. . . The Board of Supervisors has adopted every means in its power, by the publication and circulation of circulars, newspaper articles, individual correspondence, etc., to disseminate information in regard to the institution, through the State. . . It will take some time to make it generally known, but the Board feels every confidence that when the people of the state shall become aware of the character of the able, upright, enlightened, patriotic, and in every respect most admirably qualified corps of professors, which it has had the good fortune to combine in an Academic Board for this institution; and with the order, regularity, method, neatness, sobriety, habits of study ensured by the military system of government, any harshness, in which it will be the constant study and aim of each and every instructor to temper with parental care and kindness; that then the institution will be filled to its utmost capacity with the high spirited and emulous youth of the state. The Board from its first organization, was deeply impressed with the necessity, and with an earnest anxiety to find some means of avoiding, for this school, the fate of every other previous effort on the part of the State of Louisiana to establish educational institutions, in which it has expended a million and a half of dollars, every one of which has ended in total failure. The Board has looked at all the various systems of education and of school government, and has come to the almost unanimous conclusion that the safest system for us to adopt, and that most likely to ensure success, is the military system of government, combined with a certain degree of military instruction, similar to the State Military School at Lexington, in the State of Virginia.
The Board is of opinion that the greatest obstacle in the way of the success of southern schools is found in the inherent propensity of southern youth to resist authority and control from any quarter with which they have no sympathy. This difficulty is admirably overcome by the military system in which the young men are themselves made an essential element in the governing power. But to do this effectually, and to give this school, and this experiment with it, a full and fair trial, it is indispensable that the General Assembly should lend the full force and aid of its influence, and the Board, therefore, earnestly and urgently recommends to, and asks of the General Assembly to make this a military school by law, changing its style and title from the long and inconvenient one of “The Seminary of Learning of the State of Louisiana,” to the shorter, more convenient, and more expressive one of “The Louisiana Military Academy,” assigning to the professors military rank and title, as in the Virginia school, where it is found to give them a prestige and influence with the young men which they could not otherwise enjoy. In the words of our circular: . . .
The
military system is not necessarily designed to make soldiers, but it teaches
subordination to the laws and constituted authorities of the state; it
exercises a wise and wholesome restraint over young men, at a period of their
life when restraint is necessary and proper; and also teaches them the use of
arms, and the science of organization, a knowledge of great importance to every
civilized government. Moreover, it does not withdraw their minds from study,
but affords them healthful exercise during hours otherwise devoted to listless
or mischievous idleness.
SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 134-5
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