Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts - Mohawk Yearbook (North Adams, MA)

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i Bop lam Smith HENEVER we of lEll7turn the pages of our Normalogue and find Mr. Sinith's picture, our faces, one and all, will relax in a smile at the remembrance of some pleasant thing that happened in one of his classes. N o matter how far we have advanced into the stage of the old maid school marm, we will forget our crabbcd, austere ways in remembrance of his good nature and humor. We leave his class with regret and hope that we may imitate to our best ability his splendid example as a teacher. Since Mr. Smith teaches history, we tremble at the thought of being his historian, feeling to begin with, that we cannot do our subject justice. By inquiry we have found that he was born in some year A. D. in Plymouth, N. Y. He himself emphasizes the fact that that docs not mean Plymouth, Mass. tHe never will take a bit of credit not due hiin.D In Plymouth he went to a district sehool. After graduating from the High School of Norwich, N. Y., he spent one year in a teachers' training class, and followed it with a post-graduate course. In a subdued tone, Mr. Smith whispers that for the next three years he taught in a district school, sometimes earning as high as eight dollars per week. He hints often of the wonderful time he had boarding in the various rural homes. There is a story about six chickens which he might tell you, if you asked him. Syracuse University opened its doors to him in 1900 and he assures us that he graduated in 190-ll He also says that, as it is ancient history, there is really no way of proving it! At Freeport, Long Island, he was assistant principal, then principal of the high school, afterward accepting a position in the Westfield, N. J., High School. Before coming to North Adams, he did post-graduate work in history and education for three years, at Columbia University. In 1912, N. A. N. S. welcomed him and has ever since been honored by his presence. Last year he was chairman of the normal school committee for the revision of the history course for the state of Massachusetts. This honor was well deserved, and his work thoroughly appreciated. Such a biography as this could be written of few. IVe are happy and fortunate to have known and to have been instructed by Mr. Smith, our teacher of Science, History and Econom- ics. 13

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Qlhert 6. Qflhtihge 'OR a long time I have heard Mother say again and again to Father, You really ought to write that sketch of your life for the Normalogue, and every time his answer has been, I know it, but I don't know what to write. Now if there is any- thing that makes me more nervous tharl cutting teeth, it is to keep hearing Mother say the same thing to Father over and over againg so, in order to stop this particular speech, I am going to sur- prise both my parents by writing a biographical sketch for Father myself. You may wonder that I know what that long word means, but let me tell you a secret. We babies know a great deal that we don't talk about, and for good and sufficient reasons we prefer to let the elders do the talking during the first year or two of our lives, while we expend our energy on more important matters, like planning out our careers. 4-1' I suppose I had better begin at the beginning, by telling who Father is. He is the person who helps Mother take care of me, and who does various things for us. In winter he tends the furnace, and in summer he mows the lawn around our house, If he happens to be at home when I am going upstairs to bed, he carries me up, and in ever so many ways he makes himself useful and entertaining to me. He was born in Boston, and that is a satisfaction, for Boston is my birthplace also, and really I think everyone ought to start from there. He graduated from Harvard in 1908. just here I must apologetically admit that I am not clear as to what that means, for the day I picked up that information from something I overheard him say to Mother, my mind was much occupied in trying to discover what made my rubber dog squeak, But we will pass on. These next items I gathered from a memorandum which he made out to hand to the editors of the Normalogue. From 1908 to 1910 he taught Elementary Science in the New Bedford ,High School. During the next two years he was principal of the Graded High School at Canaan, Connecticut, and continued to teach Elementary Science. He then came to North Adams, and began to get acquainted with the people of this Normal School, while he was super- intendent of schools in Clarksburg, Florida, Monroe, and Savoy. After a year here, he went to Blackstone, a town in the eastern part of Massachusetts, and was superintendent of schools for that town and for another called Seekonk. I first met him the summer before he left Blackstone to come to the North Adams Normal School. At that time he was taking a short course in the same Harvard to which I referred a moment ago, and which is confused in my mind with my rubber dog. Perhaps if I ever go and look up Harvard myself, I shall find there the true and scientific explanation of the dog's squeak. Perhaps it is a place where you can learn such things. At any rate, I never saw Father looking puzzled over my dog. The time he looks puzzled is when Mother says, Have you written that Normalogue sketch yet? You know you really ought to write it. But now she won't have to ask him that any more, and since most of my teeth are through, I shall be able to settle down to a quiet life, and forget my nerves. Oliver Fuller Eldridge 12

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f Mary louise Barigbt Announced by all the clamor of the gong Arrives the fire-drill, and, tumbling out of bed, The inmates don their coats and shoes and things, And tread the corridors with hurrying feet, To reach the hall below. And then, Like France's great army in the days of old, They all march back to bed again. AN you not see how interesting a life the author of these lines must have led? And is it surprising that her writings are so charming when she spent so much of her time amid such thrilling experiences? i A little less than a hundred years ago, Mary Louise Baright was born in the old Dutch town of Poughkeepsie-on-the-Hudson. She was the youngest of a family of six, and her parents were poor but respectable Quaker farmers who knew how to read and Write. Their daughter, as is shown by the above quotation, must have inherited much of their ability in this line. Her education was well planned out, but the vicissitudes of life caused some of the well laid schemes to gang a-gley, but she did manage to go to the public schools of her home town, Boston University, Curry's School of Expression and Chicago University. She began her teaching in a little country school not far from her home, but has since Wan- dered far afield and done her work in such places as: a private school, Nashville, Tennesseeg The State Normal School, Westcliester, Pennsylvania, The University of Oregon, The State Normal School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On April l, 1902 Cwas there anything signifi- cant in that date?J she came to N. A. N. S. And here she is. She loves her work, she loves her friends, and she loves her country, her message to her pupils is: Let us then be up and doing, Never mind how hard we're smoteg Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to vote. 1-L