As a military school the Academy is organized on a military basis.  Experience has taught that it is impossible to obtain the undoubtedly beneficial and lasting results of military training and life without a system which is exact and continuous.  It is not the aim of the Academy to graduate soldiers, but rather to graduate young people who possess the best qualities of a soldier, who shall be obedient to proper authority, orderly, prompt, courteous, well-developed physically, and have the ease and self-confidence which comes with trained minds and bodies.  The mere wearing of a uniform, with an occasional drill, will not produce such results, and as surely as there is no royal road to learning, so there is no short-and-easy way in which these results can be secured.  It requires time, patience, unending detail, a deep knowledge of character, a love for the work on the part of the faculty of the school, and a system under which every day brings to each cadet duties and responsibilities which must be met and accepted.  As a cadet passes through the various grades, from private to commissioned officer, these responsibilities gradually increase until, in the last year of the course, the cadet becomes largely responsible for the spirit and discipline of the cadet corps. The student has learned not only to obey orders, but to give them.

• New York Military Admissions Catalogue 1929