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

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I FACULTY ..... SENIORS ...... ACTIVITIES ..... ATHLETICS ..... ORGANIZATIONS CONTENTS

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HEADMASTER'S MESSAGE None of us knows what is ahead. The important thing is to use today wisely and well, and face tomorrow eagerly and cheerfully and with the certainty that we shall be equal to what it brings. During the past four or six years you have used your today wisely and well. You had the good sense to enroll in a school that was and is famed for its rugged course of study and for its insistence upon hard work and successful accomplishment. You did not choose the easier wayg you deliberately registered in a school that tried and tested you as you will never be tried and tested again. To face tomorrow eagerly and cheerfully is not going to be easy. There are those who say we live in an Age of Fearg and that the future is filled with peril to our Country and to us as in- dividuals. On the international horizon is the scourge of Communismg on the national level is the fear of a coming business recession or something worse. Yet, it must always be remembered that every age has had its prophets of doom. In every era men have warned of disasters to comeg but the stout-hearted always faced the tomorrow eagerly and cheerfully and with the certainty that they would be equal to what it brought. You, too, will be equal to whatever the future has in store for you and for your country. I need not remind you that all the boys who entered this school with you are not graduating when you graduate. Some dropped out because of poor healthg others because they did not have the will to study, and some because they did not have the intellect required to do our work. They were tried and found wanting. You have been tried and found worthy. Never forget that fact. In the days ahead you will encounter periods of discouragement and frustration. There will be times when you will be tempted to settle for something less than the ultimate success for which you had planned. On such occasions, recall your days at the Latin School. If you could persevere and succeed here, there is no problem too difficult to be attacked and solved in the years to come. I cannot emphasize this point too strongly. Never again, in your whole life, will you be tested as you have been tested here. Occasionally, boys or their parents ask me for the secret of success. Would that I knew the infallible answer to the question! When pressed for a reply, I state that the secret of success is to be ready for opportunity when it comes. Need I elaborate on how one is to be ready for opportunity? We anticipate that all you boys will enter college next fall, and that after college you will plan to enter one of the professional schools. Your opportunities will be many, but do not neglect to prepare yourselves to meet them on the most favorable terms. As you and l are about to leave the Latin School and to enter upon new careers, may I urge you always to make God a part of your lives and your careers. Constantly keep in mind the Biblical quotation: - Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it.

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FOREWORD From its colonial beginning as a few small settlements on the cold, Indian-infested shore of the Atlantic, the United States has been guided along the road of might and prosperity by men whose courageous and unselfish thoughts and actions have kept back the destructive forces that have beset her. No small con- tributor to the ranks of these men has been our Alma Mater, for, since her founding in 1635, as the nation's first public school, Boston Latin School has given to the country scores of leaders who have served on the battlefields, in the legislatures, in the halls of justice, and in the schools and hospitals. As history has emerged from one period into the next, our alumni have ever displayed the noble qualities which are even now, three hundred years later, associated with the graduates of Latin School. As we record the history of the Class of 1954 in the Liber Aclorum, we shall show how, in each period of the history of our country, the men of B.L.S. have met and faced the national crises. We shall illustrate the unselfish devotion of these men to their country, their world, and their God. We of the graduating class express the hope and the prayer that in some future time the deeds performed by the men of our ranks may be looked upon with the same pride with which we regard the accomplishments of the graduates whose names adorn these pages.