Boston Latin School - Liber Actorum Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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TEAi:} CCCI 5 VALEDICTORy In September of 1879 I set forth witli my fatlier to a hazard of new fortunes. I almost never got to tlie fortunes; though, foolislily impetuous, I made immediate test ol the hazard. When the train was pulling into the old station on Kneeland Street, I could not w ' ait tiff it stopped, but swung off wlien my car was passing a close brick w ' all. Crow ' ded between the step and tfie wall, I revolved till I emerged between the cars. My father, on the platform behind, reached for my collar and pulled me up beside him. 1 can still see that strained and staring face above mine; the exact wording of the terse oration tfiat smote my ears I have quite forgotten. Perliaps it is as well. Relations were strained as we made our way to the Latin School on Bedford Street and mounted to the dingy hall where some fifty boys were gathered. There, on the end of a long wooden bench, sitting beside a hand.some boy whom you know as Uncle Billy Norton, I first looked on the stern face of Dr. Merrill, then Headmaster. 1 could not know that he was to be my dear friend, and director of my professional life. For he sent me to my first position in New ' Jersey; and on my return, all but forty years ago, he welcomed me into the Latin School faculty, then less than one-quarter of its present membership. I am not going to tell you how primitive were our times; of tlie slow little street-cars drawn by two horses, with a third waiting to be hooked on when hills impended; of the straw that didn’t keep our feet warm, and the stove near one end that roasted a few pass- engers and left the rest cold; of the dearth of telephones and the lack of motor cars. For myself, I walked most days from South Boston to Warren Avenue and home again after school, and I was none the worse for it. Your Register of today is so much larger and handsomer and wittier than our little four-page sheet that I mention ours only because it gave me once a bad two minutes. I think I was a rather poor editor. But one month I toiled mightily on a composition meant to be funny. It was a bit of macaronic verse, a jumble of indifferent English and worse Latin. I am glad the com posing of the thing gave me an evening or two of pure delight, for the sequel was agonizing. The Headmaster was the only censor; we had no teacher adviser. I submitted the proof with unsuppressed pride. From a recitation I was sum- moned to the Presence. Happily I raced to the office. Now it just happened that one line of the Latin of my macaronic was susceptible of two translations; one harmless, the other suggestive of evil. I had seen only the innocent version ; naturally the eye of authority saw only the other. I can still hear the thunder of the voice demanding what I meant by it”. My macaronic did not appear; I returned to my room slowly; joy and I were strangers for the rest of that day. Our Register may have been a small thing, but among class songs ours was unique. I here salute William Augustine Leahy of South Boston, who wrote it. For it was in four languages; English, Greek, Latin, and French. The choruses were tailored to match. A tuneful quartette sang the verses; we proletarians swelled the polyglot choruses. If we had no chemistry, we did have botany and physiology. Of the botany I re- member little; one laboratory hour in physiology keeps a place in memory. Each student found before him that day a pan in which a large lobster held pride of place. These crus- taceans we were in.structed to dissect. That was a memorable, and a messy, period. Our history was the ancient story of Greece and Rome. We had to learn it pretty well by heart, and it came hard. One day the going was exceptionally tough; the giants were falling all about; but I, who had worked late and hard the night before — and again

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To WILLIAM PRIDE HENDERSON who has hccn and I.s ' the emhodimrnt of that qaatitu called Latiu School Sjiirit” ; adin has sc7 ' ccd as counsellor, ( aide, and friend to Latin School bo) s for forti i eai ' s. To “RILL” TKACIIKR CI.ASSMATE FRIEND wc, the Class of lO-lH, atfcctionatcl and respect fully dedicate this record of our activities.

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6 I A I I N St n t t L ill the niuniin — .iw.iitcJ w itli LonfiJence my dunce to .sparkle. The chance came, in tlie lonn ol a loni; parai;raph ol nearly a pa»e. W ' ord lor word 1 spoke it in my proudest style, omittiiiL;, alas! one small ckiu.se in the middle. I ' or this performance, which I then thought, and still think, not perlect hut commendable, 1 received just plain zero, I ' his mark, nearly obsolete now, was known in our ancient argot as a plum”. Let us rejoice together, ye .scholars of a kindlier day, that such barbarities have cjuite vanished from the earth. Or have they? A great English scholar visited our .school and heard recitations in many chis.ses. Alter we had paid him every honor and, I suspect, bored him stiff, we asked him what he thought of us and our work. I have never forgotten the very words he .spoke so long ago. I no ' iced,” .said he, great fluency in incorrect translation.” It was not what he had hoped he would say; inUns LU h ici nit W ' hen we came to our new home on Warren Avenue, then, they told u.s, the linest school building in the world, we were too lew to occupy all the rooms. So when we be- came .seniors our chess got permission to lock ourselves in a vacant room at recess with a set of bo.xing-gloves. W ' e did not eijual the exploits ol Vergil ' s Dares and Entellus, but ihegloses did .iccjuire new rich stains. Among those that helped to color the mitts ' was a hiture mayor of our city, known to us as kitzy”; a plucky contender was the lad who is now Protestant Bishop of Michigan; a U. S. f ' .ongressman-to-be gave and took hard knocks. And we were the better friends for it all. I should like to know, by the way, the ■ill time record for .speedy consumption of lunch. Something like dash figures sufficed even in our spacious times. We used to share parts of our lunches, brought from home. A wedge of ' X ' ashington pie, a daily par. of the contents of my own box, was considered a .special delicacy. A small bit was all I ever salvaged for my.self. Our Siege de Piiris brings to my mind its editor, Frank Freeborn, scholar and ath- lete. He it was that lightly vaulted through an open wdndow ' on Bedford Street, on lawful capture intent. Two stories below lay the yard, inhospit.rbly paved with brick. But I have told this .story too often; so here I will leave him, in mid air. his blonde hair bright in the June sunlight. Where better could I leave him? Perh.aps the following tale, of which I should not have thought but for a notice in the paper this morning, may explain why inattention is the cardinal sin in Room 30,s. Fhe ilay before the annual parade in my junior year the Headmaster announced in the several rooms that there must be no cheering next day on the C ommon. I had vast rccspect tor Dr. Merrill; he stood near me while making his pronouncement: I was day-dreaming and he.ird no word of what he said. So the next day. c ' hen he passed near the company in which I was a non-com”, 1 yielded to a surge of enthusia.sm and yelled, Three cheers for Dr. Merrill!” And were they given! The heat ot my ardor fell to the absolute zero when the austere face under the silk hat turned coldly on me. You ' ll remember this” came cpiietly from the set mouth. Dazed, stricken, knowing not my sin, I was cheerfully enlightened by those who had cheered the loudest. The .set]uel was shrouded in unknown fate till the next September. The fir.st cla.ss voted the ro.ster in those days; there was al- ways soine log-rolling, and we knew pretty well what each one was to get. I was slated captain of C!ompany B. When the Headma,stcr announced the offices, he told us that our choice for one of the captains could not be ratified because the nominee had been guilty of flagrant disobedience. One of my friends got the appointment; I resigned myself to make what 1 might of what was left of a blighted life. The very day the roster was