As we all know, there are but two logical methods of thought-the inductive and the deductive. When combined in the order named, they make the complete method. The skillful teacher uses these separately or combined, and in such order as bests suits the subject to be taught and the pupils to be instructed. The soldier's method. of teaching tactics is more nearly perfect than any other; for the wealth, power, and existence of nations depend upon tactical skill; and this skill depends on the methods and results of tactical education. By analyzing this tactical method, the professors in the Military Academy comprehend the model upon which all their departments are best formed. What are these elements of tactical instruction? The answer is exhibited daily on the drill ground. First, while the recruit is paying strict attention, the officer in his own person takes the position of the soldier or performs a movement with as much accuracy as possible, and then describes orally that position or movement. Second, the recruit is made to imitate the position or perform the movement as it has been represented in the person of the officer. Thus far the thought and the work are by the inductive method. The pupil observes carefully, comprehends the facts, and draws in his mind the rule of action. Finally, he is made to execute, with many repetitions and under varying circumstances, similar positions and movements. This is deductive, and serves to broaden and make permanent in his mind the law and the application of the exercise.

Taken all together the method is complete and perfect, proceeding from the fact to the law, and from the law to its application. Every position of the soldier and all evolutions of the company and battalion are taught in this thorough manner. The result is, that besides learning tactics the cadet has established in his mind the best possible habit of thought; and this habit of thought makes him practical and rational in all departments; and when he comes to be a professor here in any branch of education, having been trained in this complete method, it is natural for him to use it in the class room; hence we find the spirit of this method throughout the Academy.

If we consider this method of teaching in its connection with the peculiar discipline of the school as administered by these faithful and efficient officers, we have a full explanation of the fact that at this Academy so much is learned in so short a time, and all is done in such a masterly way.

Recommendations.-Before concluding this report we make the following recom

mendations:

(1) That the Academic Board shall at the proper time readjust the departments of study in such a manner as to give more time to the English language and greater attention to its literature.

(2) That appropriations be made to increase the apparatus so as to equip every department fully and enable the professors to reach the minds of their pupils by object lessons.

(3) We recommend that the instructor of the band be given the rank and pay of second lieutenant of infantry.

(4) That the membership of the band be raised to forty, 16 of whom to be in the first class and 24 to be in the second class.

(5) That enlisted men intended for field musicians be placed under the tuition of this professor of music for at least one year, so as to secure uniformity in field music throughout the Army.

In conclusion, we would suggest that no better service can be rendered our people than to make them acquainted with the superior character of the discipline of the United States Military Academy, with the excellence of its officers, with the thoroughness of their work, and with the high moral tone that pervades the entire school.

J. T. MURFEE,
FRANK A. O'BRIEN,
THEODORE S. PECK,

Committee.

ARMAMENT AND EQUIPMENT.

Committee on Armament and Equipment.-Messrs. THEODORE S. PECK, CHARLES F. MANDERSON, and JAMES A. WAYMIRE.

THE ARTILLERY BRANCH.

Every report made by the Board of Visitors for several years past has directed the attention of the authorities to the utter lack of proper arms and equipment at the Academy for instruction in field exercises, and earnest appeals have been made in these reports for improvement in this direction. This constant iteration has at last attracted attention and has resulted in securing within the last year a battery of six 3.2-inch steel breech-loading guns. With this exception the armament of the Academy consists of a lot of antiquated guns that should be sent to a museum of ordnance antiquities or utilized by being planted perpendicularly in the earth to the trunnions, to protect the grounds against trespass. Many of the guns are so weak that they can not be used for purposes of instruction, investigation having demonstrated that to fire them would be to endanger the lives of the cadets engaged as well as those of the bystanders who might be watching the drill. Their use, therefore, has been prudently discontinued, and this fact, known to the authorities at Washington through the last two reports of the Superintendent and the report of the last Board of Visitors, does not seem to have disturbed the serenity that prevails at the War Department, nor to have attracted sufficient attention to gain even a passing notice. Colonel Wilson, the Superintendent, in his annual report for 1889, directed attention to the bursting of one of the 30pounder Parrott guns in April of that year, "whereby the lives of a number of cadets were endangered. Orders have been given," sententiously added the Superintendent, "that the guns of this battery shall not be again fired."

The artillery equipment of the Academy is thus catalogued:

A battery of seacoast guns, of which the cadets use two 15-inch smooth-bore guns, three 8-inch rifles (muzzle-loading), and one 13-inch (muzzle-loading) smooth-bore mortar.

A battery of six 30-pounder muzzle-loading rifles (Parrotts).

A battery of six siege mortars, three 8-inch and three 10-inch. One battery of six 3-inch muzzle-loading rifles, used and partially equipped as a mounted battery.

One field battery of six 3-inch muzzle-loading rifles.

One battery of six 12-pounder (Napoleon) guns.

One battery of six 3.2-inch breech-leading steel rifles.

This is a formidable array of guns-on paper. To the educated soldier, however, this armanent appears ridiculous in repose and would present no terrors in action. The mortality from the use of such guns would be greater in their rear than in their front. Except the battery of 3.2-inch breech-loading steel rifles mounted on steel carriages, which was lately supplied, the guns above described are obsolete and many of them worthless for purposes of instruction. The old muzzle-loading field batteries should be retired from active service, used only for firing salutes, and replaced by guns similar to those in the field battery recently supplied.

In the seacoast battery no two guns are mounted on the same kind of carriage, each carriage doubtless representing a different epoch in the manufacture of gun-carriages. This might be called a "polyglot battery." With such an outfit there can not be any uniformity, efficiency, or satisfaction in the instruction. Lieutenant Hoskins, the senior instructor of artillery tactics, an enthusiastic and accomplished officer, said of these carriages that they "would be appropriately placed if under a case in the Ordnance Museum." The Ordnance Department may properly urge that modern guns can not be furnished the Academy until money and time can be secured to fabricate them; but this plea will not hold good in the case of this collection of diversified and antiquated carriages. The "cranes" are as variegated as the carriages and in strict keeping with them.

In his report for 1890 Superintendent Wilson complains that "the condition of the siege battery is much worse than that of the seacoast battery." Following the bursting of one of the guns of this battery the Ordnance Department, in October, 1889, condemned the battery and replaced it with a battery of 44-inch rifled guns. In making this exchange the Government, having no modern guns of the required caliber, the Ordnance Department discovered another miscellaneous lot of antiquated and worn-out guns, and these are now in position at the Academy. Having a proper regard for the lives of the young men who would be required to work these guns, as well as consideration for the safety of the innocent people who are usually attracted by the firing, Colonel Wilson called for a history of these engines of double-ended destruction, and was informed by the Ordnance Department that it was "unknown." They had been "selected as the best of a lot on hand at the New York Arsenal, sent there from Washington some years before." These guns were used during the war of the rebellion, to what extent can not be ascertained, but it was known that "some guns of this pat tern had recently burst."

There is a limit fixed by science and experience to the life of a gun, and it is dangerous to use it beyond that limit. These guns have evidently been used to that limit, perhaps beyond it. With a full appre