'The Goals of Highest Ambition'

United States Naval and Military Academy Candidates’ Book of Information by “A Graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy,” first edition, 1916:

“The youth of the country inherits the military instinct. Playing with tin soldiers, with sword, drum, and gun, with snow-ball missiles storming the snow-walled fort; on every hand we can see the intensity of the military glamor to youth. Later in years no books are as absorbing in interest as those tales of West Point and Naval Academy life. At the age of twelve the Academies are the goals of highest ambition. Hardly a graduate of any college but who in intimate talk will confess that at one time he hoped to go to one of the Service Academies.”