Governors Academy - Milestone Yearbook (Byfield, MA)

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xx x XX Vfhx f ,f f f . XXX X X X XX xg XX Xxxiitxxfs . ,fffff if ' ., X AVKKK f f' Xe .X J,-2 r -N IB f f ?'fQ 'Q -, rr , v f H08 --e W EDITOR'S FOREWORD The curious, antiquated pictures which so many of us have seen of our fathers and mothers are always strikingly impressive to us. WVith great relish we often rummage through a stack of odd looking pictures and gaze at our youthful poses. For this reason we have tried to make the MILESTONE a reference book full of team photographs and snapshots of student life, as well as a collection of written material. Each year we print a feature article with the intention of making the MILESTONE mean more to the School. Mr. Stephen Stackpole, of the faculty, has compiled a few brief biographies of some distinguished alumni, and the MILESTONE is indebted to him for an interesting historical contribution. .- at l -, . fx an .Q 1. f ,-ja ' 15 mfg? wx: 1 mx C i ,. :jpg it , f up 351' fgfevl. Y frztgfx N 5 1- v I- ' - 7

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- --- -- - - ,- . 5 1, e-.VV F , V f Xxx XNXs,.- V: -I ,' 1 f,f ff ff 11, ,',',- X 1 S . ,-,Q , is sg 1533 fff 5. 1 - 1:-1 .S Q Q' - is L LB i.'i ' Q J - f 'j -qxryb. 5' - - 1 woe --- 1 'wg . W . ., Rufus King - Statesman . Had Samuel Moody been alive in April 1827, he might have had the immense satis- faction of reading in the New York Evening Post, the leading paper of the time, a news item in which a former pupil of his was des- scribed as one who has rarely been equaled for talents both profound and brilliant and who in his meridian was numbered among the brightest stars in the galaxy of his coun- try's glory. However rhetorical these words, they represent the current opinion of the talents of Rufus King, whose death in this year ended a career of singular service to his country, for both as a statesman and a diplo- mat he was one of the influential builders of 1 our republic. His attainments, like those of so many of the famous men who graduated from this School in its first years, may be traced in their origin to the teaching of its diligent Master. King's father, a merchant of Scarborough, Maine, sent him in 1769 to the Academy in Byfield at the age of fourteen. Here, with the rest, he scanned his Greek, declaimed his Latin, and took his baths when the tide was in. Those who, in these days of varied and practical education, are inclined to scoff at the value of the Classics would do well to remem- ber that if Rufus King was to become one of the great orators of his time and a lawyer and statesman whose logic was amazing, it was not the result ofa fund of in- formation acquired in school but of a facility in thought and speech which only the strict discipline of the old classical course and the rigorous training of a Master Moody could have given him. After young Rufus had attained the required proficiency in the Classics, he was admitted to Harvard for some more of them. His studies were to suffer interruption, however. Imagine, if it is possible, trying to learn declensions in Cambridge in 1775- 6 while the muskets of Lexington and Bunker Hill roared outside one's very win- dows! He graduated in 1777, and, after a brief military career in Rhode Island, re- turned to Newburyport to study law under the able Theophilus Parsons. By 1783 our independence was recognized, and King, a promising young lawyer, was elected by the citizens of Newburyport to the Massachusetts General Court, or legislature. This body chose him almost at once as one of the State's representatives in the Congress of the new United States in New York. ' l l , . 1. I r V r . il i ,jg M Q -.gig-I -v.:'fiL'E3,'i'x 8