Character Makes the Man

Throughout its 126-year history, Kentucky Military Institute educated more than eleven thousand young men and boys. It was never the intention of the founder of the school, Colonel Robert P. T. Allen, or his successors to train soldiers. Although the daily life was patterned after the life of West Point cadets, the military discipline was intended to teach the young men the value of order and discipline in the conduct of their lives.

The goal of educating young men to live useful and productive lives would remain the primary goal of the school, even when it ceased to be a college and became a preparatory school in the twentieth century.

Although Character Makes the Man did not become the school motto until the early twentieth century, it would have been applicable throughout the school's history.