Philadelphia Manual Training School - US Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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it. The Natural History Society is rather a peculiar organization, It has some bad traits, and some good ones For instance 2' some of its good traits are: --. From the Society the Outing grew into existence. This club takes long walks. The walks are very interesting QFD, and are usually published at some length in the Argus, and they help fill up space, so that the real benefit of the N. I-I. S. is derived by the editors of the Argus. Another good thing about the Society is that it occupies a great deal of Simpson's time, in which he might be engaged studying bookkeeping. This would cause him to show better books, and thus deprive the Class of some of its archives, viz., Simpson's Ledger and Journal. The bad effect of the Society is that it has always chosen Henry Curtis to be its president. And thus Curtis has the idea that he ought to run everything he gets into. Indeed 'tis a wonder that he has not tried to run the Class cash. But considering the few scrapes the Society has gotten into, and the extreme youth in mental power of Curtis, we will overlook his faults. When we became members of BH we had an idea that by this time we had inherited certain rights and privileges. We felt more contented in our lot. There is one good thing that can be truthfully said of 'S9: we never chastised 'go as much as they probably needed, but were very considerate of their small heads, sporty tendencies and lackof courtesy. I say we overlooked all this, and they cannot say that '89 was ever very hard on them. This second year we began to find out who and what we were, for, if it must be confessed, some of us were sort of seedy as to the proper way to carry on anything. The opening of this year added a new man to our Faculty. Mr. Odenatt was presented to the school, and although '89 was not, until Senior year, brought into connection with him, we were always much attached to him. Very nearly half ofthe Faculty be- long to '89, for they came into the school when we did, and have certainly found us in hearty co-operation with them. But Rondy from the first used to crush us on all occasions. In looking at an old Azgzzs I Find he said that we are not particularly bright, but only average boys. Some parts of '89 made great progress during the second 32

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the recitation hour, and jimmy had a peculiar method of study- ing out loud. There was a bench directly in front of Hering's desk, and Mastbaum and Lawrence often sat on this bench. They scribbled peculiar nicknames on our worthy professor's desk. One day Hering found some of these nicknames out. These, if I re- member rightly, are some of them: Porgies, i'Shad, Herring, Fish, Boiled I-Ierring on the half shell, Shrimps and Her- ring. The professor stood shaking his head in that peculiar way he always had and said, Boys, I don't spell my name with two 1 sg it's just one-I-I-e-r-i-n-g. It is sad to remember the affection we wasted on the Doctor, how we used to adore every word which fell from his lips. There was one mistake made during that first year. It was in Dr. Thorpe trying to teach us civil government. One day the Doctor was explaining to us at some length the exact manner of voting. In the course of his explanation he came to the part in which he told us of the duty of the judge at the polls. I-Ie said thatsupposing a dispute should arise about a man's vote between the inspectors. One of the inspectors would say to the other, You're another, and the other would reply, You're another. And between the Doctor and himself he explained the whole manner of carrrying onthe dispute and of the settle- ment by the judge. At the Christmas entertainment given on Thursday, December 23d, there were certain parts of the programme which were ex- cellent, while others were exceedingly poor. Yet it will be seen by scrutinizing the programme and recalling the scenes that what '89 had to accomplish was Well carried out. just before the school closed that year we had one day a visit from a distinguished Englishman, Mr. Mathers, lVI. P. I-Ie wished to speak to the school, so we were gathered together, and great was the rejoicing, partially because we were to be addressed by a dis- tinguished man, but largely because we were enabled to cut the hour in algebra.. There is a feature of the school which sprang into existence during 1886. It was the Natural History Society. Many of our fellows-bright, promising fellows, too-were enticed into joining . 31

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year, While others were somewhat degenerate. For instance there were Singer, Yank and Greene hawsing to pull the Class up, with Pete Larkins and McClellan hanging on as deadweightsf' But we will say that a marvelous change came over these two last named, for Larkins left, McClellan remained, and has worked hard during our last year. In fact China, for that is the name he got when he first came among us, is a dandy in the electrical laboratory. He can plot all sorts of curves without making the experiments. This is also true of Mandel and Mast- baum. In the Spring of 1888 the Athletic Association was organized. Our first sports occurred on June 7th. Among the winners of the eighteen events we do not find one member of '89. This seems very strange, for although our Class is not very sporty, yet we hold several of the school records. In the Fall Sports, how- ever, of the eleven events we carried off three medals. VVhen Senior year opened we certainly did feel large about the head? We certainly held the highest position now. On Sep- tember 2ISt, 1888, we were organized into a Class. There are certain fellows among us to whom we chose to intrust the honor of acting as guardians over us. The chief guardian was H. Bronte Swayze. The principal reason for choosing him was out of respect for his enviable whiskers. Then we selected others to assist him-Chiles, Barrett and Outerbridge. To keep the notes in regard to our peculiarities and scraps 'in class-meetings we chose Edgar Singer. The only objection to Singer that we- can offer is that he generally has his minutes with him, when your are trying to convince the class that a such and such a motion was never passed. At first We selected Chiles to take care of the Class wealth, but he resigned, and for fear he'cl be dissatisfied if he didn't have some position we put him up and shoved him into the chair of vice-president. . One Wediiesclay afternoon the school held their second an- nual. Fall Sports out at the University grounds. The place was crowded, grand stand full and half the bleaching boards. '89 only captured three events, and none of these appear as school This is a customary feeling which a few of our class have the joy of occasion- ally experiencing. - 33 , .