Academy Coat of Arms
Designed in 1898 by professors Larned, Bass, and Tillman, the original design was nearly identical to the current, but was oriented to the right. In 1923, the coat of arms was oriented to the left to conform to more traditional conventions of heraldry. Some of the older buildings on post still bear the original, right-oriented version. The shield is topped by the American Bald Eagle and the Academy's motto of "Duty, Honor, Country" and "West Point MDCCCII USMA" which is the date of USMA's founding. The helmet is that of Pallas Athena, for centuries a symbol of wisdom and learning. The sword is a traditional emblem of the military.
Read more about this topic: History Of United States Military Academy
Famous quotes containing the words academy, coat and/or arms:
“...I have come to make distinctions between what I call the academy and literature, the moral equivalents of church and God. The academy may lie, but literature tries to tell the truth.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
“Essential truth, the truth of the intellectualists, the truth with no one thinking it, is like the coat that fits tho no one has ever tried it on, like the music that no ear has listened to. It is less real, not more real, than the verified article; and to attribute a superior degree of glory to it seems little more than a piece of perverse abstraction-worship.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The sturdy Irish arms that do the work are of more worth than oak or maple. Methinks I could look with equanimity upon a long street of Irish cabins, and pigs and children reveling in the genial Concord dirt; and I should still find my Walden Wood and Fair Haven in their tanned and happy faces.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)