Colorado Academy - Telesis Yearbook (Denver, CO)

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All Hallows Institute Xavier High School Fordham College AB, History Columbia University MA, Teaching of English Univ. of Nebraska MA, English Lieterature And That Has Made All the Difference The man who wrote the dedication of this year's Telesis To the Seniors, Mr. F. X. Slevin, will not re- turn to Colorado Academy next September. He has chosen to teach elsewhere. When the senior editors learned of his departure, there was no doubt in our minds that some type of farewell tribute would have to be enclosed in the yearbook. For Mr. Slevin is, or unfortunately was, senior English IV at C. A., and more than that he represented a kind of moral and intellectual integrity that every upperclassman who took his course could not help but admire. Sincere admiration. Despite his demanding course, despite his difficult grading standards, despite his rigidity and unwillingness to compromise, Slevin was ad- mired by his students. lntelligence was not the basis for this admiration, though many a disconcerted student was aware that Mr. Slevin could sometimes be too logical. No, intel- ligence, be it couched in philosophical meditation or verbal dexterity, awes a man but does not inspire admiration in him. The seniors' admiration for Mr. Slevin was based upon the man's integrity, the man did not lie. Of course he didn't prevaricate with his classes about past experiences or present capabili- ties, but more than that you knew that what he said he meant. Even in his condemnation of his philis- tine, ignorant classes, there was no personal illusion of grandeur. ln his class the student-teacher rela- tionship was exactly and rigidly defined. You knew where you stood with him. Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the car- dinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known. - F. Scott Fitzgerald And that trite phrase means more than the fact that a student knew he would receive a zero if he didn't turn in a book review. No, Mr. Slevin meant what he said, and he, like Kurtz, had something to say. just read his dedication. He meant what he said about everything, about life if we are permitted to use that all-inclusive and therefore meaningless word. Suppose a teacher acquires all our new terminolo- gy, tells us books are heavy instead of worth- while. Suppose he wears a 'stache and smokes grass. Do we reply Groovy, or do we wait to see what the man has to say, wait to discern whether the words mean anything, or simply congregate on the surface of the man's forehead? That's the point. Although Mr. Slevin never at- tempted to create an awareness in the student through any pseudo Ponce-de-Leon metamorpho- sis, never attempted some compromise on issues - On, I suppose marijuana is sort of nice for the kids. -the seniors still felt a need and value for his advice. At the beginning of the year many students complained that the old teachers didn't reach them in the manner of the new Tom Wolfe's on the faculty. But the remark was never said of Slevin. Slevin didn't reach to you, he made you come to him. He was fixed, stable, rational, and above all truthful. He did not pose.

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Of course we did not agree with everything he said. Though seniors, our minds did function occa- sionally. But what he did say, whether we agreed with it or not, was said from logical, rational, intelli- gent sources, not from middle-aged dogma. The man thought, and there is no generation gap when perspicacity, lucidity, and integrity are concerned unless the perceiver of that gap does not possess those qualities. The only gap between Slevin and his students was that between the admired and the admirers. To summarize, then, it did not really matter if Slev- in taught us anything about Hamlet or Moby Dick. Much more importantly, he showed us not just how to think, but how to live by thought. Though in his dedication he, like Eliot, feels that human kindfCan not bear very much reality, the 69 Telesis editors are sure that every senior who studied under him aspires toward his steadfastness of mind. For those students Slevin, as Frost has it, has made all the difference. We can think of no better way to end our farewell than with Marlow's words in Con- rad's Heart of Darkness: ... You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie. Not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies, - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do. Temperament I suppose. .-Q i 6 bm'