The present system of military education has been in operation sufficiently long to test its usefulness, and it has given to the Army a valuable body of officers.  It is not alone in the improvement, discipline, and operation of the troops that these officers are employed.  They are also extensively engaged in the administrative and fiscal concerns of the various matters confided to the War Department; in the execution of the staff duties usually appertaining to military organization; in the removal of the Indians and in the disbursement of the various expenditures growing out of our Indian relations; in the formation of roads and in the improvement of harbors and rivers; in the construction of fortifications, in the fabrication of much of the materiel required for the public defense, and in the preservation, distribution, and accountability of the whole, and in other miscellaneous duties not admitting of classification.

These diversified functions embrace very heavy expenditures of public money, and require fidelity, science, and business habits in their execution, and a system which shall secure these qualifications is demanded by the public interest.  That this object has been in a great measure obtained by the Military Academy is shewn by the state of the service and by the prompt accountability which has generally followed the necessary advances.  Like all other political systems, the present mode of military education no doubt has its imperfections, both of principle and practice; but I trust these can be improved by rigid inspections and by legislative scrutiny without destroying the institution itself.

Occurrences to which we as well as all other nations are liable, both in our internal and external relations, point to the necessity of an efficient organization of the militia.  I am again induced by the importance of the subject to bring it to your attention.  To suppress domestic violence and to repel foreign invasion, should these calamities overtake us, we must rely in the first instance upon the great body of the community whose will has instituted and whose power must support the Government.  A large standing military force is not consonant to the spirit of our institutions nor to the feelings of our countrymen, and the lessons of former days and those also of our own times shew the danger as well as the enormous expense of these permanent and extensive military organizations.  That just medium which avoids an inadequate preparation on one hand and the danger and expense of a large force on the other is what our constituents have a right to expect from their Government.  This object can be attained only by the maintenance of a small military force and by such an organization of the physical strength of the country as may bring this power into operation whenever its services are required.  A classification of the population offers the most obvious means of effecting this organization.  Such a division may be made