Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-28
BY MARGARET B. DOWNING.

The Secretary of War, Mr.. James W.
Good, and the chief of staff, Gen.
Charles p Summerall, will on May l
Journey to Wayne, Pa, to assist at the
breaking of ground for the Valley
Forge Military Academy. Wayne,
named in honor of the dashing Gen.
Anthony Wayne of revolutionary fame,
adioins the sacred ground of Valley
Forge, and the new military school
will cover the ancestral acres where
the gallant cavalry leader was born.
A Colonial village will be constructed
to house the various edif1ceS needed for
an educational project for which more
than Sl,000.000 has been raised by
subscription in the keystone State. In
dependence Hall and the old City Hall,
so familiar in Philadelphia, will rise
In miniature to serve as Offices and
combined library and museum The
Chew mansion at Germantown. near
which the battle bearing that title was
fought, will serve as the commandments
home, while the modest little domicile
OF Betsy Ross will be reproduced as
news and tobacco stand. Scholastic
buildings proper will follow well known
historic types in Pennsylvania erected
before or soon after TITS William
Penn House and Carpenters Hall, much
enlarged, will serve as dormitories. This
military academy, founded about 10
years ago at the historic Devon Inn. is a
patriotic idea to train future citizens
and perhaps soldiers in the heroic ideals
which inspired Washington and his
.Army at Valley Forge. Maj. Milton
Q. Baker of Philadelphia has been
chosen to be the first commandment.
He is a member of the board of man.
ayers and governors, which includes
Pennsylvania most eminent financiers
and business men. The building opera
Tons will presumably require three
years.
President Hoover, although better
known in many ways than as a mu-
sician or patron of that divine art. is
nevertheless deeply, interested in the
national contest of school bands to be
held May 17-l8 at Iowa City in his
native State. In certain sections of the
republic school band contests divert at
tention even from the oratorical COM
petitions which now are in progress all
over the United States, because organ
1zing Maynard youth into musical units
seems to answer the querulous queS-
ton of how to control it. Although
barely three years old this organization
numbers nearly $4,000 members, and
the contest in Iowa City will be the
third national event From its incep-
ton the school movement has flourished
In Iowa, and 1t has been entirely due
to the earnest cooperation of the public
school authorities that the bands have
this year added orchestras to their ac-
tivities. One of the judges OF the two
events will be John Philip Sousa, dean
OF American bandmasters. These iuve-
nile musicians are chosen entirely from
nigh schools, and this coming year the
organization will take on an interna-
tional aspect in that Canadian high
school students have been invited to
the fourth contest to be held in 1880.
X X X X
the former Vice President has since
leaving Washington been restored to
his military rank and all the British
papers commenting on his appointment
ss Ambassador of the United States to
the Court CT st. James call him Gen.
Charles @. Dawes. What seems to con-
centrate interest in the new envoy's
amazing personality is that he is the
lineal descendant in the eleventh gen.
Grafton of that sturdy patriot, William
Dawes, who was the companion of Paul
Revere on his momentous ride. In fact,
Gen. Dawes has received several timely
hints from friends to brush I'D on that
little incident which Longfellow, in i'm
mortalizing Revere did not notice at
all, and no doubt he will do so II time
permits. Britons keenly relish such
historic sequences as the coming of the