Main Building, Castle Heights Military Academy, Lebanon Tennessee ~ Curteich, Chicago. Production number 0B784-N dates this card to 1940. This is absolutely a fantastic example of this postcard: MINT.

Founded in 1902, in Lebanon, Tennessee, by L. W. P. Buchanan with the support of David E. Mitchell, Castle Heights Military Academy operated until 1986. The school admitted female students briefly during World War I and then from 1975 to 1986. Taps for Castle Heights came on an August afternoon in the summer of 1986 just as the proud old military academy prepared for its 85th school year. And she died with her head high as if she expected reveille to sound as usual the next day. But reveille did not sound the next day despite efforts of Lebanon business and professional people to pump life into her once again. Castle Heights was a tough old institution which had weathered other crises and had fought back to full strength.

In the final analysis, Castle Heights died because there was no longer a body of cadets large enough to sustain her. Year after year following the Vietnam War, which changed so many attitudes and altered so many institutions, school officials hoped and prayed for a halt in the declining enrollment; indeed, for any kind of an upward trend. But aside from an occasional flurry, increases in enrollment did not come. And so, Castle Heights ran its course, and the time came for taps .... the final taps. There had been many casualties among the ranks of military schools prior to the demise of Castle Heights. There will be many more. Education in this country is on a different track, and the future of military schools at the secondary level is, at best, hazy. Several factors are responsible for a weak response at the market place, including escalating tuition, the proliferation of private day schools, and the reluctance of teenagers to leave home to attend boarding school. Another factor, perhaps as important as the above mentioned ones, focuses on home discipline in which children make the decisions, especially in the matter of being away from home and friends to attend school.

Add to these factors the tremendous overhead of operating a boarding school. Salaries, utilities, maintenance of ancient buildings, transportation, food and administration become more costly with each passing year. And so, the heyday of boarding schools in general and military schools in particular is long over, and this is sad. These schools have meant so much to so many.