West Point's Rigor

The United States Military Academy had been operating for 15 years when President James Monroe appointed Sylvanus Thayer, Dartmouth class of 1807 and an 1808 West Point graduate, as superintendent. Those early years were chaotic for the academy, where there was little of the now-legendary military and academic rigor. Thayer changed everything.

Building on his observations of France's Ecole Polytechnique, he introduced what came to be known as the Thayer System, the rigidly regimented military and academic cadet life that remains West Point's modus operandi. Involving strict discipline, prescribed courses, academic pressure, and merciless weeding out of slackers, the system comprised the first comprehensive program of technical instruction in this country and became a model for such training elsewhere. Revered as the father of West Point, Thayer brought his system, sans military mission, to Dartmouth, where in 1871 he established the engineering school that bears his name.

Before bringing engineering to Dartmouth, Thayer got the Academy in line.