Castle School - Drawbridge Yearbook (Tarrytown, NY)

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:il- THEDRAWBRIDGE Nineteen-Twenty places greeting the newcomers. With the growing needs of the school the buildings have been expand- ed. First the small gymnasium with music-rooms and infirmary above was erected, then East Court with its assembly-room, class-rooms, studio, offices and larger infirmaryf Soon we had outgrown our gymnasium and West Court rose to supply the need. Dormitories were placed above the ample gymnas- ium andthe fully equipped science laboratories were safely placed on top of all where chemical fumes from the tyro's experiments went harmlessly off amongithe clouds and tree tops instead of mingling with the French classes as in the olden days when the science rooms were in the basement of South Court. Our next achievement was the Gothic dining hall. Watch the family of one hundred and eighty or ninety dining in that spacious room and compare it with the days when seventy girls dined just as mer- rily but less comfortable in what is now Miss Mas- on's study. Qur last addition was Sunnyview. When the little boys deserted 'Lower I-lackley and took their snow-shoeing, coasting, tennis, baseball, laughter and fun beyond our sight and hearing and left that fine building empty and forlorn, Nliss Mason yielded to the incessant clamor of the many girls knocking at our doors-and to the lure of that empty build- ing-and in September Nineteen Nineteen added it to the Castle holdings, rechristened it appropriately afhd in three weeks had it filled with girls and run- ning in order as though it had been one of our cot- tages for years. ' iSunnyview is so obviously intended to be ours! Just a narrow street separates the campuses. The stately group of beaches and elms in the lower corner of the Sunnyview lawn throw their morning shadows over our East Court windows, while the dogwood trees waving their white branches in May and flaunting red banners in October are just our nearest and dearest neighbors. Will your mind go along with mine for a few moments while we study the evolution of the school- room? Back in those winter days of eighteen nine- ty-five two rooms on the ground Hoor of the Cottage, No. 28 and No. 29, having broad double doors be- tween, served excellently as an assembly room. Though no current topics were given'l in those days still much good work was done and that handful of girls are looking back, we doubt not, to the same pranks, the same jokes, the same grind, that the girls of today will remember in the years to come. We outgrew that school-room and moved our desks and equipment the next year into the Annex', and occupied what is now the Classification Roomfl That building had not been ours the year previous, but had stood empty and envious as the merry life surged around its neighbor, lrving Cottage. We soon outgrew thesequarters, as you can easily guess, and our next move took us into what is now the Library. Here we were happy and studious for -sev- eral years until the stately assembly room of today helduout its welcome to us and we treked in, just to repeat our usual -process-fill it to overflowing and yearn for larger quarters. 1 During the first three years of our occupancy of the Castle, Miss Mason rented the place but it was soon evident' that if she wished to control it and shape it to her needs she must own it, and so on one memorable lNlarch day the bargain was complet- ed and our principal, single-handed and alone, brave- ly undertook the stupendous task of shouldering the great financial responsibility. The success of the undertaking is attested by the growth of the plant, as l have enumerated above. Other improvements were a hall for the domestic helpers, a central heat- ing plant, a garden, our picturesque and loved 'fOpen Air Chapel, our hockey field, many new tennis courts, running track, many beautiful new trees and shrubs and a greatly enlarged lawn. ln the twenty-five years of the Castle's life, more than twelve hundred girls have passed through its portals and are scattered throughout the world. Many girls, perhaps, may have nearly forgotten the

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.fl ' lar zsforzmf Sfhafdz gf 7726 Crzsffe Chosen carefully from many attractrve srtes of fered rn many states as the most desrrable place to establrsh the school of her dreams lVIrss lVlasorr rn the summer of 1895 a quarter of a century ago moved her Lares and Penates from Nledra lenn sylvanra to the Castle at Tarrytown and lard the foundatron of thrs the School of our love and dero tron whrch rs a monument already to her rndefmirg able work and her wondrous vrsron Ideally srtuated on the brow of thrs beautrful hrll our romantrc Castle wrth rts prcturesque rsy cox ered walls rts stately lawns and broad porch command rng an unsurpassed vrew of the Hudson Rrver from the broad Tappan Lee up through Haverstr 1 r B y to the blue drmness of the l-Irghlands has uecrr rn numberless cases the lure that has brought the ffrrl from her drstant home to be a member of our house hold So rt held Mrss Mason rn that summer or Q5 and settled the questron of where the School should be located that was destrned to mtl c her name famous not only throughout the length and breadth of our own land but rn many countrres across the seas A school had been establrshed here a few years be fore by Mrs Theodore lrvrng whose husband was a cousrn of 'Washrngton lrvrng Her xery thrrv ng school known as St ohn s was mox ed from New York to thrs vrllage and a career of unprecedented success was cut short by the untrmely death of Mrs lrrrng after three years at the Castle She eretted durrng those years a burldrng Sunshrne Cottage now rn her memory known as lrvrng Cottwe In the autumn of Q5 a small handful of grrls thrrty hxe to be exact gathered about our heartlr stone and altar and the enterprrse of Mrss C I' Mason s School the Castle was launched The growth of the school has been gradual healthy and encouragrng Each year a few nrore names hare been enrolled, each year an rncreasrrrg percentage of old grrls hare been found rn therr Q l

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THE DRAWBRIDGE days spent here, but most of them are loving and loyal and the path that leads the old girl'7 back to her Alma Nlater is growing broader and more worn by the footsteps of the increasing number who come each year to renew for a day or an hour the old mem- ories of happy school-days. And the Curriculum, how has it grown and ex- panded? The requirements have always been 'fstifff' and those girls who have tripped carelessly across our threshold intent only on having a good time, have found themselves settling down to a schedule of work that astonished them. Let an out- sider speak of the Castle as a Hhnishing school and any Castle girl stands ready to disabuse his mind of that false impression. Many colleges and universi- ties have received our pupils and graduated them with honors. The Vocationals, so suspiciously received by their fellow students in the first days of the establishment of that course, as neither flesh or fish nor even good red herring, now share honors with the best academic Senior. And the little cooking classes, presided over weekly by a visiting teacher, have developed into the strong Domestic Science Department we have today. There was a time when the words Current Top- ics was not often heard in our classic halls, but those halcyon days are long since. lt was one of Miss Masonls earliest ambitions that her girls should be able to speak composedly, intelligently, and pleas- ingly if called upon in a public assemblage. To that end the Current Topics Club was organized, and if the motion to adjourn is generally the most popu- lar motion of the evening, still not a girl, past or present, but is willing to admit that she owes much to her enforced standing and speaking before that critical but appreciative audience of her peers. VVhen the war broke out and Uncle Sam called all women as well as men to the defense of the Flag, Miss Mason, as usual, was in the van. Ere our participation in the conflict was three months old a Summer School to train women and girls to serve Nineteen-Twehty their Country was established at the Castle, and the pupils, drawn chiefly from the ranks of society girls whose summers had been mainly spent at fashionable resorts, defying mercury's dizzying altitudes, were hard at work studying' stenography, typewriting, motor mechanics, wireless telegraphy, reconstruction work and above all French, for each pupil devoutly hope she would be drafted for service overseas. What though some in dainty array breezedH,in on opening day equipped with fifteen hats and as many fashionable and becoming sweaters, they at the end of the nine weeks' course, calmly and confidently took the job they had worked to secure and hold, and when the armistice was signed the government was loathe to relinquish the pretty, dignified, efiicient, Castle-trained war-worker. That which had proved such a success and ioy could not be given up, and that is why the Castle, for the third time is asking the nation+ Why Waste ia Summer?l' As a sort of silver gift in this anniversary year, Miss Mason introduced to her pupils the now del servedly famous Psychological tests. No more can mother's shy daughter nonchalantly fling aside a Mathematical responsibility with the flippant reason -Nl canlt learn Mathematicsymother never could either. These man-made tests search out her mind and if they testify that there is grey matter, Miss Flossie takes her Geometry or Latin, or what not and learns it. Cf great value these tests have been in proving ability-or the lack of it--and many girls have had their courage and their resolutions strengthened by what has been revealed to them concerning their own minds. And this, gentle reader, is a sketchy bit of the history of the founding, the development and the growth of the school we are proud to call ours. But can I lay down my pen without one word concerning those who have loved and labored with FMiss lVIas- on? Is loyalty less than hnancial backing? And if the head of this enterprise is proud to look back over her twenty-five successful years, no less so are those who have labored by her side, upheld her