LAFOURCHE, Thibodeaux,
P.O., June 27, 1860.
MY DEAR GENERAL:
Since yours of April I have heard nothing from the Military Academy except from
one of the cadets. Yet I have hoped you were working on smoothly and
successfully. Much, indeed all, depends on an organization which will give a
proper working Board of Supervisors, near the institution, and even then, a
large discretion must be allowed your superintendent and Academic Board.
Discipline to amount to anything must be firm, decisions prompt, and their
execution immediate and irrevocable, except in very extraordinary cases. Hard
cases arise under all laws, and it is better to do some injustice than to break
down from laxity. This duty is the more difficult and trying from the very
loose system which prevails in our southern society, and which has reduced
parents to a subordination to children. But you have a man in Colonel Sherman
who is admirably suited to initiate and carry out such a system, at the same
time that he will temper it with good sense, moderation, and the best advice.
And I venture to predict that he will secure a hold on the affections of his
cadets which will make obedience easy, and the discharge of duty a pleasure.
Not having heard the
result of the election of vice-president, I feel anxiety for your success –
for, candidly, I have no confidence in the capability of our friend Dr. Smith.
That he wishes success to the institution, I do not doubt, but his notions are
so crude, so impracticable, so prejudiced, and he withal so ignorant of how to
carry them out, that failure must be the result of any power placed in his
hands. Last winter things were forced through the legislature in spite of him,
when in reality he considered himself the special champion of the cause.
In a few days I
shall visit Baton Rouge on business, and hope to see the governor. But I fear
he is too much of a friend of Smith to allow me any influence. The only
conversation I can recollect with Dr. Smith on the subject of a Board of
Visitors, was simply to advise what I had already suggested to Governor Moore,
the appointment, or invitation of some "influential gentlemen from
different parts of the state to attend the examinations.” I neither said nor
intimated anything in regard to myself, nor would I ever do so to any one in
regard to any office. I have done my share of public duties in this life, and
seek no more of them for honor or profit. Yet I am always ready to do my share
in the advancement of a good cause and to fill my station as a good citizen.
I regret that I
shall not be able to attend your first examinations, as I leave for the Springs
soon after my visit to Baton Rouge. I predict that every unprejudiced observer
will acknowledge greater progress in the same time, with the same means, than
has ever been known in the state.
If defeated in your
place of administration, don't give up. It must succeed in the end, and no one
can do as much as yourself for its ultimate triumph, or deserves so much the
honor of success. Remember me kindly to Colonel Sherman. . .
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