Schofield’s Definition of Discipline. These words, first spoken in an 1879 address to the cadets by then superintendent John Schofield, are the sort you’d expect a West Pointer to know by heart. The passage that cadets must memorize begins: “The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army.”