Slip

The principal was slightly taken aback by the comment of his friend.

'That's not fair!" He almost yelled, "We've been putting up so much effort to improve the program of year one!"

"Have you? From the point of view of an outsider, what the Naval Academy does is a Freudian slip of tongue - or slip of action, whatever - that you guys agree the first year in the Academy is entirely useless. I'm afraid even if your plan of attracting the handful of very top students is successful - and I have doubt on that - you can be sure for the rest of the boys that you recruit for your regular program will not be as good as the ones who joined the West Point. To them, their logic is simple: If they are not in that flimsy layer of creme de la creme de la creme, why should they waste one year - not to say the degree six years down the road may appear inferior."

"The year one program of the West Point isn't any better than ours." The naval officer murmured.

"That may be the case, but they do not come out and tell everyone that the first year of their program is dispensable. From what I could observe, the West Point is not trying to make their year one program useful, but, rather, they make it interesting. That makes a whole lot of profound difference."