Germantown Academy - Ye Primer Yearbook (Fort Washington, PA)

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we hare since discovered were foundation stones necessary to sustain the superstructure of all our future knowledge. After being promoted into the Fourth lforin Primary, we, as a class, were strength- ened by the addition of four new members, Earl Sheble, Roy Wfatson, Sam Sterrett, and last, but not least, our chosen President, Joe Brown. All through this year we were again carefully cared for by Miss Bushong. VVe then had a year's growth on us. We held our heads high. Wfe felt we were really and truly Germantown Academy boys. For the Hrst time we realized we had moved up, that we had some other class to look down upon, and were no longer to be regarded as the kids of the school. The following September, when we had gone one step higher, and advanced to the Third Form Primary, four more boys sought admission, and were royally welcomed into the class. They were Wfilliam Keefer, Orme Schaefer, Roland Lea and Henry Lewis. This year our coach and instructor was Miss Bent- ley. Under her care and instruction we were taught to know: that the world was round, that there were other countries than the United States, other States than Pennsylvania, and other places than Germantown, Philadel- phia. She it was who piloted us through the dreaded intricacies of fractions, and showed us that any whole number could be divided into fractional parts. This year we won the reputation, in the opinion of Mrs. Kershaw, of being the straightest sitting class in the Pri- mary. Thisvvas due, we now admit, to our sticking rulers down our backs, and sitting thus for many weary hours. Une more year rolled away, and we as- cended as a class into the Second Form Pri- mary. VVe were getting up in the world, and indeed we felt it. Qnly twelve months more, and we would be the highest class in the Primary. This year but one new member joined us. That was Fred Shoemaker. Soon after we had come 'together this fall, we all joined the Do Right Society. Wfe regu- larly attended the meetings of this society, and, although we tried to do right, and SO1'11G times succeeded, we had considerable of the

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CLASS HIS TOR Y Ten years ago last September, in the year 1895, a small colony of youngsters, in fear and trepidation, emigrated, as it were, from their several homes, and settled on the historic soil of old Germantown Academy, there to begin the cultivation of their minds for lifeis conflict. Each member of this little band, practi- cally unknown to each other, and proud in the realization of commencing his school life amid the classic surroundings of the old Academy, soon found himself, like others, possessed of a courage unexpected, and Hlled with an enthu- siasm to do, so peculiar to all Germantown Academy boys. None of us had ever been out in the world before. We knew nothing of school life, of text books or teachers. VVe were, indeed, clay in the hands of the pot- ters, and only the future could determine what the potters, our teachers, would make of us. . In a very short time this small colony of boys bound themselves together under a standard known as the Class of '06, of the Germantown Academy. As historian of this class, it has been delegated to me to write and read to you to-night its history. Of the original members of this Class of '06, only four have worked their way through from its organization to graduation. They are Charles H. Riley, H. Leonard Tissot, Wfil- liam H. Mechling and your historian of to- night. These four, with the other boys, who then made up the class, began their search for knowledge in the Fifth Form of the Pri- mary Department of the Academy, where, under the patient guidance, persistent efforts, and care of Miss Bushong, we were hrst taught our A, B, C's, and initiated into the wonderful accomplishments known as reading, writing and arithmetic. Wfe were proud boys when we knew how to read and write, and what we learned in this Fifth Form Primary,

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CLASS OF 'OG