infantry weapons, equitation, signal communications, and in acting as officers in combat problems and maneuvers. During the same period the third class has instruction in equitation and horsemanship, range practice with rifle, pistol, Field Artillery service firing, minor tactics, combat exercises, first aid, and maneuvers with regular troops. They also receive instruction in swimming, dancing, and athletics.

Practical instruction in fencing, gymnastic exercises, boxing, wrestling, swimming, and all forms of athletics is given to all classes throughout the academic year.

Instruction in equitation is given the first, second, and third classes throughout the academic year.

During the first class year lectures are given on the tactics and functions of the various arms and corps, and on uniforms, equipment, insurance, finance, and etiquette and customs of the service.

DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY ENGINEERING AND MILITARY

ART.

The courses in this department are taught in the first class year. That in military engineering comprises the art of fortification in all its branches, and a short course in civil engineering covering mechanics of engineering, engineering materials, roads, water supply, sewerage. The course in military art and history comprises a study of the organization of armies, elements of strategy, and the development of the military art as shown in military history.

Military Engineering.

Civil Engineering.

Military Campaigns.

Textbooks.

Army Organization.
Elements of Strategy.

The department has a well-selected reference library on all the subjects in the course.

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL AND EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

SECOND CLASS.

The course in natural and experimental philosophy extends throughout the second class year. The slide rule, precision of measurements and graphical methods, elementary mechanics and properties of matter, wave motion, sound, and light, in the order named, are taught during the first term. Technical mechanics, including analytical, theoretical, and applied mechanics, is taught during the greater portion of the second term. This work includes also hydrostatics, hydraulics, fluid mechanics and aerodynamics. General astronomy alternates with mechanics during the last two months of the second term, about 15 lessons in all.

Numerous lectures by the head of the department and visiting scientists are given during the course. In addition to many demonstrations in the section rooms, approximately 30 formal laboratory experiments are performed.

In all there are 225 recitation periods, each one hour and fifteen minutes' duration, six attendances per week. Each laboratory period is of two hours' duration.

The entire course in so far as the subjects undertaken are concerned, besides being of general educational value and training, is intended as a thorough preparation for engineering and technical subjects taught during the first class year.

The following textbooks are authorized:

A Textbook of Physics.-Duff, fourth edition.

Precision of Measurements and Graphical Methods.-Goodwin, 1919 edition.
Technical Mechanics.-Maurer, fourth edition.

Textbook on Hydraulics.-Russell.

General Astronomy.-Young.

The course in mathematics begins with the fourth class year and continues through the third class year.

In the fourth class year, algebra is completed in alternation; first with geometry, then with trigonometry. Plane analytical geometry is completed and solid analytical geometry begun.

In the third class year solid analytical geometry is completed. The calculus and least squares finish the course.

The course in algebra covers the entire subject as generally taught in colleges, but the student is expected to have already mastered elementary algebra to include the progressions and the solution of the quadratic equation. Elementary geometry includes the books that relate to the plane and those that relate to space, but the student is expected to have mastered the former. Trigonometry includes the complete solution of plane and spherical triangles. Analytical geometry includes the discussion of the general equation of the second degree in the plane and the particular forms of the equation of the second degree in space.

The course in differential and integral calculus covers the ground of the usual college textbook, including briefly the subject of ordinary differential equations. The method of least squares, given to selected sections, includes the deduction of the facility curve, the formulae for the error, and the distribution of error.

This department embraces the subjects of chemistry, heat, and electricity. The course begins September 1 of the third academic year and extends throughout this year; exercises, recitations, laboratory work, or lectures take place on all week days.

Commencing September 1, general chemistry and heat occupy the time until the close of the term in December, recitations or other exercises being had daily.

During this term all members of the class whose progress, as shown by their recitations, warrants it, are given laboratory practice in chemistry. This practice begins with chemical manipulations and proceeds in the usual general order of elementary laboratory work. The laboratory exercises are two hours long. It is generally possible to give all parts of the class some laboratory experience; the amount of this work, however, varies with the aptitude of the student from a few hours to 25 or 30 hours. This term closes with an examination upon the essential parts of the entire course, which all cadets who have not shown a required proficiency in daily work must take The course in heat is short, but it is a comprehensive elementary course intended to embrace what is most applicable to subsequent work at the academy and what is most useful in general education.

In chemistry the course is a descriptive general one, based upon a concise statement of the more essential principles of chemistry, and includes that class of information deemed most important to nonspecialists, together with an accurate and logical treatment of many useful applications of chemistry.

The course in chemistry is followed by a brief course in internal-combustion engines. Beginning January 2, the subject of electricity is taken daily. This term also closes with an examination, covering the essential parts of the subject studied during the term, which all cadets who have not shown a required proficiency in daily work must take.

The course in electricity is a brief exposition of the leading electrical phenomena and their relations to each other. It includes a study of the general principles of the subject and of the typical machines, generators, motors, and transformers, together with the more important uses of electricity. The laboratory exercises give experience with a number of the machines and in the use of a great variety of apparatus employed in the numerous forms of electrical measurements. In this term the laboratory work is a part of the electrical course, and all cadets enter the laboratory. All laboratory work is performed under the immediate supervision of an instructor.

Textbooks.

Elementary Lessons in Heat.--Tillman.

Descriptive General Chemistry.-Till

man.

--Clowes.

Practical Chemistry (Laboratory Guide).
Elements of Electricity.-Robinson.

Standard works on the respective subjects are always available for reference, both to cadets and instructors.