"West Point Bicentennial"
A Pictorial History of the First Two Hundred Years of the United States Military Academy
Preface | 1776-1817 | 1817-1833 | 1833-1848 | 1848-1865 | 1865-1890 | 1890-1919 | 1919-1939 | 1939-1950 | 1950-1970 | 1970-1980 | 1980-2002 | Bicentennial and Beyond

"The Thayer Era"

1817-1833

Sylvanus Thayer was both an innovator and a synthesizer. He established, standardized, and inculcated discipline and order, thus fostering an unprecedented uniformity, stability and predictability in the academy's operations and graduates. Thayer immediately "commenced a system of reformation" to "regulate and harmonize the whole machine of instruction" by enforcing admissions standards that had been on the books since 1812. Unlike Partridge, he solicited advice from the faculty, which was given formal organizational stature as the Academic Board in 1818. He promptly divided the corps of cadets into four classes based on their academic progress. He defined and enforced not only a daily schedule but an academic year as well and refused to accept cadets who arrived at West Point after the beginning of classes. Academic instruction now continued through the winter months, and cadets were required to attend the academy for the full four years specified in the curriculum. Cadets were forbidden to leave post without permission and extended furloughs were limited to the summer between the second and third year. The simple requirement to be physically present helped instill a sense of duty in aspiring officers that would underlie their future commitment to serving the nation.

Indeed, Thayer began one of the nation's most systematic efforts to shape and transform individuals. He gave structure to cadet ranks and responsibilities already on the books, creating an organizational hierarchy of companies and battalions in line with that in the Regular Army in order to give graduates training in the processes of command and administration and in the values of duty and subordination. He created and enforced a comprehensive system of rigorous regulations and brought in experienced junior officers from the Army's combat arms branches to serve as drill instructors, disciplinary officers and mentors to the cadets. These were the first tactical officers, who then lived in the barracks with the cadets and inspected their rooms several times daily. Thayer also created the office of commandant to oversee the cadet disciplinary system and to conduct military training. These assignments proved valuable for both officers and cadets. Indeed, the early commandants built outstanding reputations that aided their rise to important positions in the war with Mexico two decades later, while tactical officers gained experience in leadership and drill that enhanced their command opportunities and, judging by wartime performance, their tactical ability. Indeed, at that time, the concentration of cadets at West Point made it one of the larger posts in the Army, providing the officers assigned to the academy with rare opportunities to practice larger-scale drill and tactics.

Cadets were forbidden to consume alcohol, use tobacco, gamble, spit or swear and had to get Thayer's permission to subscribe to newspapers or receive money. They slept on mattresses they had to fold up each morning and were required to remain in their rooms when not in class, at meals or at drill. Apart from their single summer furlough, the only break they received from classes was for the military encampments each summer, the precursors of today's Cadet Basic Training and Cadet Field Training. Offenses against regulations were punished by a standardized number of demerits, 200 of which led to a cadet's dismissal. Indeed, many of the regulations carried the threat of dismissal, and Thayer did not hesitate to enforce them. Yet he also sought explanations and repentance for misconduct, often rewarding the responsibility and integrity of well-intentioned cadets by reducing or erasing their punishments in cases when they themselves came forward and were judged willing to reform. Thayer's willingness to take cadets at their word encouraged and rewarded their demonstrations of personal responsibility and was the root of the honor code, which would remain informal throughout the 19th Century.

To stimulate a sense of duty and habits of preparation, Thayer demanded that every cadet be responsible for his own learning. Classes proceeded by participation rather than lecture. The "Thayer method" required that every cadet be prepared to answer questions or solve problems in every class every day. He encouraged cadets to channel their competitive energies through a merit system in which cadets were ranked weekly in each course. These rankings determined the specific section--then, as today, a small group of 10 to 15 cadets--that cadets would attend in each course, and the rankings were posted publicly to stimulate competition and learning. As cadets improved in a subject, they advanced to sections in which instruction was accelerated, while, given the shortage of funds, the best-qualified cadets often did double duty, serving as instructors to their peers. At the end of the academic year, the names of the top five cadets in each subject were published in the annual Army Register. At the end of four years, cadet academic standing accounted for between 50 and 70 percent of class rank upon graduation, which was used to determine, as it is today, what branch of the Army cadets could enter, and often the unit and post where they first would be stationed.

By the 1820’s, academically deficient cadets were eliminated on a more consistent basis. Disciplinary problems persisted, but the institution of uniform standards, fairly enforced, and the gradual evolution of an honor system that fostered personal accountability produced a balance of discipline and character development crucial to the professional military ethic of responsible service. Faced with higher standards, only a third of the entering cadets graduated during the Thayer era, but West Point gained a "uniformity and regularity" and a new national recognition, actually attracting and graduating more cadets. Indeed, during Thayer's 16 years as superintendent (1817-1833), more than three times as many cadets graduated from the academy as in the preceding 16 years. Since the small size of the Regular Army enabled the government to rely almost exclusively on the academy as the primary commissioning source for officers until 1836, by this time West Point graduates composed more than 70 percent of the officer corps. As a result, the junior officer corps became much more uniform in education, training and socialization, reducing friction among officers, increasing predictability in the expectations and performance of duty, and encouraging longer careers among men of similar habits and values.

Even today, the basic "Thayer system" principles of thorough preparation, rigorous testing, fair treatment and recognition for meritorious performance continue to support an objective of the Military Academy, Army and nation--present since the days of Washington and Jefferson-- of a meritocracy dedicated to service. Above all, Thayer stressed the principles later embodied in the West Point motto as "Duty, Honor, Country." Duty meant accepting subordination to constitutionally authorized command; honor meant performing one's duties with selfless integrity; and duty to one's country provided the focus of service to the nation. After four years of socialization in these principles, working together toward a common goal under the mentorship of officers who almost always had experienced the same process as cadets themselves, graduates acquired a strong sense of their personal duty to serve the nation responsibly and accountably--the moral and emotional basis for professional commitment. The Corps of Cadets began to develop a distinct identity and camaraderie, as well as unique rituals and symbols, like the class ring adopted in 1835, the first such ring in the nation. Cadets began to speak, as in an address to the cadet Dialectic Society (a debating club, established in 1824), of West Point as the "National School" and "the school of the Union," and they contributed significant portions of their meager salaries to the construction of monuments to Thaddeus Kosciuszko, to cadets who died at the academy, and to Major Francis Dade and his soldiers, slain by Seminole Indians in Florida. They routinely referred to the Corps of Cadets, the officer corps and the Army as "bands of brothers" sworn to serve the nation, and they served far longer than their predecessors before 1820.

West Point also contributed greatly to American life outside the Army. The members of the Academic Board became well known in their fields, and 51 of their protégés (about ten percent of the graduates) from the Thayer era took up civilian professorships after leaving the Army. Another 15 served as college or university presidents, and graduates helped to found and lead a number of state military schools, most notably the Virginia Military Institute and the Citadel, in South Carolina. Indeed, historians of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, acknowledge West Point as one of the primary influences on its founders as well. West Point graduates also provided the engineering skills, then largely unavailable from civilian institutions, to implement the General Survey Act of 1824, under which officers made surveys of road, canal and railroad routes, and sometimes directed their construction. In this manner, they played major roles in the "Transportation Revolution" and thus the economic growth of the 1820s and 1830s. Other graduates served on river, coastal and harbor surveys and directed efforts to clear obstacles to navigation while reducing the damage done by flooding - all tasks later performed by the U.S. Geological Survey and today's Corps of Engineers. Nearly a quarter of Thayer-era graduates ultimately became civil and railroad engineers, introducing crucial elements of "system and regularity" into railroad operations, while many others entered business, the professions and positions of civic leadership throughout the country.

Yet, the academy's very success led to jealousy and criticism. The presidential candidacy of Andrew Jackson stimulated a nationwide fervor echoed by cadets at West Point. Thayer hoped to inculcate non-partisan political neutrality and to sought to discipline cadets, some of whom were involved in a series of arsons and other disorderly conduct, for their partisan activity. Suspicious of the academy's rigid discipline, and ardent in the pursuit of what he saw as political liberty, President Jackson reinstated the dismissed cadets, along with others who had failed courses but had well-connected friends. Although Jackson expressed his confidence in the superintendent and his system as a whole, he continued to intervene, and Thayer ultimately sought a transfer in 1833. Yet, unlike Williams and Swift, Thayer did not resign his commission. Instead, he remained in service to the nation until the Civil War, continuing to advise Army leaders and mentor protégés while setting a personal example of the professional commitment he sought to foster at West Point.