The regulations prescribing the qualifications for appointment of cadet engineers fixed a higher average age by two years for cadet engineers entering the academy than was required by law for cadet midshipmen so entering. After completing the four-years course, cadet engineers were permanently detached from the academy, and were never required to return to that institution. They remained in active service at sea, or upon other duty, two or three years or longer, until vacancies occurred in the grade of assistant engineer, when they were ordered singly or in groups for examination for promotion, under the provisions of section 1392 of the Revised Statutes, before a board of engineer officers, which held its sessions at Philadelphia. The last two years of the academic course of cadet midshipmen were spent 'at sea in other than practice ships.' After four years at the academy they were temporarily detached from that institution by orders from the navy department, and were sent to sea singly or in squads. On shipboard they performed such active duties as were assigned to them. At the end of the two years, they were required to return and did return to the Naval Academy, where they were subjected to a 'final graduating examination' before the academic board. If successful at such examination, they received appointments as midshipmen, and were thereafter classified in the navy register as having 'graduated' at that date, and they were never so designated either in the navy register or elsewhere until after they had passed such examination at the end of the six-years course.
The provisions of the act of August 5, 1882, being the naval appropriation act, (22 St. 284, c. 391,) which apply to the case, are as follows: 'For the pay of the navy, for the active list, namely: * * * Sixty-nine chief engineers, one hundred past assistant engineers, thirty-five assistant engineers, seventy-three cadet engineers, (graduates,) * * * one hundred and two cadet engineers, one hundred and thirty cadet midshipmen, (not graduates;) in all four million forty-eight thousand three hundred dollars: provided, that hereafter there shall be no appointments of cadet midshipmen or cadet engineers at the Naval Academy, but in lieu thereof naval cadets shall be appointed from each congressional district and at large, as now provided by law for cadet midshipmen, and all the undergraduates at the Naval Academy shall hereafter be designated and called 'Naval Cadets.' And from those who successfully complete the six-years course, appointments shall hereafter be made as it is necessary to fill vacancies in the lower grades of the line and engineer corps of the navy and of the marine corps: And provided, further, that no greater number of appointments into these grades shall be made each year than shall equal the number of vacancies which has occurred in the same grades during the preceding year; and such appointments to be made from the graduates of the year, at the conclusion of their six-years course in the order of merit, as determined by the academic board of the Naval Academy, the assignment to the various corps to be made by the secretary of the navy upon the recommendation of the academic board. But nothing herein contained shall reduce the number of appointments from such graduates below ten in each year, nor deprive of such appointment any graduate who may complete the six-years course during the year eighteen hundred and eighty-two. And if there be a surplus of graduates, those who do not receive such appointment shall be given a certificate of graduation, an honorable discharge, and one year's sea pay, as now provided by law for cadet midshipmen. * * * That the pay of naval cadets shall be that now allowed by law to cadet midshipmen, and as much of the money hereby appropriated as may be necessary during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1883, shall be expended for that purpose. * * * That no officer now in the service shall be reduced in rank or deprived of his commission by reason of any provision of this act reducing the number of officers in the several staff corps: provided, that no further appointments of cadet engineers shall be made by the secretary of the navy under section three of the act of 1874.'