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1889-90
Catalog
showing announcement
of military discipline
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When school opened in the fall of 1889, it opened on a new
era for Austin College. The College having survived, barely, the rocky
decade of the 1880s, the Trustees decided to adopt a military program to
"promote Discipline and Physical Culture." The Trustees must have imagined
the allure that military uniforms and polished brass might hold for adventurous
young men, the better to increase enrollment with. And military discipline
seemed to offer an appealing means for disciplining both the student body
and spirit. |
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| College Hill was defined by the Faculty as embracing a block in each
direction from the college, and, for practical purposes, that described
cadet limits as well. The cadets were required to live within these venturing
beyond only with the expressed permission of the Faculty. This was not
as unreasonable as it sounded, since there was nothing much beyond the
college campus until one reached Sherman about a mile and a half away. |
"Old Main"
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Cadet
1889-90
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"A neat and attractive uniform is prescribed," declared
the college bulletin. Cadets were allowed to wear their own clothes until
their second term. After that they were required to wear only the college
uniform. The uniform was government standard, cadet gray, "made by a responsible
clothing house," and was deemed "very serviceable and economical." The
prescribed wardrobe included: "Dress coat cut after the West Point pattern,
worn with cadet collar; fatigue coat, close fitting sack, with six buttons,
pockets inside only; trousers with watch pocket only, inch and a quarter
wide black strip on outer seam, and cap of dark blue cloth." Only uniforms
made by the recognized clothing house and obtained by the Commandant were
acceptable. The fatigue suit-coat vest and trousers-cost $15 or $16 according
to size. The dress coat at $10, and cap "of best quality" at $1.50, were
considered a great bargain. Buttons were cast from a special die, designed
exclusively for Austin College. |
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| The uniform changed slightly from time to time. The novelty,
though, seemed to wear thin with the cadets after awhile. By spring of
1893, evidence of disenchantment began to appear. Seniors were not required
to wear uniforms on Commencement Sunday. In fall 1894, action by the board
of trustees to excuse seniors from wearing college uniforms raised a furor
among the faculty.
Appearing out of uniform was a punishable offense. As the years passed,
the cadets grew more daring in flaunting the rule and more creative in
their excuses for appearing out of uniform. Five cadets at once were called
before the faculty for appearing out of uniform and offered five different
excuses for appearing in citizen’s clothes, all highly suspect. |
Four cadets in 1894
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Roberts cap |
In an editorial in The Reveille
in 1896,
Stanley Roberts complained:
The new uniforms have arrived and the new boys are supremely
happy. The pattern is the same with the exception of the cap, and that
is where the trouble lies. It is rather hard on a fellow to be addressed
as a mule car driver or Pullman car porter, and some of our boys even complain
that they can’t stay around the depots at all without being expected to
take care of the valise or trunk of some traveler.
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| The 1889-90 catalog boasted that cadets were
supplied with the "latest pattern of the sharp military rifles and McKeever
accoutrements." The citizens of Sherman contributed "a magnificent regimental
flag." |
Cadets with rifles
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Barracks
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In October 1890, the trustees invested between
$800 and $1000 of the College’s endowment money in two dormitories. Four
of these wooden barracks were eventually erected, although one or two may
have served other purposes such as hospital barracks. |
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