Belmont Hill School - Belmont Hill School Yearbook (Belmont, MA)

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EDITORIAL AFTERTHOUGI-ITS The school year 1954-1955 has seen a great many things unfold that we think have helped to raise the standard of the Belmont Hill School a notch or two. The Class of 1955 in the pages of this book, reviews the past school year and its events, but many intangible things cannot possibly be included in the regular sections of a Yearbook. Sp geg this page be the Brag Sheet of the Class o ' . Belmont Hill athletics took a sudden turn this year. Many will agree that this turn was for the better and that the whole school profited from it. The Graduating Class-that's us-didn't have any real athletes to compare with some in the past few years. More often than not, a team mem- ber's prowess consisted mostly of determination The football team, for example, had little to work with, and yet with a couple of small breaks at the right time they could have produced a winning season rather than one that came out 2-3-1. The soccer team also showed fight, and though not studded with stars, they too could have improved their record easily. The basketball team was a shining standout in what was billed as a meager sports year, and compiled the finest record of any basketball team in the School's history, miss- ing a league championship by only a single point. The hockey team also had lots to show for their building yearn and under Mr. Walworth gained a tie for the league championship with Middlesex, a team they had beat soundly at mid-season, 5-0. The baseball season was miserable as the record runs, but again, with better than the worst of breaks, they would have or could have won easily four or five more games than they did. The crew did very well, and after sweeping St. Marks, they went on to win the Consolation Prize in their climax event at Quinsigamond. The tennis team, with the best record of all the spring sports, 5-6, showed the same spirit as the other teams. Of ALL these teams it can be said that they fought hard and scrapped all the way. They may have played lousy ball at times but never for lack of trying- in fact, sometimes because they tried too hard. The Sixth Form has shown this spirit in all its attitudes throughout the school year. They made every effort to cooperate with the rest of the stu- dent body and with the faculty, and did much, we think, to propagate the same spirit throughout the School. It is this contribution, perhaps more than any other, that constitutes our legacy to the School. Our Form voted in the advisee system and on the whole we know it has done some positive good. It can and should be improved in the future but the idea, at least, has been proven sound. In the same meeting at which the advisee system was approved, the Honor System was turned down. The Class of '55, which has been called the best scholastic class in the School's history, chose to refuse this system on the basis of the well-known past failures of the system, the fact that no honor system yet proposed offers advantages that suffi- ciently override its disadvantages, and the serious doubt that any of these systems could properly be called an Honor system in the first place. Our class actually built a stone wall this year! We think this is quite an accomplishment in view of the failure of all previous graduating classes to make more than a feeble start on this undertaking. It may also be worth noting that this class- though no richer than other classes before it-has never run a dance in the red, but has instead al- ways made at least a tiny profit. Furthermore, enough effort was finally mustered to insure that the publication of this yearbook not lose money for the school this year. These two statistics, while not vital in themselves, are still a measure of the spirit the class was able to arouse among its own and the responsive spirit it could evoke from its fellow students. The record shows that the class was indeed studious, and that it produced a greater number of honors graduates than any previous Belmont Hill class. The year had its humorous times too, Foggo's sauntering to the fore to receive his ,I.V. hockey numerals to a standing ovation from the attendant chapel throng, and ,Iohn I'Iurd's glori- ous slouch in the Glee Club's front row. All these incidents and many more contributed to the year 1955. The SEXTANT was improved and spawned a fine new column, Short Sightings, and turned up a wealth of fine writers on its staff. The PANEL continued to rank high as the Class of '55 won it another medalist rating. The Student Council accomplished more and better things with its toy drive and its 100 percent charity drive, as Well as in carrying on a Disciplinary Committee which could point to its proven success and progress in many boys. Our Panels are now collecting dust on the posts in the dining room-somebody's cleared up after the Prom, and the trophies are back at school, so the Class of 1955 can say at last We made it! Our grateful thanks go to the younger formers who backed up our efforts this year, may they have as good luck.

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much cheating going on and that for the good of the school the honor system ought to be abolished. After several furious and unorganized debates and as many more polls, ballots, and showings of hands, it was finally decided to forget the whole thing. Thus passed the quaint custom of taking exams at Homestead. When the class President lost his little brown book and made an announcement about it at lunch, the whole school started a careful search. It was later discovered that someone had just hidden it as another, albeit a sneaky, joke on gullible lovable Togneri. While on the subject of Togneri, it is well to record here that this was the first year of the Sixth Form Advisor system inaugurated by him and Mr. Funk. General opinion holds that the system was a great success. Several other hot issues have come up in the past year and some were dealt with adequately. There was, for example, the debate over whether to have Mr. Keller's traditional talks on the mem- bers of the Sixth Form or not. It is too bad, at least from the point of view of source material for this History, that these were rejected as too stupid, a waste of time, and completely in- ane. Among the questions which have not been satisfactorily answered is: What was Hugh Mac- Mahon sloshing through the marshes near Logan Airport on New Year's Eve for? His answer, looking for a friend seemed a little incomplete and leaves the matter somewhat up in the air. A far reachin principle was involved in the answer to: Why did Bill Griswold nearly drown when Mr. Mattladge put a piece of cardboard over a glass of water and then turned it upside down over Bill's head? All the Newtons and Einsteins of the Phys- ics classes are still stumped and suggestions have been made about submitting the problem to the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Another stickler, Who put the sign saying 'Town of Lin- coln Water Supply' in the lagoon, was finally an- swered but no names will be mentioned here in or- der to protect the guilty. Many projects were inaugurated or continued by the industrious Class of '55. After many years of fretting and fuming over the necessity of start- ing some kind of conservation project at Belmont Hill, Mr. Downes' dearest wish came true. After 10 cents had been collected from everyone in the class, Denny Corcoran was appointed head of the committee to buy the tree. The resulting sugar maple was planted alongside the Lower School driveway, a spot which later proved to be very vulnerable as it has been hit by several cars since. In spite of an adhesive bandage around its mid- section, which does hold it up, careful study this spring produced no evidence of even a single bud. A qualified T.D. CTree Doctorj has pronounced its chances for next year as hopeless. Another project involving Mr. Downes is the production of the monstrosities called Creative Art. Many people moaned over the prize winner, Dave Sumner's Leg Segments in a Garden, say- ing that they could have done just as well if they too had the raw material to work with. An attempt early in the year to get suggestions for a second Class Project, in addition to the stone wall, Hubbed out when there was only one volunteer to chop down trees in the swamp. The stone wall, however, under the leadership of Animal and Pear Shape progressed famously, although we did not quite succeed in carrying it all the way around the school as was originally planned. We did, never- theless, finish as much of the wall as any previous Class had, and much more than several did. As we leave the Sixth Form now, and become alumni, let us briefly remember such innovations as fall tennis, charm bracelets for the football- soccer dance, J on Shaw's motor scooter, Dick Fogg's awakening when he received his hockey numerals, Math VI classes in which marks were drawn from a hat, the chopping of panels in Cole's Hole, the pills and bricks in Dave Taber's locker, various automobile accidents Calways a favorite subject for conversationj including the burning oil truck which everyone went to see, and last but by no means least, the round of parties after the Prom which found several potted boys playing tennis at four o'clock in the morning and Foggo drinking beer out of a bugle. When the party making finally died down and each new graduate went his way, three or four of the loyal literates remained behind to carry on and finally to finish the copy for this handsome Year- book. In spite of sweet rumors to the contrary, only 30 out of the 136 pages had been completed by commencement time. It took more than two solid weeks of working from nine in the morning till eleven at night on the part of the two top edi- tors, not to mention the in-and-out assistance of a few others, to clear up the myriad tasks still re- maining. Pictures? Wow! Has this yearbook got pictures CD-more, we believe, than any other in the long line of Yearbooks to issue from Belmont Hill. And, alas, it wasn't until we had pasted up montages till the rubber cement was coming out our ears that we discovered that this task had been farmed out to a commercial studio in previous years. It seems to all the members of the Class of '55, who without much surprise, awe, or regretvwalked up to receive their diplomas on Commencement day, that the total amount of money they had shelled out for various contributions during the year must run into three-figure numbers. At the request of several boys, a Certified Public Ac- countant is calculating the exact amount, but un- fortunately the results cannot be printed here as the job is expected to take several months to complete. CP.S. Class Agent Eaton is prepared to accept from anyone the first contribution to the Alumni Fund by a member of the Class of '55.j And now, without further ado, let us say good- bye to Belmont Hill, confer our praises and grati- tude on the School as a whole rather than on cer- tain individuals, knowing that without everyone, the School could not function, and then move that this history come to an end. Anyone second the motion?

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