The education of American leaders is not a science. There are no simple recipes or models for it. The emphasis of most elite educational institutions was and continues to be on sociability, collegiality and, to an extent, conformity. America's leaders (not just its presidents) come from all manner of backgrounds and follow any number of paths. This is testament to the democratic nature of the country. For, as Tocqueville and others have noted, the most brilliant Americans do not usually pursue careers in politics. They tend to gravitate to the law or to business or finance. And so, exceptionally talented politicians are exactly that: exceptional. Most are not. Many are mediocre. More than a few are dreadful.

A further exception to this pattern, in turn, is found in the more durable of the country's institutions, notably the military. Military commissions are no longer bought and sold openly. During the twentieth century, those undertaking a role in the military profession achieved a level of prestige they had not had before in the United States. Individual military figures, beginning with George Washington, certainly had. But on balance, the profession, with the partial exception of the navy, did not.

Nevertheless, education in the service academies and in similar institutions has usually been rigorous. The emphasis has traditionally been on hard subjects like engineering and mathematics. In the US Army, the best students have tended to be commissioned in the engineers. It makes for a methodical, regimented and, on balance, effective education. On the one hand soldiers are taught to think and work as a group; on the other, to act as quite practical innovators in crisis. They grow used to constant assessments and ratings. They get used, in other words, to being watched and reviewed at nearly all times, and so acquire the habit of discipline, self- criticism and self- improvement. Most of all, they gain—and hone—a set of values, starting with duty, honor, country.

The moment he arrived at West Point, Eisenhower later recalled, he was provided, despite being a few years older than many of his classmates, with a new set of parameters to adapt to “a feeling […] that the expression ‘The United States of America’ would now and henceforth mean something different than it ever had before. From here on it would be the nation I would be serving, not myself.