All over the Union now are military schools and National Guard organizations in which the drill regulations of the regular army are well taught and understood; but, on the other hand, there are many schools and communities in which the strictly business system of instruction insisted upon among all progressive soldiers has been neglected in favor of something showy, catchy, pretty to look at, and utterly useless and unserviceable except for spectacular purposes; and as ill-luck would have it, Benny had been taught all manner of "fancy drill" movements utterly at variance with those he was now to learn; and so, poor boy, the nerves and muscles long schooled in one way of doing things were perpetually tripping him in his efforts to master another—he had to unlearn so much before he could learn even a little. The green boys, on whom he looked with such pity at the start, knowing no wrong methods, were speedily far ahead of him in acquiring the right.
And so the boy who had entered with the highest hopes and expectations was now low on the soldier list and lowest in his mind. But for his father's hard common-sense, Benny Frazier would have been only too glad to resign and get out of it all and go home, as other disappointed boys have done, and declare West Point a hotbed of narrow prejudice, of outrageous partiality, and unbridled injustice; and Benny's mother would have honestly believed every word of it. Connell, too, was ready to sympathize with Frazier, and confidentially to agree with him that Pops, the youngest of the four room-mates, owed his rise to the first squad entirely to the fact that his father was an officer; but when four more boys were added to the first squad, and Connell was one of them, he changed his views, and decided that only merit governed those matters, after all. He began to pluck up heart, too, for he and Graham were among the first to be marched over to the commissary's to try on the new gray fatigue uniforms, and Mr. Loring's squad all appeared in shell jackets and trousers before Winn and Frazier had cast off their civilian garb.
By July 1st, however, all were in fatigue dress, and consolidated in half a dozen squads for drill purposes. By this time, too, they could march to and from the mess-hall in stiff but soldierly fashion; and still, hour after hour, the relentless drills went on. Only on Saturday afternoons and on the long, beautiful, peaceful Sundays was there really time and opportunity for rest; and still the new cadets were kept carefully secluded from the old, seeing little or nothing of the battalion, except as, with its quick elastic step and its glistening white uniform, with the brave young faces looking browner every day under their snowy helmets, with drums and fifes playing their lively quicksteps, the little column came marching down the shaded road, and the plebes were drawn up in solid ranks until their future comrades should pass by, and, springing up the mess-hall steps, give room for them to follow.