Kent School - Kent Yearbook (Kent, CT)

Page 13 text:

 Thirty minutes after the end of breakfast, the bell for the beginning of the morning job period is rung, and again the campus is aswarm with the scurrying figures of the tardy brethren. During the period following the bell we all engage in some part of the job of setting the School in order for the coming day. The most secluded parts of the campus arc, for this brief period alone, the scene of bustling activity, as the Sixth Form takes care to see that all jobs arc done in such a way as to make the School’s appearance the object of considerable rightful pride. After the ten-minute period when this titanic labor is so willingly and efficiently accomplished, there is the familiar job assembly, where the whole School gathers while the Sixth Form brings in its reports on the activities of the job period and the announcements of the morning arc made. Immediately after we arc dismissed, we adjourn to our classrooms, rooms and study halls for the com- STOP-OFF BETWEEN CLASSES mcnccmcnt of the real work of the morning, our studies. The morning’s schedule is rigorous enough to keep anyone who wishes it busy from the beginning of job assembly until the lunch hour: there are four classes in the morning, and during the periods when boys do not have classes there is always plenty to keep them occupied, with assignments for the classes in the afternoon and those of the next day, outside reading assignments, term essays, and the inevitable letters home and to the objects of considerable misguided emotion to be prepared. Those boys in the lower forms whose averages are over 80 arc allowed the Sixth Form privilege of studying in their rooms or in the Library, while those who have not managed to measure up to this standard spend their free periods in one of the four large study' halls. As the bell for the end of the fourth forty-five minute period of classes rings, the occupants of classrooms and study halls again pour out for the fifteen-minute period of rest which precedes the noon meal. There is a mass rush on the mail room, and craning heads peer into the tiny space where the harassed crew works amid querulous demands for faster service. The first few minutes of the noon meal arc distinguished by the contrast between the happy faces of those whose search for mail has been successful and the long countenances of those who must wait another mail for that longed-for missive. GATHERING OF THE HOPEFUL

Page 12 text:

THE FIVE MINUTE STAMPEDE Zlie first lap In a day arranged like ours, the morning is by far the longest part and that part when more of the important activities of the day take place than any other. The rising bell, that instrument of torture peculiar to our campus, is rung at five minutes before seven, and although it supposedly signals the end of the night’s rest, it is only rarely that any old boy lets it disturb his dreams. On Form Communion day there is always a small number of brave souls who manage to crawl out of bed in time to attend, but on the other six days of the Kent week the rising bell might just as well not be rung. At 7:25 another and more urgent signal sounds, the five-minute bell for breakfast. Since the penalty for those unfortunates who fail to make the morning meal in time is an envigorating jaunt around the triangle”, this bell creates an instant and, to the uninitiated eye, amazing effect. The hallways arc at once astir with the feverish activity of the fastest dressing in the history of the human race, and the campus is dotted with hobbling figures trying to focus sleep-fogged eyes on a stubborn necktie or smoothing an incorrigible cowlick as they race against the dreaded last bell. After the delicious breakfast which invariably delights the gourmets of the student body, there is usually a mass influx of the wounded heroes of the athletic fields, sufferers of all sorts of breaks and sprains in THE MAJOR WORK OF THE DAY the process of upholding the honor of Kent, and those less glorious sufferers whose symptoms arc those of sniffles, sore throats, and lesser afflictions to the haven of healing, mercy, and good cheer which is located in three small but well-equipped rooms in the basement of the infirmary where the Kent versions of the angels of mercy hold their daily court. The infirmary’s basement is honored by the daily presence of the distinctly unusual clinic held by the professional medicine and comedy team of Greiner and Freeman. While their ministrations arc healing the bodies and spirits of our ailing confreres, the rest of us busy ourselves with the less noble process of making our beds and tidying the rooms which arc usually so disreputable at that hour. 8

Page 14 text:

following morning devotions . . . 10