Allen High School - People Yearbook (Allentown, PA)

Page 16 text:

A naturalist, Mr. Hamm is planning to complete his already extensive catalogue of the plant and insect life of Lehigh County, to add to his amazing collection of the mosses of this area, and to go on with his work in microscopic botany. Among his treasured experiences are the summers he spent in Maine and in the Adirondacks,when at the appointment of Gifford Pinchot he helped on the survey of a l25,000-acre tract, made by the United States Bureau of Forestry for the Great Northern Paper Company. And one of his small personal satisfactions has been his culture of flowers. Waldheim Sunshine and Wahldeim Glory are two of the several dahlias he has originated. These are listed in current seed catalogues. His interests are many. He is a lover of books, and of beauty in books. The 2500 volumes in his personal library have been chosen both for their wealth of expression and for their exquisite bookcraft. Chief among them are the biographies of the sound men who have led or influenced some definite period in American history. And there are books and books of science, books and books recording in word and picture the work of the naturalists. There are rare copies of the old classics, there are thoughtful books analyzing our own times. But there are few novels, Mr. Hamm is impatient of books that have no substance.

Page 15 text:

lgortrait C09 The class of l943, the thirtieth to be graduated during the principalship of Daniel W. Hamm, feels that it is fitting and proper to present here both a record and a composite portrait of the man to whom this Comus is affectionately dedicated, the man under whose leadership the school has established, and for thirty years maintained a reputation for sound training and admirable character. Daniel W. Hamm, the son of Mary A. Werner and Beniamin K. Hamm, was born February l3, 1877, in Albany Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania. Four years later the family moved to Allentown, where the boy got his readin', writin', and 'rithmetic in the fifth ward school and in the high school, then in the Wolfe Building at Ninth and Chew Streets. Long hours of study at Muhlenberg College made firm a belief in organization of work and in the discipline of mind and spirit that Mr. Hamm has continued to cherish for himself and has imprinted upon all the educational and administrative leadership with which he has been entrusted. A teacher in the Stevens school in i9Oi, its principal in l904, elected to teach history and political and commercial geography in the high school in l9l0, and made principal in l9l3 this tells the story of his progress. But it doesn't tell the whole story. To see the tall, impeccably groomed, lithe figure take a stairway two steps at a time is to discard all notion of an unbreakable pedagogical dignity. To watch him read, face alight, some fine passage lovingly chosen from a treasured book, is to glimpse his rare appreciation of the beautiful in expression. To see him touch a splendid blossom brought for his appraisal by some faculty gardner is to sense the knowledge and the wonder of the naturalist. To see him at tender ease with his family, his gracious wife and their children, Evelyn and Frederick, both with established homes of their own, and the two grandchildren, Sandra, less than a year old, and Billy, five, is to know him at his happiest.

Page 17 text:

There's a stamp collection, too, that is still going on. He delights in it, works at it, admits to about forty-odd thousand varieties, but adds that rarities are not for school teachers. The philatelists who have seen it insist that it is a great collection. His thought, A teacher must be inter- ested in his subiect and in his students. lf that interest isn't there, he might iust as well not be teaching, has guided his own work as a teacher. With the same deep warmth that has animated his many interests, he has instilled the forces of character in his stu- dents. He has insisted on high standards of scholarship, but his true interest is more than schooling,---it is the foundation of education. But, commented a man from town who happened along while this record was in the making, you don't really know Dan Hamm unless you have gone fishing with him. lt seems that many a faculty man, many a man from the town, recalls fishing trips --Ambrose Light, Barnegat Bay, Angle- sea, off Cape May, tuna fishing at Beach Haven, at Lake Rideau in Canada, and fresh water fishing all around this section of the state. l'll bring you a good picture, said his fisherman crony, and that adds another face to the composite portrait. The Masonic orders of town could add more to the picture. There is no need to review for them the high place Daniel Hamm has attained, or the many honors they have accorded him.