English High School - Blue and Blue / Record Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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Keys of ‘52-. Just a half century ago this June I graduated from high school. It was quite a different world then. Times have changed, but not the fundamentals of living. Here are a few observations and recommendations based upon experience since my own high school graduation in the year 1902. Be disturbed as little as possible by passing events. Today we hear so much that is wrong with everything and everybody. This is nothing new. However, today we have one great protection, — we knew things, — secrecy in this nation, when the public interest is concerned, is rare. We have a free press. We have free speech. However, do we hear enough or know enough of what is right in this day and age? Just let me submit a few things: In all history the ideals of this nation are the highest ever expressed by man. This age of science is being used for the good of man, as well as for the reverse. When I graduated from high school my life expectancy was forty- eight years; today yours is sixty-six years. There is more altruism, more charity, more consideration for others in the world than ever before. There are more churches, more schools, and more hospitals than in any previous period of history. Many with high ideals, and others who consider service to mankind as of the highest importance, do not receive headlines. However, the world is bet¬ ter because of the large number of these individuals. Bigotry and racial ten¬ sions are being offset by the influence of growing numbers who believe in un¬ derstanding and good will. There are vastly more people trying to do the right thing than the wrong thing. As you look at life at this time you may look through glasses that are dark, or clear, or golden. The first leads only to cynicism; the second to straight thinking; the third to idealism. Avoid the first — accept the second, — based upon the third. Through five decades I have met many individuals of prominence; with some of them I was net impressed. Those whom I have remembered longest were people of character, sound ideals, wholesome outlook, who showed a distinct and sincere spirit cf understanding toward people and toward the world. Have a religion that is your own. Live up to its precepts and its teach¬ ing. It should by your guide — always. God bless and guide you, Every One. Head Master June, 1952

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WALTER F. DOWNEY, A. B„ Ed. M„ L. Head Master H. D.

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lumni Notes The Alumni of the English High School of Boston have, through previous decades, heaped insurmountable glory upon our Alma Mater. Many of our graduates occupy key positions, locally, nationally, and internationally. We are pleased at this fine representation of English High in today ' s troubled world and only hope that this graduating class of 1952 may be able to make a small contribution to this list of prominent personages of whom the following are but a few. To a soldier ' s soldier and inspirational leader named General Matthew Bunker Ridgway, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization recently entrusted the most vital assignment in the Western military alliance. Our Head Master, Mr. Walter F. Downey, after sending a letter of congratulation to Ridgway, received a cablegram in which the General acknowledged his debt to English High School, and expressed his desire of visiting us here in the near future. During the last year Ridgway has held no less than four huge jobs. As director of the war in Korea he has been the deputy frr the seventeen nations furnishing troops. As boss of United States ' military strength in the Far East he has had charge of a vast army, navy, and air force. As military governor of Japan he has represented the eleven Allied Powers of the Far Eastern Commission. And as director of the United Nations negotiations for truce in Korea, he has spoken for a free world ' s hope to avoid either a grievously widened war or a thought¬ less, worthless peace. Only a man of Ridgway ' s immense stamina could have carried such burdens with such zest. In Korea Matt Ridgway has become en¬ veloped in a great legend — a legend vastly complimentary and almost whol¬ ly true. It has been symbolized by the showy field uniform he has always sported there: pile cap with the peak tied back, wcrn shirt bearing the white and blue Airborne patch, parachutist ' s pants, field overcoat with a harness to which are taped a hand grenade over the right breast, first aid kit over the left, and a canteen against the rump. Such an outfit has suggested a fondness for the dramatic inherited from his predecessor. But with Ridgway it has been more than a gaudy good-luck uniform. It has been a badge of victory — the uniform he made conspicuous when he so effectively stopped the rout of Am¬ erican armies in his first winter in Korea. Like many another tough soldier, Ridgway is both devout and sensitive. He reads the Bible attentively, attends church, and at one time served as vestryman at St. Bartholomew ' s Episcopal Church in New York. Like his temper, his sentimental emotions are near the surface. Once when a photographer in Korea surprised him with a carefully mounted portrait of his wife and young Matt, Jr., the general broke into tears. Since his graduation from English High School in 1924, Max Tishler has been honored several times for his work in the synthetic development of corti¬ sone which is used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and several other chronic diseases. The Max Tishler Scholarships at Tufts College, where he majored in chemistry for four years, and the Max Tishler Lectures at Harvard University, where he took graduate study and subsequently taught chemistry for nine years, commemorate the first successful manufacture of this steroid drug from easily obtainable substances. The success of a group of chemists directed by Tishler at the Merck Laboratcries was announced in May, 1951 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. In recognition of Tishler ' s achievement the board of directors of Merck and Company voted him its Scien¬ tific Award. In response to Mr. Downey ' s congratulatory letter Max Tishler wrote: