An Army Graduate Reminisces on Point Traditions and Experiences

Major Walter S. Sturgill, Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University tells a story of West Point in the following article written for the Crimson.

I recall with a good deal of pleasure the football games during my cadet days, between Harvard and West Point. In those days Harvard was always the visiting team, since the cadet team and the Corps left their home grounds only for the annual struggle with the Navy. We were always sure of a clean, sportsman-like contest, and the games with Harvard were close enough to be intensely exciting, but with the edge usually, I must confess, on the side of the Crimson.

Trips are Welcome Respite

These flying visits by the Corps not only allow the cadets to see something of the colleges they visit and provide a welcome-even though brief respite from their daily routine, but give their hosts for the day an opportunity to welcome on their fields the wearers of the Black, Gold and Gray--those students of a great national institution, truly representative in its membership of the whole country irrespective of section, creed or class; whose traditions for the century and a quarter since its foundation have been so closely identified with the progress and development of the country that its graduates have held high places with their contemporaries of Harvard, Yale and the other older colleges.

The present system of athletic training at West Point is so different from that of most colleges that a brief description of it might be of interest to Harvard men. Twenty-five years ago no general participation in athletics, as distinguished from the course in calisthenics, gymnastics, fencing, boxing, wresting and riding required of all cadets, was necessary. Participation in the major sports as well as in tennis; golf, polo, etc., was optional and no instruction was provided for those who took up tennis or golf, which, incidentally, could be played only on Wednesday or Saturday afternoons.

Many Sports Offered

Now, however, every cadet, in addition to the compulsory course in calisthenics, gymnastics, riding, etc., is also required to participate a certain number of times during the year in each of the major sports such as football, baseball, soccer. Attendance is by cadet company, the companies participating en masse and taking turns at each of the sports included in the schedule. Participation in polo, golf, tennis and other minor sports is optional, but for those volunteering for these sports competent coaches and instructors are furnished to teach correct principles and methods.

Those who have made the various varsity teams become available for work as graduate coaches at the Point or as coaches for corps area, department or regimental teams as the case may be, wherever they happen to be stationed.

In Days of Old

In a series of articles entitled "The Good Old Times" that recently appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, Dean Gauss of Princeton describes the trials and tribulations, as well as more amusing incidents in both faculty and undergraduate life in the early days of Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth. West Point, in its comparatively brief existence, has also has several of these periods, referred to by the "Old Grads" as "the good old days."

In fact I suspect every generation in its later days so regards the period of its ascendancy. For instance, there is the classic of the early days of the Military Academy when the Commandant of Cadets was reported to the Superintendent for throwing stones at the Corps of Cadets. I don't know whether cadets ever had to resort to the expedient of attaching the remains of their meat course to the underside of the mess tables with their forks, for use at a later and perhaps less bountiful meal, but it was certainly true, even in my own day, that cadets, especially upper classmen, reserved the right of taking away from the mess hall inside their blouses or under their capes any choice bits that they thought would escape the vigilant eye of the Officer in Charge or the Cadet Officer of the Day.

Cruelty to Animals

And perhaps cadets never heated their cannon-balls before rolling them, but roll them they certainly did down the iron stairways of cadet barracks to the accompaniment of bucketfuls of stone poured from the upper story windows upon the tin roofs of the porches below. And though I recall no instance of a skunk being placed in the desk of a West Point professor, there is an authentic story to the effect that the superintendent's cow was once hoisted to the top of the tower of the old Academic Building and left there in the night to moo--out hours of anguish before she could be released from her precarious situation.

All of which shows that the undergraduate at West Point was surprisingly like his Harvard brother, that human nature being what it is, the undergraduates of today are not less alike than those of the good old times, and that there is no basic reason why the men of the cannot continue to assemble together periodically to witness these friendly Crimson and of the Black, Gold and Gray contests between their teams.