Standing Ready

Across America in the wake of World War I, college football entered a time of prominence, often referred to as a “Golden Era.” This same period saw the origins of many beloved traditions of Texas A&M: cadets became known as “Aggies;” the “Aggie War Hymn” penned by J. V. “Pinky” Wilson ’21 was officially adopted; maroon and white emerged as the sanctioned college colors. And in 1922, a lanky Dallas athlete named E. King Gill stepped up and agreed to be the “12th Man” at a football game that may have been the greatest ever played. Today, the 12th Man tradition is one of the most cherished parts of A&M heritage. The 1922 Dixie Classic, precursor to today’s Cotton Bowl, featured a contest between two championship coaches with strong ties to Texas A&M: D. X. Bible, who led the Aggies from 1916 to 1928, and Centre College’s “Uncle Charlie” Moran, who coached at A&M from 1909 to 1914. Historian John A. Adams Jr. ’73 uncovers enthralling details: the pregame conversation between Bible and E. King Gill that helped place Gill in uniform on the sidelines, the wedding celebration involving the Centre College team at the historic Adolphus Hotel the morning before the game, the diagram of the play the Aggies used to score the game-winning touchdown, and so much more. Sports fans and historians, especially those interested in the early days of American football, will savor the rich, previously unknown details surrounding this storied contest between two renowned coaches and their steadfast squads.

In order to reach the wider public, theosophical literature should be couched in simple, unpretentious language, that anyone can understand. If you thirst after spiritual truths, you should first learn how to read between the lines. More! Your should not believe what your read or heard, regardless of the authority of your teachers, but to believe only when the writing or saying is corroborated by your own reason and consciousness. Thenceforth, act accordingly and abundantly. The true disciple is humble and self-effacing, unnoticed by the man in the street. What may seem to others as mere ethics, to the true disciple such precepts of duty are instructions for boundless devotion to humanity at large and all creatures, whether great and small. Seek Darkness with the lamp of Faith. Faith is an aspiration and a desire. Hope and Charity are her sisters. True Faith can only blossom from the realisation that All is One. Let us then approach the Majesty of Truth for her own sake, and not to confirm our preconceptions and speculations of what Truth might be. Stand ready to abandon all you have learned with the head, so that you can tell apart the real from the false, the everlasting from the everfleeting. Head-learning is false learning, and as perishable as the body. Soul-Wisdom alone is true knowledge, immortal and eternal. As the disciple continues deciphering the arcane doctrine, at every new period of his inner life a new self rises within him. He is now increasingly permeated with Divine Intelligence, and immersed in Spiritual Light that radiates from his own Logos. When the last sheath of the heart bursts open there is a silence, the silence of the mystic death; and from that death springs up the first tender growth of Life triumphant in Spirit. The Brotherhood of Man has been forged in the fires of unspeakable anguish, and riveted by a dauntless purpose called forth by its mighty fiat.

For German townsmen, life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was characterized by a culture of arms, with urban citizenry representing the armed power of the state. This book investigates how men were socialized to the martial ethic from all sides, and how masculine identity was confirmed with blades and guns.