The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1898-03-12
The Military Academy.

Editor Inteliigencer.
LEXINGTON, Mo-, March 10, '9S.
The Wentworth Military Academy
brings from II outside world and pOuTS
down in Lexington $4,000 per annum.
This year pupils have been turned away
for want OF room, and it is proposed to
our citizens TO raise $4,000 with which
TO enlarge the buildings and equipment
of the Academy, that it may bring 49,
0OO per aunum to spend in our midst.
It would seem that sos 900 annual
dividend Oh $4,000 of invested capital
is good tinancierinR. 1t is folly to deny
that everybody, according to the amount
Of business he does, or If he has no
business, and is a property owner, then
according to the amoun of property he
owns, is proportionately benefited by
this money. No business man in Lex
ingtOn denies that his business feels at
once the opening or the shutting down
Of the coal mines, and no property
owner will say that any permanent in
crease or decrease in our mining inter
ests would not straightway affect prop
erty values.
Many towns In the state have given
enormous sums to have some of the
UNCONVENTIONAL colleges located in their
midst. None have ever complained Of
the investment. Yet the following
statistics Of one of the largest of these
SNiAOti' AAAGSy SLA ~ ave
Number enrolled, including locals. 27j
The presidents estimate of the low
est expense of each .......... $lll
The presidents estimate of the high
est expense of each .. ...... -.... 2ll
Counting none Of these as local
pupils, and counting all Of them at the
presidents highest estimated espense,
we find the total to be S5S, OPS.
The writer ha been informed that
I Ahn @--- - -LE@ 49, 49,
mentioned is situated gave originally
$4,000 to secure its location, and has
been subscribing to its support every
year since.
The citizens of this place subscribed
last year 81 900 for the celebration of
the Battle of Lexington. 1t is gener-
ously proposed to do this every year.
But here is an institution which brings
more visitors to this city annually-vis-
itors of means, parents and relatives of
cadets-than the celebration of the
battle has ever done; an institution
which now brings from the outside
world and expends here 81 900 per week,
and which purposes TO bring and eX-
pend here 81 500 per week.
And this Is not all. The catalogues
and other printed matter Of the Acad-
envy, telling much of the good that Is to
be said of Lexington and Lafayette
county, go abundantly into ten or
fifteen states and territories; go into
the homes of the influential and the
well-to-do. Intelligent carry
the same news wherever they go AT
least a score of grown young men re-
turn to their homes from here every
year, prepared to bear testimony to
whatever of agricultural, mineral 0 T
business resources We have to adyan-
tage.
Wentworth Academy belongs in q
peculiar sense to the people of Lexing-
ton. 1t cannot be bought or sold. 1t
cannot be moved away by vote of any
church assembly. It stands in n posi-
ton to meet and fulfill the demands for
military instruction for all this western
country, if enlarged and improved rs
the occasion requires.
AT present Missouri has no state mill
tary school. An army officer detailed
by the wal department gives military
instruction to j volunteer corps Mt the
State University. But there Is no bar
racks life, no routine military discipline.
The unsatisfactoriness of this is appar-
ent. When the state comes to change
the channel through which it should
supply this want, let US see to it that we
have here an unRnswerable claim upon
the states recognition.
The writer Of this has not long been q
citizen of Lexington. and has never
subscribed to the support of its schools,
but he intends to do 80 this time q
hereafter. &. NJ.