Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20004-3027
T 202/691-4000
Nanny Academies
THE SOURCE: “The Few, the Proud, the Infantilized” by Bruce Fleming, in The Chronicle Review, Oct. 8, 2012.
With a few exceptions, the U.S. military academies conduct business much as they did a century ago: Cadets march in lockstep through the quads and shout the menu options at chow. The atmosphere is saturated with reverence for honor and tradition. Bruce Fleming, a professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy for 25 years, isn’t impressed. The service academies are a “military Disneyland,” he contends, where cadets are coddled and happy pretenses disguise mediocrity and cynicism.
High school seniors who sign up expecting the academies to be “a combination of an Ivy League university and a commando school” quickly discover otherwise. Affirmative action and athletic priorities, among other factors, skew meritocratic admission. A fifth of new midshipmen have to be shipped off to a year of remedial education before they enter Annapolis.
To read the rest of this article, please consider becoming a WQ subscriber, which allows online access to the current WQ issue as well as archive content. Other access options are below.
Research, browse, and discover more than 35 years of articles, essays, and reviews by preeminent scholars and writers. Our searchable archive of back issues is free for WQ subscribers.
 |
 |
 |
Subscribe today
to the WQ Online
and receive immediate access
to the WQ archive for a full year.
Subscribe Now
Debating America’s Pivot
THE SOURCES: “The Problem With the Pivot” by Robert S. Ross, in Foreign Affairs, Nov.–Dec. 2012; “The Turn Away From Europe” by Josef Joffe, in Commentary, Nov. 2012; and “Asia’s New Age of Instability” by Michael Wesley, in The National Interest, Nov.–Dec. 2012.The Surge Goes Awry
THE SOURCE: “Bureaucracy Does Its Thing, Again” by Frances Z. Brown, in The American Interest, Nov.–Dec. 2012.Greatness and the Mere Politician
THE SOURCE: “Lincoln’s Constitutional Leadership” by Steven B. Smith, in National Affairs, Fall 2012.