Latin School of Chicago - Sigillum Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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School Days, School Days PAGET K. CADY Paget Cady, ,127 Yale II6, active in athletics and activities of school, is now connected with a brokerage firm. During one of your seductive sales talks, calculated to per- suade a venerable grad to contribute something to the Sigillum , you suggested that he just grab a pencil and a sheet of paper and let nature take her course. All right-here goes. Add to the prescription a warm spring day, inducing more than my usual mental and physical lethargy, and I am transported back to a room in the old Latin School on Division Street-spring of IQI2. Bugs Meadowcroft, baffled, as aren't we all, by the differ- ence between Gerund and Gerundive, has been given the historic you7re out gesture by R. P. Bates, and has glided with dignity from the class room. Obvious terror grips the rest of us, with the possible exception of such poker faced men of the world as Haven Requa, Red Kiernan and Dutch,, Meier, for we all face the possibility of over-time with no extra pay. Hunt Wentworth is drawing pictures behind the concealment of his Cicero propped up on a pencil. R. P. spots him with his all-seeing eye. We wait for the explosion. Instead, R. P. deftly sails a small book so that it clips the prop out from under the Cicero. There is a crash, a wave of laughter, and Hunt's face and neck gradually turn a beautiful crimson. Cady, translate the next paragraphf' My mind turns even blanker than it was-a neat trick indeed. We have not reached the end of the day's assignment but are well paSt the place I have figured we will reach and, of course, we early believers in labor-- saving efliciency never prepare more than necessary. Opportunely, a very small and terrified boy sidles in-sent up by Miss Strong from the seventh grade for discipline. He stammers an account of his sin. R. P.'s leonine roar of displeasure rattles the chairs. The cowering mite is ordered to sit in the corner with his face to the wall. He does so, trembling perceptibly. R. P. swings back to us,lgrins broadly and winks. We stifle our laughter so as not to spoil his act. My personal problem is still unsolved. Thank heaven. There goes the bell-saved for another twenty-four hours. The bell is just my telephone-a friend wanting to know why her stocks have gone down so far, and here I am once more called on to recite and again unprepared. I

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SIGILLUM us to shoot. CWe have often wondered if he knew the gun was un- loaded lj After that, they take the firearms away, and lead us to their village gathering place. Keeping us waiting for an hour or more in the chill of the November midnight, they stamp out the fire before which we try to warm outselves. That is just a little below the standard of oriental hospitality. Having convinced themselves that we are poachers, as we have been shooting at night, doubtless having their superstitious fear aroused by the shots in the dark, they decide to take us to the mayor of their hamlet, who lives in a larger village two miles distant. We have no choice but to follow. On the way, they begin to have doubts as to the wisdom of their decision. Through our men, they offer first to accept ten then five, finally even one rupee to let us off. We firmly refuse, and finally at last arrive at the mayorfs home. Prolonged knocking and shouting arouses the reluctant officer. There is more delay in preparing for the hearing. After our statement, the villagers have almost nothing to say. They are rebuked by the mayor for their presumption in detaining us. They slink off home, and as we go back through their village, the whole place appears wrapped in the deepest slumber. At five A. M., Thanksgiving morning, just before sunrise, we find one of the men waiting with the bag of six peafowl. Through the early morning dew on the lush grass of the river banks, we tramp wearily and hungrily home, ford the river, and arrive just as the dawn comes up like thunder. A runner is hastily engaged and Dr. Speer's Thanksgiving Hturkeyl' starts on the twenty mile final lap, to arrive in good time. The maintenance of prestige in a country of 35o,ooo,ooo people controlled by an army of a few thousand British soldiers, is a matter of major importance. When the Governor of Bombay Presidency drives from Poona to his summer capital, Mahableshwar, the 80 miles or so of road are cleared of traffic, sentries line the way. When the Viceroy travels by rail, sections of the right of way are policed by troops, stationed within hailing distance of one another for mile after mile. It was for maintaining the prestige of the white man, even a non-European American, that the British district magistrate, sent his first deputy to God's village. The men were lined up before him, told in emphatic terms how wrong they were to have arrested the sahib. Prostrating themselves on the ground they seek pardon, well knowing what it would mean to have a punitive police post saddled upon them, the expense of which they would have to pay, not to mention the incessant private demands of the police. The 'fsahib is merciful, they are told, and have asked that they should not be punished. There was another thanksgiving in God's village celebrated that day, as the deputy magistrate and his men left. 5

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Reminiscences HOWARD VINCENT O,BRIEN Howard Vincent O'Brien, '06, Yale 710, author, columnist of the Chicago Daily News, and commentator whose journalistic work has made him one of Ch1cago's most enjoyed and widely read newspaper men. RITING pieces for papers is for me something like a post- man's taking a nice long walk in the country for the amuse- ment of his day off. However, when I was in school, I once asked John lVlcCutcheon for a contribution, and the promptness with which he gave it has remained in my memory as an antidote to natural indolence. I first went to C. L. S. when football players wore striped blazers and sideburns, I had been shed, with audible relief, by the neigh- boring University School,but I was not released from the animosity of the Sheldon School-a public institution whose inmates main- tained a bloody warfare with us little patricians to the west and north of them. Many were the combats staged in Lincoln park for the possession of bats and balls and the right to play. There was something of dictatorship of the proletariat even in those days. Only fragments of my educational career remain in my memory, such as the time E. A. Bates, in a burst of rage, hurled his copy of Thucydides at me-and I made a fair catch. I remember this doubtless because it was the only time I ever caught anything successfully. In fact my inability to catch anything was so great that being unable to get on the school team, I got up one of my own. I played third base and was captain-until the second inning of the first game, when I was deposed from both places. I then withdrew from baseball, and with another boy started a paper. It was what the French call a success fou,until suppressed by the school authorities. Another thing I remember was the plaintive wonder of the math teacher, a Mr. McLeod, that I could attend his classes in plane geometry almost every day, and year after year, and never get beyond the first proposition. Mr. Bosworth remains green in my memory, too, because he was the first person to make me conscious of words, thereby making himself responsible for much that I am sure he regrets. The school, in the old days, was ruled by R. P. Bates, in the upper register, and by Mabel Slade Vickery among the girls and small fry. UR. Pf' ruled with an iron hand. I met him shortly after the present building was completed, and I asked him what he thought of it. He shook his head. Too bad the architect didn't consult me,', he said, I could have given him some useful advice. For