The Revolutionary War was a costly experiment of education in military affairs in the field; it cost heavily in blood and treasure.  Washington realized that preparation for service in the army must be had in military schools.

From the very beginning of the war until the end of his life, by official message and by letter, Washington urged the importance of military instruction.  In his message to Congress in 1796 he said:  “The institution of a military academy is recommended by cogent reasons.  However pacific the general policy of a nation may be, it ought never to be without an adequate stock of military knowledge for emergencies.  In proportion as the observance from the necessity of practicing the rules of the military art, ought to be its care in preserving and transmitting by proper establishments the knowledge of that art.  A thorough examination of the subject will evince that the art of war is extensive and complicated; that it demands much previous study; and that the possession of it in its most important and perfect state is always of great moment to the security of a nation.”  Congress did make provision for the carrying out of many of the President’s recommendations; it created a new grade in the army, that of Cadet, to which young men exclusively were admitted, and money was appropriated for their education in the science of war that they might be prepared for positions of command.  But Congress delayed the potential part of the plan; it did not collect the regiment of artillerists and engineers at a single station, nor did it erect buildings for the uses of education.

The idea did not die; in 1802 Congress made the first of those provisions for a military academy with the plan and scope which Washington had so persistently urged.  West Point was chosen as the place of its location.  That academy has more than once demonstrated the wisdom of the far-seeing Washington.

West Point is the realization of Washington’s plans for a national school of military instruction.  To-day it represents to the country the important features of that plan for a National University.  By his last will and testament, Washington bequeathed the fifty shares of stock in the Potomac Company to the establishment of a National University in the central part of the United States; he made provision that until such a university should be founded the fund should be self-accumulating by the use of the dividends in the purchase of more stock, to still further augment the endowment fund.  In the transfers and changes of commercial life apparent record of that stock has been lost, yet that last will bequeathed an ideal which in indirect ways is still inspiring our national educational system.