Lawrenceville School - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Lawrenceville, NJ)

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Lam L l- h-J B V wrM-u L x The School

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FDDM THE HEAD MASTER T has been a relief to this annual cone tributor that the editors have relieved his embarrassment by uprooting and giving decent burial t0 the ominous caption HHead MHStCIJS MessageH Which was calculated to give him the cold shakes when it appeared in what is curiously known as Iicold print. Since Spring, however, is a likely time for brooding as well as for other more romantic preoccupations, he has the disquieting sus- picion that the new caption IIFrom the Head Mastern suggests that the less said, the better. But since his audience is cap- tive his moral compunctions are negligible. For him the Fifth Form year of the Class of 1958 has been an edifying experie ence. He cannot recall a year in which at Fifth Form tea there has been so much frustrating and enlightening talk; or, ine deed, so much talk. Never before has he been the recipient of so much authoritative information which had not previously been at his disposal. At Various times and often in singularly unguarded moments he has submitted himself to conversation such gifted polemists as the Messrs. Basso, Cartwright, Hillier, Hornblow7 Kuper, Locke, Mankiewicz, Rawlins. and VVOIIZ son. With an arrogance which he now ret2 ognizes as unconscionable he had looked on himself as occupying the role of evangel with called to disseminate sweet reason among the intellectually henighted. He has re eentIy discovered that these gentlemen, whether they know it or not, are by tem- perament and conviction disciples of Don Miguel de Unamuno, who, in his Tragic Sense of Life, aHirms that IIIife . . trarationaI and opposed to clear thinkingfi I believe they would like the book. It is pleasant to remember two innoxa tions which your Form has introduced: . is com the Forensic Society, which presented puh Iic playareadings to interested audiences as well as a faculty-student discussion of Hamlet, in which the name of Shake- speare tended to become confused at times with that 01. a man named Iones, who has since then died also; and the direction OI two of the Periwig Cluhs winter term pro, gram of three oneeact plays by Rich. Locke and David Rawlins, with extraordinarily skillful consequences. I am moved to recollect certain unfore gettable moments when the Head Masterk grossly inadequate views on questions of public concern evoked the admonishment Of the editoriaI writers of 7726 anrcncc; to wit, the case OI: the Hill raIIy tit rained anywayy, the case of the phantom board- walk, and the case of the Jigger Shop boy- cottethe last an occasion on which he permitted himself, without squiCient knowL edge 01: the facts, to deliver an excessively maladroit address in chapel, the effect of which was precisely the opposite of what he had intended. Even the exalted and relatively sacroe sanct Hesh 01: Fifth Formers proved yuIe nerabIe to the inroads of the Asian Hi1. which, during a ten-day period in Octobert sent 6805 OI: the student body to bed in the Infirmary, the various Houses, and wherever else a body could be decorously laid. A generally recordemakiner class may derive a certain wry satisfaction from the knowledge that it swelled the ranks of the biggesteif not, as few pretended, the best epidemic in the history 01: the School. I am mindful7 of course, of the achievee ments of the Fifth Form on School teams and in the welter 0f noneathletic activities; and I have the impression, which I think is based on grounds more substantial than N inctecn