There Is No Intercourse By Road
Between West Point And Other Towns Or Villages On The River Side,
And Any Such Intercourse Even By Water Is Looked Upon With Jealousy
By The Authorities.
The wish is that West Point should be isolated
and kept apart for military instruction to the exclusion of all
other purposes whatever - especially love-making purposes.
The
coming over from the other side of the water of young ladies by the
ferry is regarded as a great hinderance. They will come, and then
the military students will talk to them. We all know to what such
talking leads! A lad when I was there had been tempted to get out
of barracks in plain clothes, in order that he might call on a
young lady at the hotel; and was in consequence obliged to abandon
his commission and retire from the Academy. Will that young lady
ever again sleep quietly in her bed? I should hope not. An
opinion was expressed to me that there should be no hotel in such a
place - that there should be no ferry, no roads, no means by which
the attention of the students should be distracted - that these
military Rasselases should live in a happy military valley from
which might be excluded both strong drinks and female charms - those
two poisons from which youthful military ardor is supposed to
suffer so much.
It always seems to me that such training begins at the wrong end.
I will not say that nothing should be done to keep lads of eighteen
from strong drinks.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 305 of 538
Words from 81196 to 81458
of 143277
