That it can be lived through and endured, however, is proved by the fact that about six out of ten of the cadets who enter at West Point manage to graduate, and go forth into the Army, splendid specimens of physical and mental manhood.

Very few of the cadets who fail at West Point and are dropped go away from the Military Academy without a mist before their eyes.
The plebes at West Point are not ostracized by the upper class men.

These new men are merely "kept in their places" with great severity, and without any encouragement whatever.

If the plebe can't stand it, then he is plainly not of the stuff to make a soldier.

If he does stand it, he goes on into the upper classes, one after another, graduates and is commissioned by the President as a second lieutenant in the United States Army.
It is a hard ordeal, that fellowship of "nothingness" during the first portion of the West Point course.
Homesickness is the worst ailment of the new cadet.