Castle Heights Military Academy - Yearbook (Lebanon, TN)

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AS a preliminary to an intelligent understanding of the military system at Castle Heights, it is essential that prospective patrons grasp one cardinal fact: The Military Department at Castle Heights is not in itsebf an end,' it is a means to an end. I t is here because experience has proved that under no other system can the boy be so successfully developed. As there are schools where the military activity is a poor thing, so there are schools where military demands crowd everything else to the wall. The one is as bad as the other. Military work at Castle Heights is confined to its own particular sphere. At the point where it reaches its maximum of actual value, it stops. I t does not encroach upon standards of scholarship or character. I t exists simply and solely because by means of it your boy can be better handled, better led, better taught, better brought to a realization ofthe whole man. x A Castle Heights, however, is a real military school. Although designed for younger boys, it is as military, in its way, as West Point is in its way. The play military school, in which a hoy merely wears a uniform, slouches through a few drills, comes down to reveille half dressed, and addresses his superior familiarly, throws away whatever advantages the civilian school might possess, and gains none of the advantages inherent in the military system. Every normal hoy has a hearty contempt for the second-rate, the sham, the imitationg and he ought to have. ' There is no imitation about the Military Department of Castle Heights. Not one Castle Heights boy in five hundred becomes, or thinks of becoming, a professional soldier. The Academy lays no emphasis on developing professional soldiers. But a Castle Heights cadet could become an efficient officer in the service of his country very quickly if he were needed-if a national emergency arose. He has had all the ground-work. He has actually had detailed instruction and practical experience that thousands of American officers who went to France had to go without. The Government did not have time to give it to them. 63

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And the Castle Heights boy learns all this during the time when the boy in the high school and the civilian school is doing nothing. First, what are the requisites of a soldier? He must be physically fit, mentally alert, and morally straight. Unless he has these qualifications, it is impossible that he should be a good soldier. The high school and the civilian school undertake to develop your boy mentally--to some degree morally. The real military school must work day in and day our for the three- fold development of spirit, mind, body. The idealism that it teaches directs the trained mind to function usefully through the developed body. ln all the world there is no school plan that can compare with it. Most effective, for example, is its method of inculcating initiative and leadership. The cadet's first test comes when he goes on sentinel duty. Definite responsibilities are laid on him. For the time being, even though he be only fourteen years old, he occupies a position where not even the Commandant may approach him except formally and with the utmost respect. He halts all who would cross his post, permitting none to pass until they have satisfied his challenge. The Senior Cap- tain is of less consequence, on that post and at that time, than he. When emergencies arise, he handles them. The preservation of discipline there is his, and his alone, unless he chooses to summon the Corporal of the Guard, which he will not do unless he must. He is tremendously alert: he thinks quicklyg he acts promptly. He is obliged to. Next he is likely to become a corporal in his company. In this capacity he finds himself in charge of seven men. They constitute his Squad. He can make it or break it. Again there is demanded of him every ounce of leadership he has in him. If he has not this quality, he ITIUSY develop it, or he cannot hope to hold his office. Some hundreds of other cadets want it. A little later he may find hlmself a line Sergeant, with added responsibilities, or a top sergeant, with still more on his shoulders. They must be big and broad to hold lt UP' for the l30Y is becoming a man, with a man's outlook. Eventually, after he has proved himself, the chevrons of a commissioned officer are within his grasp. Here as first or second lieutenant he is in joint charge with two other officers of some ,seventy-five men, or, as captain, their acknowledged leader. They 65