JACKSON MILITARY ACADEMY STILL CASTS SHADOW

Nearly a century after its closing, the Jackson Military Academy hovers like a ghost in the annals of Jackson history.

Only a handful of local historians have studied the institution, which thrived for a quarter of a century, and many of them have disagreed on specific details about the school.

While the image produced by the name Jackson Military Academy today may be that of the boys' academy in the movie "Taps," the academy was not an institution to train officers. The military discipline was in place for just that -- discipline.

"We have military training, not to make soldiers out of our students," said the bulletin from the school's final session, 1908-1909, "but for the advantages derived in school government and the benefits to each student."

Some minor disagreement seems to exist as to exactly where the main academy building stood. Tradition has had it that it stood on the exact spot of the 1921 Jackson High School building -- today's "A" building. The academy building, it has been said, was razed and the high school building built on the exact spot. Newspaper accounts in 1920 and 1921, though, indicate that students were attending class -- apparently in the old building -- as the new one was being constructed. They also note, though, that the old building's bricks were given to contractor Linus Penzel as part of the construction deal. Whether this was merely to take place after the construction of the new school is not certain.

Hopes of at least playing some basketball games during the 1920-21 season in the new cafeteria-gymnasium fizzled. The spring commencements provided the first actual use of the new building in May 1921.

It would appear, instead, that the main academy building must have stood where the new math and science wing, and perhaps, the agriculture and music building stand today. One photo clearly shows the Jackson Cemetery across what is now Missouri Street.

The 1908 bulletin described the building as "a handsome, steam-heated brick structure, three stories high, perched on the crest of a lovely knoll overlooking the city of Jackson."

According to the bulletin, a dormitory had been attached to the original building in recent years, allowing 50 cadets to be boarded.

"The sleeping rooms are well aired and large, and each furnished with an iron bedstead, a mattress, washstand, bowl and pitcher, two chairs, a table and a mirror."

Interestingly, surviving photos of the interior of cadet rooms show an unusually feminine decorating touch, including Victorian lace and pillows depicting young women.

Thanks to state Sen. Robert Burell Oliver, the academy became an official post of the National Guards of Missouri. This included an annual inspection and made the president and superintendent National Guard colonels and the rest of the professors officers.

The cadets also got to go on a military "encampment," although it sounds more like a modern Boy Scout outing. While stressing that "regular army discipline is carried out," the bulletin noted that time for hunting and fishing and "all the thousand and one things a boy likes to do when he is in the open."

Entering students could expect a curriculum of American literature, Virgil's "Aeneid," plane trigonometry, physics or chemistry and the "Iliad" in their first term. Second term featured English history, more of the "Aeneid" and "Iliad," spherical trigonometry and physics or chemistry.

Later years included the works of Cicero and Anabasis, French, German or Spanish languages, geometry, Greek and Latin, history, grammar and composition, algebra and botany.

Col. T.W. Birmingham, meanwhile, was in charge of the Elocutionary Department, stressing that "vocal culture of the voice in speech is of the same vital importance as voice development in song." This course of instruction covered three years of two terms each, two lessons a week and was a requirement for graduation.

The academy shut down in May 1909, and the fine old brick building (Some sources seem to indicate that it was built in 1839.) was bought by the local school district. It served as Jackson High School until the 1921 structure was completed.

Surviving photos give interesting, if ambiguous glimpses into the lives of students. The fine arts division of the academy included girls, and both genders apparently had organized sports teams. One would guess that fraternizing was taboo -- or at least highly regulated.

Although its history is now just a shadow, cast from the hilltop onto the old cemetery, Jackson Military Academy still looms large in the city's history.