Mr. NESMITH. this not on account of superiority in any other branch. Mathematics is the principal point upon which that selection is determined at the time the class graduates. Now, sir, when these men go forth from the Academy, the engineer officer who is so proficient in mathematics, in place of going into the field, in place of going into the artillery, the cavalry, or the infantry, or any other Dept of the Army, goes directly into an othee, and there discharges the duty of an engineer for ten, 15, or 20 years; and Without even having been placed in command oftroops or having any direct contact with them, because he is expert in figuresuhc is supposed to go back to the Academy with superior qualification for the purpose of educating men to be soldiers. You may take an instance. A man. say, graduates number 5 in his class and becomes an engineer; a other man radnates number 6, and goes into the line of t to Army. The man who graduates number 6 noes into the line of the Army with nearly as mudh knowl edge of mathematics as the man who graduated number 5, and in place of being cooped up in an Office or discharging some clerical duty connected with the Army, this man goes into the field, serves 5, ten, 15, or 20 years with the different corps, the cavalry, the artillery, and the infantry, and gains a superior knowledge of all those corps over the individual who is confined almost entirely in his duties to the summing u) of columns of figures or demonstrating mathematical problems; this man, I say, acquires all the inlormation of the different branc ies of the service, while the knowledge of the engineer who has graduated nearly at the head of the class and has remained in the engineer service, is confined to that particular Dept and he goes back to the Academy, perhaps, competent to teach boys mathematics and demonstrate those problems and make them good mathematicians, but he has no knowledge upon the other qualifications requisite to make a man a good soldier. If the young men who raduate at WestPoint were all to go into the ngiucer corps, were all to become mathematicians and nothing else, as the engineers are, then it would be properthat an engineer officer should have the control of the institution; but, sir, on the contrary, out of a class of 40 or 50 or 60, 5, 6, or 8 may go into the Engineer cors, while 5 stxths of the class go into the at or arms of the service, and they go into them, under the present arrangement, without being under the tuition of a Superintendent who is capable of imparting those particular qualifications. So far as the Superintendent; is concerned, so far as all the superior abilities, capacity, and training he brings to their culture are concerned, he is simply able to teach mathemat ics, and nothing more. I do not think the position occupied by the Senfrom Maine as to an engineer officer knowing all about the Army, and all about the different corps, is correct. I think the history of the men who have graduated there, and the services they have performed in different corps, demonstrate very clearl that any other man who is a graduate from {Vest Point and has been kept out of the engineers has more multifarious knowledge of the Subjects and duties connected with the Army than a mere engineer has himself.