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

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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.

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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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Down The Years HAVEN A. REQUA Haven ReQua, ,I2, Yale '16, editor of Folio and Sigillum, is now the president of the Standard Fuel Company. A short time back, I received a letter from the Editor of the SIGILLUM, and although I didn,t in the least want to answer it I had to, for the communication was written so delicately and worded so tactfully it would have been churlish to ignore it. The letter said that an anniversary number of the SIGILLUM was about to appear practically any moment and, as an old editor of that dis- tinguished publication, would I please take pen in hand and dash off something bright and sparkling-preferably along reminiscent lines? Much, much easier said than done. Ought I to dish out some rugged homily about the Spartan virtues of the old days, when I thought I was going to be a permanent, all-time member of the Junior Class? Even my Mother admits I wasnit a very good stu- dent. While I cannot prove it, I am reliably informed that the great and good R. P. Bates said that, in his opinion, the only way to get me out of school was to burn it down. In his quaint way he added be thought it would be worth it. The fact that the faculty finally shoe-horned me successfully through my college examinations should be a lasting monument to those stout-hearted men of iron, for what they did was no mean job. To get on with my reminiscing, I wish I could give you a graphic description of the ceremonies that took place in the old school the day the whale oil lamps were reverently laid aside for the last time to make way for newfangled kerosene illumination, or of the many times the Latin School boys had to run for their lives to avoid the milling herds of buffalos when they came charging down Division from cff the prairies slightly west of Clark Street. Those days are pretty far in the past but I can, I think, remember them quite clearly, for at about the same time I was just entering upon my career as a permanent Junior. Back, in those bygone days, there was an establishment named I-Iousman's, diagonally across from the School, on the southwest corner of Division and State. This place was dear to all of us little urchins, principally because we were absolutely forbidden to go near it, for Mr. I-Iousman, the proprietor, was an eminent saloonist and presided over one of the best bars in town. In fact, at that time there was no Racquet Club, so it was a common sight, along about three or four in the afternoon, to see any number of tired