New York Military Academy - Shrapnel Yearbook (Cornwall on Hudson, NY)

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FIRST OFFICERS - 1889 and school spirit and for a time a general order had to be issued banning all fraternities. Few light notes were struck during the year, but one fwhen viewed from the perspective of 46 yearsj seems worthy of remark. The Quarterly, of December, 1893, quotes the new eligibility rules for college football and editorializes: This rule seems a good one. It puts a stop to the practice of taking a good man from one of the smaller colleges and paying his expenses .... The only objection is this: These rules take effect immediately. Pennsyl- vania has gotten together a very strong team . . . Candi is scheduled to play Princeton and Yale. She claims that as these dates were made before this rule was considered, she should be allowed to play the team organized before this rule went into effect. But Princeton, Yale and Wesleyan are against her and she will probably give in. But the end is not yet. Another touch of humor broke the tempo of school .--.-..-...,.....1...,...............,........-..-u,..e.,L.., ...w.k-..- aefmfu.. ..... ,. ...-...L.............,......... days when Colonel Wright was harassed by the famous for infamous, Crow Incident. A spirited discussion in cadet barracks one night, concerning the ability or inability of crows to talk, resulted in the organization of an expedi- tion to put the matter to the test. Plans called for the cap- ture of a crow, subsequent slitting of its tongue, and then a course in elementary English. The expedition was all too successful. Five young crows were captured in a nest and brought back to the Academy. The problem of finding a home for them was settled by their installation in the upper part of the private stable maintained by Colonel Wright for his own horses and car- riage, although the cadets in charge of their feathered friends neglected, through some oversight, to obtain per- mission first. An infrequent visitor to the stable, Baldy, as the ...........,-.. -.-A-.-is . M..-.-.. -.........:...-L.-. ,f.:--,v,....s.. .. . .... .W..m,m-. .i. Page 'Twelve t

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-' THE FIRST FACULTY-1889 Mr. Russell Colonel Wright Captain Hill Mr. Donald Mr. Green Closer and closer to the building came the company! The front ranks also became jittery awaiting the word of command. Faculty officers and spectators began to shift nervously from one foot to the other. Zittell gradually be- came the color of a ripe tomato as he struggled to bring his vocal apparatus under control. Then his stentorian but frenzied voice crashed into the strained silence: For God's sake, stop! he howled. fZittell, now prominent in the real estate business, still howls when he recalls that paradej. The Quarterly, cadet publication, had been issued dur- ing the latter months of the first school year, but did not Mr. Schultz Mr. Vincent become firmly rooted until the school year of 1891-92. An active editorial board increased its size and added new features, as well as issuing the little periodical at more frequent intervals. The following year the Academy met and successfully weathered its first crisis. Friction had developed between Colonel Wright, the principalg Rev. C. Wyckoff, and the commandant, Lieutenant Edwin S. Curtis. This was further aggravated by the fact that Wyckoff and Curtis were not in complete agreement on methods of conducting the school. This unfortunate situation had its effect on discipline Page Eleven

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.4 ' 1-9 , fL,4:, 11 I . f . if superintendent was known to every member of the corps, did not invade the crows' domain until they had been there for several days. Since the birds had not left the building in that time, the sight which greeted the good Colonel's eyes was conducive neither to his good temper nor to any subsequent softness in his dealings with the culprits. Nor, as a matter of fact, did the earnest young scien- tists ever Gnd out whether their special crows could be trained to carry on a conversation in any language. Before the opening of the following school year, Colo- nel Wright decided that the very life of the Academy de- pended upon a drastic change in the executive department, due to differences that existed between himself and some of the staff. Ile resigned all active control of school affairs, and, in 1894, was succeeded as superintendent by Colonel Sebastian C. jones. Sebastian Chatham jones, graduate of Cornell Univer- sity as a Civil Engineer, had been headmaster of Cayuga Lake Military Academy, and division engineer of the Louisville-Nashville Railroad. His service at New York Military Academy was distinguished in every respect: and by his tireless efforts he made the school one of the best of its kind. Colonel jones was President of the National Associa- tion of Military Schools and Colleges from 1916 to 1918, and at the time of the World Wlar was often called, in an advisory capacity, to Washington. The new superintendent, assisted by Captain Louis Gulick, Marine Corps, as commandant and Benjamin L. Wilson as headmaster, found himself facing a stupendous task. Reverberations of the difficulties of the previous year had extended beyond the walls of the Academy and there were but forty-eight cadets in attendance when school opened in September, 1894. That this number increased to seventy before the end of the year was a testimonial to the acumen of Colonel Jones and his staff. FIRST BASEBALL SQUAD - 1889 Page Tlrirl et II