Episcopal High School - Whispers Yearbook (Alexandria, VA)

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Now the proper way to open an egg ... Discounting certain transient Ancient andMedieval masters, the History'Department proudly boasts one other member. Although coming from the grand old state of Huey and Earl Long, this teacher has never- theless mastered a dictation technique that would challenge a court reporter i11 Maine. This has enabled him to accomplish such enviable feats as covering World War I in fifteen minutes and the post-war spread of Communism in forty. Needless to say, he has also forced his students, by the sink-or-swim method, to develop some highly original systems of shorthand, including writing the first letter of each sentence. Under these two men, one struggles to a breadth of knowledge neither Thucydides nor Arnold Toynbee ever had Qor even wantedj. 7WafAemafic5 That most precise of all sciences, that discipline which built Greek civilization, the most abstract and yet the most concrete--mathematics, in all its many and varied forms. is represented by a collection of I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no morel' we' A :ar if - ' I ..- I

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master's handkerchief. Success in biology has only mixed with lCCtUI'CS 011 the drama and slightly off . it +v---I Cariline and CiCCf0- Um Gottes Willen! A bas la Russel two requisites-a phenomenal memory for twelve- syllable words direct from the Greek with little trans- lation, and a strong stomach. It also helps if you hate cats. ollallguagdj Next we turn to the Language Department, which offers 'courses in no less than five areas. Most popu- lous of the classes is Latin, a language dedicated to the perpetuation of hatred for Catiline and the Nervii. While one's admiration for Cicero grows Qunder pressure from the chairman of the departmentj, one's boredom lessens. Finally, one finds oneselfin Virgil class dashing off translations in heroic couplets. The modern languages are well represented. Firstly, French, therornanticlanguage of the Congo Republic and the O.A.S., is introduced to eager young minds, The sun will also rise in the West. key, but suitably emotional, renditions ofthe Mar seillaise, by a master who, without question, has ap certain Gallic flavor about him. One also partakes o the classical French authors, from Racine to Victo Hugo, and occasionally of the more modern forml of a'iver!z'ssement, such as Brigitte Bardot. Spanish. with the usual logic of the High School, is taught by Welshman. Here one has bits of the language inter spersed regularly throughout an exploration ol Spanish history, literature, art, geography, culture and anything else irmately Hispanic. In short, on emerges from three years of Spanish as thoroughl indoctrinated with a British view of Spain as i possible. German has the distinction of having beeii taught for fifty-one years by the same master, an of being the last safe hiding place for former Bun members and supporters of George Lincoln Rockwellc Wl1at's he doing in study hall? .a:nm.,.a QF 1.44 or Q5 4 5.1-f- A

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5 W ,,, , it YW i.....zzz ,M ,tty 2 lf- fia- 'And still they marvelled ... brilliant minds headed by the man who reputedly served as the prototype for the building of Univac. He is assisted in expounding the innate superiority of the woggle over the luke and the direction of the lambda in the dark by a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, who is a flesh and blood member of the Cosmos Club and an impromptu coach at all wrestling matches. In the lower levels the mysteries of A and B rowing up and down a stream while poor foolish C chases them on the bank are ex- plained by one of General Patton's staff officers, and a former Seminary student and mental hospital Worker Whose imminent marriage is regarded with relief in some quarters. cam In climactic order, we now come to the English Department, that bastion of Victorian grammar and medieval discipline, spiced with the good old-fash- ioned philosophy of, If you work them till they're dead there'll be no open revolt. The English Depart- ment, always open to new educational techniques, experimented this year with open-book exams. This movement, known popularly as Amy Lowell re- minds me of the seventeenth hole at Pebble Beach, was nipped in the bud, however, reportedly by a disgruntled used-car dealer. Other teaching methods remained unchanged. The chairman of the Depart- ment proved once for all the folly of doubting the obvious fact that English literature ended with the death of Wordsworth. The assistant headmaster, on the other hand, as usual was bent on proving that it did not begin until the birth of E.E. CUM- MINGS. Some masters has assumed various shades of opinion between those two radical extremes. At least one master, however, has as usual avoided this burning issue by turning his attention to such integal parts of any English program as 'justice as seen in Plato, The effect of the categorical im- perative on the work of Kant, or The idea of man You can lead a horse to water ... in Chaucer interpreted through Kierkegaard's exist entialismf' Such topics broaden the student's vocab ulary, quicken his perception, and set hirn up for major nervous breakdown. This gives the maste in question a distinct advantage in the immemoria game of the English Department, Who can giv the biggest psychosis? l I enuoi Thus, as dawn spreads over the land of the Risin Sun, spiritual home of the E.H.S. faculty, we bid fond adieu to the men who throughout our formativ years have guided us past the perilous shoals o life, to the calm, quiet harbors of serene Knowledge rx- ,- ,-1 ' est! V ,ff X5 ati M fl-ie, M Iggy O E 0 30 X '-5 'Eli A A