CULVER ACADEMY GROWS RAPIDLY - 1916

CULVER ACADEMY GROWS RAPIDLY

From 100 Students in 1896 to 1,710 in 1916 Is One of Remarkable Advancements of Hoosier Military School.

VARIETY OF WORK OFFERED

In 1896, Culver Military Academy claimed a faculty of nine members and gave instruction to 100 boys. Last year Culver registered a faculty of 103 memberg and gave instruction to 1,710 boys. This phenomenal increase in number of students is due, in large measure, to the extension work of the school; that is, to the variety of subjects in which instruction is given.

Course of Instruction.

The typical military academy is an institution in which for nine months in the year instruction is given to its students along the same lines as that given in our public high schools, coupled, of course, with a certain amount of military and gymnastic drill.

Culver has this nine months' academic course in connection especially organized gymnastic and remedial calisthenic drills and also instruction according to classes to the cadets of the academy in accessory military work such as first aid and hospital drills, wireless and feld telegraphy, signaling by semaphore, heliograph, engineering work in bridge building, road making, trench construction and map drawing, to say nothing of scouting, field maneuvering and practical camp life.

Culver has enrolled in its regular school 520 studenta. Summer life at Culver is entirely as active as the winter school life and, in addition, has somewhat more of glamor to it. During the months of July and August Culver extends its field of instruction to a naval school, a cavalry school and a school of woodcraft for boys from 10 to 14.

The cadets in the first named department spend the summer in the snappy white duck uniforms of a "middy," heaving an oar and hoisting a sail in man-of-war cutters on the lake. There are accommodations for 600 cadets in the summer naval school and last summer every single place was taken several months in advance of the opening of the term. Spend Summer in Camp.

The boys of the cavalry school, which has for its nucleus the famous Black Horse troop, spend their summer in a healthy open-air camp, learning the ways and means of keeping their horses under them with appropriate dignity. The boys in the woodcraft school also spend the summer in a camp situated in an attractive grove on one corner of the grounds. Dillon allace, the famous Labrador explorer, is the chief of this department, and is ably assisted by various men versed in scoutcraft, who know more ways than one of keeping the boys employed.

Culver does not confine itself absolutely to these departments. For several years it has conducted a normal school of instruction for scoutmasters, wherein men who are interested in organizing scout troops in their home towns may receive instruction in method of procedure and gain ideas which will be of valuable assistance to them. This department for scoutmasters has the last years brought many men of prominence connected with the Y. M. C. A. throughout the country to the academy. Assists High Schools. designation and the like.

Federal Department.

Within the past year Culver has become e headquarters for a new department of Federal origin.

This is the reserve officers' training corps a department which has been instituted in a number of schools and colleges throughout the country giving satisfactory military work.

Three new buildings are under construetion, the arsenal which is practically completed, the new riding hall and the swimming pool.

The old riding hall will be rededicated soon AB a recreation hall.

The new cavalry building will be in the same general style of architecture as the other fireproof academy buildings. The dimensions of the building are 165 by 317 feet, and it is larger than any similar building in the country, except that of the National Academy at West Point. The main room measures 105 by 317 feet.

The large amount of government property issued the academy, requiring adequate housing facilities, necessitated the erection of an arsenal. It will accommodate readily the field artillery and its accessories, as well as the cutters of the Summer Naval School.

New Swimming.

The ground floor space of twenty partments will be occupied by the lowing: Four three-inch field eight caissons, two supply wagons, naval field pieces, one ambulance wagon for portable wireless outfit.

Culver's new swimming pool will ably be the largest in the country.

Its size of 120 by sixty feet exceeds times that of the average pool. In capacity the pool resembles smalllake - in figures it comes to 307,000 It is indeed a Maxinkuckee annex. cause of its softness and freedom mineral content only lake water used. It will receive the following of discipline before being admitted the pool; First it will be sent a general filter on the outside building. It will then be run two filters in the pool building, which it will pass into a heating ber, then through ultra- violet rays, will insure its absolute purification.

Campus Modern Eden.

Alumni in returning to the school arb impressed first of all by the way in which nature has been brought to co-operate with human designs and turn the old campus into a flowering Eden. There are no exotic or extravagant effects aimed at.

There is no suggestion of Italian or Japanese garden to be found on the campus.

Chiefly local shrubs, trees and flowers have been planted, but planted in such a way as to blend into the natural topography and give the effect of harmony and repose. The cool, vine covered buildings, curving paths, rose terraces, flower borders and vistas of blue lake through breaks in the shrubbery make the Culver grounds a source of neverending interest and joy.

In addition to the elaborate parking system there will be improved skiing and toboggan slides, a sixteen-pit rifle range, new parade and drill field. a new artillery and cavalry drill field adjacent, and new athletic fields, providing numerous gridirons, baseball diamonds, basket ball and tennis courts.

Hoosiers who do not know this institution within their gate will do well to heed the advice, "See Indiana First,' before traveling outside of the fold. -- Indianapolis Star Dec 30, 1916