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

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SIGILLUM one thing, I would have had a telephone at each pupil's desk, so the little darling could be in communication with his mother at all hours of the dayf, That sentence sizzled with all the accumulated acid of a lifetime teaching school. It must be a hideous trade! As I look back on my own ingenious ways of being pestiferous, I marvel that some teacher, driven beyond endurance, didn't push me off the top of the building. The closest I came to that was when a 6th grader held me by the wrists out of a third story window. Certainly he couldn't have performed that feat alone. I must have been a Willing accomplice. What extraordinary creatures little boys are! I have been asked when I decided to make a vocation of letters. Well, I had a printing press as a very small boy, and in the summers used to hang around the office of the newspaper in the town where we stayed, I was editor of the Folio and the Sigillum, and it would thus appear that I was definitely headed for journalism. As a matter of fact this did not occur to me. For some reason, not now clear to me, I was bent on becoming a mining engineer. I took preliminary exams for the Sheffield Scientific School, but before I could proceed further on this tack, my natural incapacity for mathe- matics became too obvious to be ignored. So I shifted to Academic, drifted through four more-or-less miss-spent years, being on the boards of several college papers, and finally emerged-into the advertising buisness. Having now spent a number of years in the profession of jour- nalism, as the books call it, or as a newspaper man Cas newspaper men describe themselvesj, I should be in a position to give advice on making a career of letters. I can't. The only advice I can offer is to avoid specialization. Both from the standpoint of material advancement and individual satisfaction, the broadest education is the best. More than ever before, it is now impossible to prophesy what occupation one will eventually follow. The speed of change has increased so greatly that the young man of today must be pre- pared for constant alteration in his status. It is dangerous to be narrow when a dentist may have to dig ditches and a plumber may have to be a philosopher. 1 And so, young sirs, I would suggest that in Leacock's phrase, you mount Pegasus and go in all directions at once.

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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

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Memories llf llld latin TAPPAN GREGORY Tappan Gregory, '06, Yale ,IO, lawyer and naturalist, Mr. Gregory has de- voted some time and energy to the investigation of the different types of the vanishing timber wolves, about which he has lectured before various scientific societies. I well remember when the two school magazines were started, and the early struggles to make them live and succeed. I have recently looked at city directories for Chicago in the decade before the turn of the century, and find the Chicago Latin School so listed for the first time in 1897. It was then at 596 Division Street. In that year and in that building I attended my first class at the school. I think my impressions of that day are nearly as clear now as they were at the time. Miss Burrell was in charge of the grade, and I have always been grateful for her efforts to make things pleasant for a new boy who was quite overcome with shyness. From then until June of IQO6 I attended no other school except for a part of one year. The four years of college which followed and subsequent years in law school were comparatively easy after the thorough and effective preparation accomplished at the Latin School under the sympathetic and intelligent guidance of Mr. Bates and Miss Vickery and their admirable staff. Their intellect and understanding made themselves felt throughout the school. No problem troubling the mind of a boy was too insignificant or un- important to receive considerate attention and Wise counsel. For their many kindnesses to me I shall always be greatly in their debt. I am sure all of the best traditions of the old administration have been carried on by the new. I am sorry that I am so much out of touch that I really do not know whether any of the old staff remains. I remember with much pleasure and satisfaction the capable instruction of such excellent teachers as Mr. Bosworth, Mr. McLeod, Mr. Whiting, Mr. E. A. Bates and Miss Crocker, to say nothing, of course, of the principals themselves. So you see the old school has always been to me a real alma mater. I wish I had the time and talent to write more and express better what I feel so strongly. I do appreciate this opportunity to send you this word of greeting and congratulations and to wish you all, and the school, the best of luck.