The Wright Way

University Military School

UMS-Wright Preparatory School has its foundation in the life of one man—Julius Tutwiler Wright. His goal was an education for the whole person-mental, moral, and physical-intensively tailored to the needs of the individual student. His goal remains central today to the educational philosophy of UMS-Wright. Dr. Wright was the third generation of a family of educators who pioneered much needed improvements in Alabama education. The drive of this twenty-two year old was apparent on the first day of the opening of University Military School on October 2, 1893. That same day Mobile was hit by the most severe hurricane in the city's history, yet the doors opened in the small building at 559 Conti Street anyway. On that fateful day, the school opened with one teacher and twenty-five students, each paying eight dollars a month for tuition. Six years later, enrollment reached almost one hundred students, and for the thirty-eight years that he ran the school, Dr. Wright was the one person responsible for planning and decision-making. There was no board of trustees. It was his decision to set high standards for student behavior. He once said, "The purpose of this school is to produce character of the highest possible order." He felt that "regular and thorough military athletic exercise imparts cleanliness of physical life. The military discipline imparts dignity of character and sustained self-respect." Cadets marched in their gray uniforms to war bond rallies in Bienville Square during WWI and WWII and were a yearly fixture in the city's Armistice Day (now Veterans Day) celebration. Dr. Wright began each day by reading the boys a passage from the Bible followed by a ten- minute sermon. On Monday he would say, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." He was stern and tough, yet he firmly believed that every boy had the ability to succeed. William Pape took over the leadership of UMS after the death of Dr. Wright and led the school through the years of World War II. In 1943 when Pape died, his family turned over operation of the fifty-three year old school to a newly formed, non-profit corporation, the UMS Alumni and Parents Association, Inc. In 1953 the UMS board, having determined that expansion of the school facilities was necessary for school growth, set its sights on the property on North Mobile Street and undertook fundraising for construction of a $1.5 million school facility. The doors of this new building opened in 1956. Enrollment at UMS numbered over five hundred students in 1956. In 1962 the elementary school at UMS became the first elementary school in Alabama accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.