Culver Military Academy - Roll Call Yearbook (Culver, IN)

Page 22 text:

Where does one look for individualism in a military society? A fad disguises out¬ ward appearances and makes individuality difficult to discern. To find it among uniformed cadets is almost impossible. If a man won’t keep pace with his companions, it isn’t always because he hears a different drummer — sometimes he’s just out of step. B.A.s buck the system in their pursuit of non-conformity. They flock to indifference or total inaction in their avoidance of conformity. Constructive individuality takes more enthusiasm than most non-conformists possess. You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits. Ralph Waldo Emerson 18 Reactions to Conformity

Page 24 text:

The objects that decorate a room are one means of self-expression. A plebe’s cubicle could hardly be called “decorated”, the ordinary new cadet subsists with a wardrobe and a desk, a bed, a chair, and little else. Gradually, each room acquires posters, a record player, necessary and frivolous trinkets, until the walls and furniture begin to reflect the personality of the occupant. The first classman’s room is an entity that grows out of several years of accumu¬ lation and rearrangement. Something as diverse as the clutter found in cadet living quarters is difficult to define as correct or in¬ appropriate. But categorized it was when the Com¬ mandant and a committee of cadets attempted to establish a happy medium between comfortable living, and military orderliness. Mugs, trophies, and figurines re¬ ceived exact limitations on their size and number per cadet. Despite these restric¬ tions, untold numbers of “personal articles’’ had to be stowed in the trunk room for Government Inspection. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration, as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries. Thomas Carlyle 20 Reactions to Decorations