Lawrenceville School - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Lawrenceville, NJ)

Page 13 text:

H EAD MASTEIQ 'S MESSA6 If s A MATTER of dull fact, to which school teachers are allegedly attracted as moths to a flame, annals are a register or record of the events of a yearf, In practice, however, the word is commonly ascribed to those years only which seem to someone to be worthy of salute and celebration. It seems to me, in a benign and eupeptic inter- lude, that the Fifth Form year of the Class of 1954 is worthy of salute and celebration. It may even have been, as some of its members appear to be convinced, earth-shaking, though the question of precisely who shook what remains perhaps still not quite clear. At the opening Convocation I remember assailing your less than eager ears with gem after gem of seasoned wisdom, of which both the content and the purpose now escape me. But there were 602 young gentlemen in attendance-a captive audience of priceless worth. That afternoon the first Fifth Form tea was held. You have been an especially flavored coterie at Fifth Form tea this year. There have seldom been many of you present at once. You have exhibited a tendency to come late to tea and to stay late, cool toward the culinary entertainment prepared for your delight at adjacent school food dispensaries. Your conversation has been variously witty, gossipy, pedestrian, depressed, rumor-ridden-but always friendly. The Messrs. Schrade and Caldwell have commonly introduced the afternoonis activities. Mr. Cote's epicurean tastes, to all of which I heartily subscribe, have added dash to the goings-on. Mr. Schoettle has brought irrepressible good-humor to his self-imposed labor of going through all the food in sight as rapidly as possible. I have found pleasure in the com- pany of Ed Smith and Pete Railey, particularly since I have been able to tell them apart. Noel Marshall, certainly the best ambassador England has ever sent us, has been intelligent, perceptive, and entertaining in his animadversions on a strange society to which he was perhaps surprised to find himself remarkably in kinship. Of him, too, I shall remember with permanent satisfaction his performances in The Wz'n5l0w Boy and The Tempest-the most accomplished school-boy acting I have ever seen. At tea also I have been grateful for the patience and forbearance which Mr. Cilley has habitually extended toward the Head Master's intellectual deficiencies in the face of irrefutable logic. His editorial distinction I applaud. From his parochial preference for Washington salmon I reserve the privilege of dissent. Your class established a special place in our hearts by your touching and resounding gifts to Mrs. I-Ieely on the occasion of her fiftieth birthday, on which the whole school community united in a wonderful, unforgettable expression of affection and gratitude to her. We live in the hearts of our friends, and such tributes are our greatest treasure. You grieved with all of us at the death of two distinguished servants of the School, Karl S. Wells and Lansing W. Tosteving for the tale of a school is told in the lives of men and women who have held her to be of supreme importance. And the illness and retirement of David P. Smith you also have felt to be a rent in the Schoolis fabric. Your academic performance has been, of course, appalling. You have helped make extra days a probability rather than an obscure hope, and to those of you who feel Nine