John Shearer: Remembering Baylor’s And McCallie’s Military Programs 100 Years After Beginnings

  • Sunday, September 10, 2017

Baylor and McCallie schools have been independent college preparatory schools since they were founded in 1893 and 1905, respectively.

 

But during those years, the schools have changed somewhat in their offerings, while also holding on to their original core values and aims. Baylor, for example, was coed in both its early and later history, while each school also had a military curriculum that has long since vanished.           

 

However, the latter has come to the forefront again – at least mathematically and in terms of anniversaries – because the curricula at both schools began 100 years ago this year.

The reason, of course, was America’s entry into World War I.

 

While many other factors have been forgotten, those initial days are preserved in large part through detailed textual histories put out by both schools.

 

A check in a couple of histories – McCallie’s “When We Came to the Ridge” by George Hazard Jr. and Baylor’s “It Never Rains After Three O’clock” by James Hitt – reveals some insight.

 

Mr. Hazard’s book said that McCallie decided to form a military curriculum in the spring of 1917, about the time the United States declared war on Germany. He quoted headmasters Spencer McCallie Sr. and Park McCallie as saying the reason was popular demand.

 

The 1917 McCallie yearbook, the “Pennant,” also gave some insight. It stated, “The McCallie faculty and the McCallie boys have anticipated their country’s possible need for them, and are now engaged in daily military drill. Each day an hour is spent in acquainting the boys with military drill and discipline.”

 

The captain, or top cadet officer, of the 157 boy students that first year was Malone Johnson. Instructor and commandant R.F. Thomason led the taller and older boys, while math and science teacher Woodfin Rampley oversaw the younger students.

 

No uniforms or rifles were used that first year, while during the 1917-18 year, the two companies carried rifles and wore olive drab uniforms, drill-sergeant hats (like Sgt. Carter in “Gomer Pyle”) and wore boots.

 

The annual said the students might not have looked organized at the first of school in the fall of 1917, but by the end of the year they were two “crack” companies.

 

Interestingly, the early McCallie military students had an opportunity to practice some real-life military action – sort of. At some point either at the end of the war or shortly after it ended, the McCallie students took part in looking along Missionary Ridge for a German soldier who had escaped from his prison camp at Fort Oglethorpe.

 

Baylor adopted the military curriculum in the fall of 1917, but its program had apparently been under discussion since Baylor had relocated from Palmetto Street downtown to its current campus in 1915, after the war in Europe had begun.

 

Founder John Roy Baylor was actually not a strong advocate of military training, just as he had not initially been an advocate of organized athletics as part of a serious academic school’s focus. He was also apparently against American involvement in the war.

 

But the school still made a collective decision to start the program in the fall of 1917. It had hired Virginia Military Academy graduate Capt. Frank Zea to head the program.

 

Alex Guerry, who by then had been taking on a lot of the day-to-day administrative leadership work of the school, actually went off to the war, as did other faculty and alumni from both Baylor and McCallie.

 

According to Mr. Hitt’s book, some Baylor students had enjoyed previous military school experience. The cadet major, or top student officer, that first year was William Coughlan.

 

An article in the Chattanooga Times from May 1918 reported on the final drill of the Baylor battalion for the school year, saying that 100 visitors turned out for it. The article said the program ended when the retreat order was sounded by the bugler.

 

At the time, public schools like Chattanooga High also had a military or ROTC program for students, and drill competitions would be held at Warner Park.

 

Whether Baylor and McCallie pondered in 1917 how long they might stick with the military after the war is apparently not known. But both schools found that the curriculum suited their aims and goals of helping mold, prepare and discipline young men, so they stuck with the programs.

 

“It was found that certain advantages came from this course, namely a sense of loyalty and patriotic pride in obedience, which could be observed in no better way,” Mr. Hazard quoted Park McCallie as saying.

 

McCallie adopted an ROTC schedule advised by Gen. John J. Pershing, the leader of American forces during World War I. The famous general, who was once stationed at Chickamauga during the Spanish-American War at the turn of the 20th century, even inspected the McCallie boys in February 1920, Mr. Hazard wrote.

 

Mr. Rampley had gone on to head the McCallie military program beginning in 1918.

 

Despite the somewhat quick decisions to add a military curriculum at each school, the tradition would stay at both places into the early 1970s and become a key characteristic of each school’s image for multiple generations.

 

It would also become a main source of pride for both schools. It would lead to such traditions as road marches for McCallie, with crossing guards taking their posts on Kyle Street, and the school’s traditional Mother’s Day parade beginning in 1935.

 

Countless Baylor students would march down the Baylor hill from the quadrangle and to Rike Field for drill training and special programs.

 

Among those who wore the uniforms and took part in all this training were John McCall of McCallie School and Bill McMahan of Baylor.

 

“It was a pretty big part of the daily life,” recalled Mr. McCall, a longtime Spanish teacher and coach, who is also the archivist at McCallie and was a student there from 1955-61 during the heyday of the military. “We wore a uniform each day.”

 

Mr. McCall, who went on to enlist in the Army after his McCallie days, has also written a McCallie history book titled “On This Day in McCallie’s History” and includes several pages related to the military.

 

Mr. McMahan, who graduated from Baylor in 1967 during the last years of the curriculum there and has taught and coached at his alma mater since 1974, said it was simply an accepted way of life for those attending the school.

 

“It didn’t matter if you enjoyed it, that’s what it was,” he said with a laugh. “But it didn’t bother me. You wore the same thing every day, and even if you weren’t on campus, if you went to church or downtown, you were supposed to be in uniform.”

 

Both recalled demerits as a way the two schools kept students in line and instilled discipline, although at McCallie the punishment was often walking laps around the football field, while at Baylor, it usually resulted in an extended stay in study hall.

 

Mr. McMahan said that when he arrived at Baylor as a sophomore, he was unaware of all the rules and learned some of them the hard way. For example, he did not realize he was not supposed to chew gum while wearing his uniform, and was quickly given two hours.

 

And when he reported for study hall directed by Sgt. Joe Key, he was trying to find his seat, so he asked someone what row he was on. “Sgt. Key said, ‘Son, are you talking. Sit down. You’ve got an hour,’ ” Mr. McMahan recalled with a laugh.

 

Mr. McCall remembered getting some demerits as well as a younger student trying to get away with wearing white socks, instead of the darker ones required with the usual navy blue trousers, light blue shirts and black shoes.

 

“Demerits resulted in having to walk some laps on a Saturday afternoon,” he said.

 

The main parts of the military curriculum at each school were the afternoon drills and periodic public parades and marches, such as the Armed Forces Day Parade. Mr. McCall said McCallie had a special drill team that did not only precise movements while marching, but also tricks.

 

“There was a Queen Anne salute, where you would flip your rifle, twirl it in the air and catch it coming down in the kneeling position and salute across your chest with the rifle,” he said. “You had to get that right because it could be messy if you didn’t.”

 

Mr. McMahan said that Baylor during the 1960s would go out and drill on Rike Field every afternoon at the end of the academic day before any athletic team practices, and then the students would have Wednesdayinspection on the quad at the top of the hill.

 

He also recalled the federal inspection every May, when they would march through the gate of Rike Field for assembly. Some of the students would have trouble standing for a long time in the hot gray wool uniforms and would pass out, and one of the tough military leaders would simply pick them up and carry them out, he recalled with a chuckle.

 

He also said some hazing existed as part of the military curriculum, but it was of the non-physical variety and most of it was minor. He said the seventh- or eighth-graders might have to shine upperclassmen’s shoes or go back and get extra bowls of food during the family-style dining time in the cafeteria. As a result, they often had to hustle to get a chance to eat as well.

 

“That was just accepted,” Mr. McMahan said.

 

However, he said that if they were somewhere like the Armed Forces Parade and someone from a public school might try to tease a younger Baylor student, the older ones would be there to protect him.

 

As the Vietnam War came along and debates arose as to whether it was a just war, some began to question the role of the military at schools like Baylor and McCallie as well.

 

“A new generation of men came along who really didn’t buy into that,” said Mr. McCall. “It hurt the ability to recruit students and boarding students in particular.”

 

As a result, McCallie decided to drop the military curriculum at the end of the 1969-70 school year, while Baylor followed one year later.

 

Although the change did mark the end of an era, both schools seemed to move beyond that era with steps proverbially as quick as when they marched in their military uniforms.

 

“The positive thing was you had an extra period of time freed up to add some academic offering,” said Mr. McCall. “And enrollment picked up.”

 

Baylor, meanwhile, had the enthusiastic headmaster Herb Barks Jr. leading it at the beginning of the post-military era, and a new era of school spirit developed, helped in part by some successful football seasons beginning in the early 1970s.

 

In 1985, Mr. Barks was a leader in turning Baylor into a coed school, changing Baylor’s collective outward appearance, if not character, yet again.

 

A few reminders of the old days still exist at both schools, however, including dress codes.

 

And as Mr. McCall pointed out, a number of McCallie students have gone on to attend West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy years after the military curriculum was dropped. The same has been true for Baylor.

 

Those achievements would likely make the graduates of Baylor and McCallie when they were military schools proud.

 

It is all part of the rich histories of both schools, which over the years have tried to teach excellence, achievement and service in a variety of ways, including through marching and drill.

 

*     *     *

 

To listen to longtime McCallie School teacher and alumnus John McCall discuss his memories of the military days, click here.


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