East High School - Redjacket Yearbook (Pawtucket, RI)

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Myra Budlong Booth SOMEHOW 1 could never think of Miss Booth as merely a teacher. She was something more, something different, almost of a race apart. Yet she had, of course, all the attributes necessary for making a success of her teaching career. She commanded respect. She was a source of constant inspiration. She had succeeded in marrying a ready wit with the toleration of wisdom. She loved her subject and made her students love it with her. But all these qualities were secondary to her excellent taste and her critical ability. This amazing critical ability was manifested not only in her discussions of literature but also in her treatment of people. Too many of us. far too many of us, have the ability only to criticize subjectively. Miss Booth had an objective yardstick which measured with uncanny accuracy the pupils with whom she came in contact. No person who made an honest and sincere effort to learn was ever found wanting according to her system of measurement, but woe be to him who failed to give his utmost. On such occasions the subject of her righteous indignation would depart, a chastened but wiser young man. She brought a certain eagerness and a vivacious. sparkling enthusiasm to whatever was the task of the moment, were it the reading of a scene from Macbeth or the recitation of a nursery rhyme, the elucidation of a deeply hidden allusion in Milton or a sardonic discourse on Herrick's conception of the transitoriness of life. She could spend an hour telling of the benefits of a classical education, and another hour telling of the merits of novelists and poets on the contemporary scene. The range of her knowledge was surprisingly wide, yet she possessed the humility and toleration that is associated with true wisdom. She is mourned by her associates, but is mourned much more deeply by her former students, recipients as they were of the charms of her inspiring personality. Elmer M. Blistein, ’38

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■ MYRA B. BOOTH

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THEN William Moskowitz came into a schoolroom it was as if all the ’’ lights had been turned on: when he said good morning in his homeroom everybody suddenly realized that it was good to be at the Pawtucket High School beginning the day's work: if activity was afoot, there was Bill doing the work, competently, joyfully. All day. everywhere, he radiated happiness and kind thought, like an ambassador of good will from a Better Country. The Class of 1941. with all its youth and gayety. has in its heart a shrine for the memory of the great soul, brilliant mind, and fun-loving boy whom everybody loved. Laura M. Rogers The Noble Nature It is not growing like a tree In bulk doth make man better be: Or standing long an oak. three hundred year. To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sere: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May. Although it fall and die that night: It was the plant and flower of Light. In small proportions we just beauties see: And in short measures life may perfect be. —Ren Jonson