DeWitt Clinton High School - Clintonian Yearbook (Bronx, NY)

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,Freshman Through Senior NOTES ON FOUR YEARS AT CLINTON By CHARLES B. Srmuss I Gne of the salient characteristics of classroom work in English composition is the strong pressure exerted on us to express ourselves, to nail up a fever chart of our emotions, to survey our environment very superficially, but With a fountain pen behind our ear. Whatever the psychological implications of all this may be, I am at least certain that some extremely uncouth results ensue. And thus, the idea of Telling All about my school life, just because I may be a moderately talented, articulate, or observing product, rings repugnant in my ear. Many sweet-minded folks want some not wholly criminal graduate to pen pretty confessionals in which influences and associations figure prominently-that is why they have created prize contests and valedictories. In a like manner, others may desire a frank, skeptical delineation of the melange of correct practices, strong ideals, and startling incompetencies from which I am now emerging. In either case, however, I can but make a few observations. II In spite of myself, I cannot think of another secondary school, public or private, which I should rather have attended than DeWitt Clinton. This eager, relentless mass-production, this constant leavening of the individual before the multitude, has shown me much. The easy patterns of thought, emotion, and art which characterize my classmates are so patently those of Everyman. Our bawdy materialism and our government by privilege--things which I might have blasphemed with idealistic murmurs a few years from now-have already become perfectly natural and amusing to me. I am part of them, I know the futility and good fun of proselytizing them. III What is most humorous and humane in the philosophy of my teaching elders leads them to expect anything but gratitude from me or anyone else my age who attempts to generalize about high schools. Few teachers are surprised to find youth eternally dissatisfied and damning, many, on the other hand, make the mistake of opposing our reforming clamor too evasively. The intrinsically .,y'Ls.,9r-,5rvrQ-.- gif fa-.1 fwfr fifx sy's..Qs..aQs 16l3+Q'- Tl1eCL1NToN1AN

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Jan. 10, '30 Clinton Tennis Star Wins National Boys ' April 4, '30 Nine Triumphs Over Utrecht Indoor Racket Title April 4, '30 'ft it it Traditional Field Day Jan. 17, '30 Barred By Authorities Strauss To Edit Magpie 'F it I Y it 'lt it April 4, '30 Jan. 17, '30 Vilashington Girls Arista Gives Dinner Attend Exhibition At Pythian Temple is it 'X' if it April 11, '30 Feb. 21, '30 Arista Completes Etiquette Outline ' ' Prisoner of Zenda Mar. 14, '30 New Late Plan Devised, i 56 fl: Nained As Varsity April 11, '30 Showg W'orh Begins Madison, Boys' High fr is as Defeat Governors May 2, '30 Warning Siren Sounded T M193 Omlm' Wins 5, it si In Boro Semi-finals S? Si: Mar. 14, '30 Tepernian Elected it S? Mar. 14, '30 Hamlet Played In Record Making Time Mar. 14, '30 Magpie Cuts Its Price To 35 Cents sg Mar. 14, '30 Arista lVill Install New S6 Mar. 21, '30 Clinton Publications Three Firsts Senior President May 2, '30 I Clinton Mile Relay Team Takes National Title At Penn Carnival May 16, '30 One Thousand Parents Attend Prisoner of Zenda First Night iff 2? May 16, '30 e Arista Vllill Close Term lVitli Dinner And Comedy May 16, '30 lifeidman Captures Third Members T0d3Y In Times Borough Finals May 16, '30 June Graduating Class Elects Seniors Celebs Awarded In Competition wjL'sj3'NWLx': The CLINT ii-J gi-1 ': 4 ': 1 5351 ': -.1 -1 N -Qfx -4 N ONIAN -'Ceiil5

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Wise, I have come to learn, keep on smiling but refrain from smiling too patronizingly at us kid heretics. IV Apparently, teachers, like bankers and critics, are particularly self-conscious about their trade, they still hope to ascertain their exact standings and measure their results. They probably relish frank advice from the undergraduate ranks. Yet, since they are pleased to consider my reactions and capabilities as not quite average, I cannot help them much. I do not know how the improvement of mass-instruction can be effected. V In novels, young students who declaim and arraign are called sinful, radical, or subversive by their instructors. Here in Clinton, it is pleasing to note, these cliches are evaded very carefully. The young gentlemen are called conceited. This does not discourage anyone. Given the requisite taste and temperament, the individual Will find the rare stimulating minds, the brilliant classroom teachers, on his side. Every large body has its percentage of the keen, valuable, distinctive, and enlightened, and Clinton has its quota. VI It is a pale but distinctly visible minority among them Who earn teachers their reputation for sentimental conservatism and ethical conventionalism. In Clinton, the really alarmingly intolerant or reactionary constitute but a mere handful of pebbles on the pedagogical beach and, after all, no one is exactly invited to become a beach-comber. VII Why is it that most high school teachers realize, as most grammar school teachers do not, that it is an essential law of their craft that they shall not irritate or be irritated? VIII In classroom teaching and in the relations of teacher and pupil, the tendency swings between loose, crass, obvious, vaudeville methods on one hand and mannerly, tenuous, stately, neatly-patterned ethics on the other. For vigor and forthright declaration, for deep-chested assurance and assertive criticism in their students, many instructors would substitute complacent acceptance, to which is sometimes applied the absurd cognomen, being constructivef' -.lar -efzr s :X ': 4 ': 4': 4 ': 4 ': - ': 4 gfiex 453 'lex Tl16CLINTONlAN --245517