Scituate High School - Chimes Yearbook (Scituate, MA)

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17 A QUESTION ANSWERED John Wilder, ' 43 SINCE I came to America and entered Scituate Hifili School, many people have asked me, is the English school system much different from that of America? Now I ' m going to try to give the answer. The two systems are realh completely differ- ent, so difTerent that it is difficult to know where to start in the explanation. In England we take ten suhjects — English. Latin. French, geography, history, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, art, and chemistry — from the eighth grade through the junior year. At the beginning of the senior year each pupil may decide what eight subjects he wants to take on the School Certificate Exami- nation. The choice, however, isn ' t so wide, be- cause English, British and European history, two maths, either physics or chemistry, and one lan- guage are required, leaving him only two subjects as a choice. I am speaking about an English public school, which is similar to the private school in this country. The public school, though, is the only type which provides any kind of college-prepara- tory education. In the commercial schools there is, of course, a completely different set of sub- jects, of which I know nothing. In further answer to the question I will de- scribe a typical day at The Kings ' School in Ely, which I attended. The day used to start at 7:10 a.m. when the dormitory opened and Jonah would put his head around it to call, Morning, all, ten past seven. With this call, all twenty boys would roll over and reply, ' Morning, ' Jonah. ' After a mad rush for the wash-house, and a quick wash in cold water ( in the winter it often had ice in it), followed by a quick change, everybody would be running down stairs to read the papers before breakfast. At 7:25 a.m. the head-perfect would chant in one long breath, Hurry up down, while he paced through the forty-foot corridor. Hurry up down is short for Hurry down to breakfast, lunch or tea. With this call everybody would literally charge down to the House, a building in the school, to form three lines outside the dining hall doors in waiting for the come-and-get-it bell. As soon as the bell rang, we used to proceed in an orderly manner to our seats (correction, please, forms ) . When breakfast was over, there would be a list of notices to this effect, Attention please, boys; there will be a meeting of the Scientific Club at 4:15 p.m. The Stamp Club will hold a meeting at 4:45 p.m. The Scouts will meet as usual on Tuesday afternoon. That ' s all. After the notices were read, we could walk around the grounds or study in our classrooms until twenty to nine, when it was time to go to the cathedral for a fifteen minute service. Then we went straight to the first class. In the morning we would have four three- quarter-hour classes, with a five minute recess after the second. We used to stop for lunch at 12:20 p.m. and return for the afternoon classes at 1 :45 p.m. All our classes were held in the same room, with the masters coming to us, in- stead of the pupils going to different masters. Incidentally, the English school department had never heard of that amazing innovation, the study period. These were all class periods. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays we had only the four morning classes, and after lunch we had compulsory, organized sports. To make the sports, — soccer and badminton in the winter, cricket, tennis, fives, running and track in the summer, — a major activity and interest of the schools, we had four houses or clubs — Ivatt, Ingle, Boultbee, and Burns. These houses used to play house-matches to win soccer or cricket championship cups. To help spread school spirit, we also had two, and some years three, school teams which played many of the surrounding school and college teams. Besides the clubs formerly mentioned we had quite a good dramatic club, which put on from three to five plays in the course of a school year. Speaking of a school-year, we had a much longer one than here. We started on Septem- ber 20, approximately, and went until the end of July. The exams which took place at the end of the summer term lasted a full week. Some of the exams would be two and a half to three hours long. We used to have a type of student governing body, in the sense that there was a group of post- graduates, or sixth-formers, who were called pre- fects, and a second group of seniors who were called sub-prefects. The duties of these boys, about ten in all, were to enforce certain school rules by the donation of detentions to the offend-

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16 AT THE FOOT OF THE CRAGS Patricia McLean, ' 43 There were days and nights — they seem so far past now — when I could sit by the cold gray stones and dream of peace and beauty. No mat- ter what the hour or the weather, there was love- liness to be found in the vast, illimitable stretch of sea before me. Sparkling and dancing be- neath the early inorning sun; calm and unrippled in the path of silver moon glow; raging like a savage, infuriated beast when the winds hurled foam into the air and the rocks thundered and roared in their teeth — the mood of the sea, mat- tered not, for in each and every change there was indescribable, awesome beauty. That is all a dream now, a dream banished the fatal day the blood of mankind stained the waters red, and the ships of dauntless men went to their haven under the hill, and the air was foul with Death. Now for me there is no more of that breath-taking loveliness I once thrilled to; now I see naught but treachery and cun- ning and murder in every last white cap and wave. The still, shimmering surface, bathed in white moonlight, is but a deadly cover-up for the long, grasping fingers of slaughter, reaching down, down through the inky caverns of water to smash into smithereens young lives and old alike. The tossing, tearing sea is now a mere device to prevent any possible chance of preserv- ing a life clinging to a fragment of board with eager, icy hands. The apparent serenity that comes with a glorious dawn flooded with sunlight is a blind for the previous night ' s insidious dev- iltries. And so I kneel at the foot of the crags and pour out my heart in a prayer for peace. My whispered plea becomes a cry from the depths of a million souls, a cry drowning out the break- ing of the waves and echoing back throughout the hollows in the crags of a joyous, hopeful ring that sings of victory, freedom, and peace! The Most Unforgettable Character I Have Ever Met Howard Tindall, ' 43 Who was that coming at me with the smile on his face? I ' d already had a ten-minute session with some guy whom I couldn ' t place, and here I ' d only gone a couple of blocks and another one was coming on. Perhaps I was mistaken and I didn ' t know him. Not a chance. I got into the Boylston Street gutter to give him every chance to pass, but he waded in after me with hand outstretched. Well! What d ' ya say, Sport? I stammered, voice dripping with false enthusiasm. It was a cinch I was going to have to run through my pronouns, Sport, Chum, Star, Kid and almost anything I could think of at the time. Less every day, Scratch, he laughed. I broke into a sweat. Look, I gotta catch a train. Mosey over to the station with me, will ya? I was only wandering anyway, and so at the end of the second and a half that he allowed me for a reply I was without a reasonable excuse. He waited no longer and, diving into the swarms, took a three-pace lead which I was never to re- cover. I say with all due admiration, he trav- eled like a streak. How ' s the horn comin ' ? he snapped over his shoulder, the volume almost upsetting a poor old lady. OK, we ' ve got a nine-piecer, now, I replied. Had I played with this guy? How are you doin ' ? I yelled, hoping for a lead to his iden- tity . Oh, pretty good on the whole. Say, ya know, I haven ' t seen you since the time we . . . Whip- ping through a narrow gap which closed imme- diately after him, he was lost to me and, when I finally caught up again by taking to the middle of the street and risking the wild taxis, I heard him say, — and so you see, I haven ' t done so badly. I agreed with him heartily as I vaulted over the hood of the car he had managed to beat to the crossing. I recovered my footing just in time to aid an elderly gentleman to his feet after my cyclone friend had knocked his knees out from under him in his effort to duck a dangerous umbrella-spoke of a sun-fearing woman. As we hit the last long stretch and the station rolled into sight, I ran the fifty-odd yard gain he had on me and demanded in restrained tones just when his train was due to leave. Three-thirty-eight, he replied. I glanced briefly at my watch and found to my horror that it read exactly thirty-seven and one-half minutes past three. You have your ticket already, of course, I said nervously, fearing the worst. I heard his reply in the negative from a some- what awkward upside-down position caused by a violent twist to the left which had flung me into a half-turn back soinersault in midair. When I informed him of the time, I couldn ' t see any facial expression of concern, at least from my rather poor view of his bobbing countenance. {Continued on Page 19)

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18 ers. They also had to oversee the two hours of evening work, and to keep order in the dormi- tories. Naturally there were popular and un- popular prefects as some would be strict and some easy. I remember one time when a boy was given three strokes for talking to the boy behind him in class. Speaking of strokes, the only person who was allowed to give the stick was the head- master. He certainly didn ' t lack practice, for in the thirty-two years that he was there he gave an average of six strokes a day. I remember one day when he gave a total of a hundred and ten strokes to different boys. Besides being our head-master, he was also a J. P. (a Justice of the peace), in the city of Ely. He always used to give us the choice of paying for a broken win- dow or having the stick, his penalty being usu- ally five strokes. In the two and a half very enjoyable years which I have spent in America, I have found that the schools present the most striking contrast in the lives of the two countries. ONE IN A THOUSAND Roger Zollin, ' 44 The reason, Dacey, that I ' m sending only one plane is that I think that in this case one plane will have more of a chance of completing the job and returning than a whole squadron would. Flight Officer Kennedy of the U. S. Aircraft Carrier Astoria was speaking to a tall, lanky pilot wearing the uniform of a U. S. Marine. I understand that fully. Sir. Your chances of returning, went on Ken- nedy, are one in a thousand. The enemy cruiser which is moving toward us is the newest type that the Japs are building. If it gets close enough, this carrier will be done for. If it ' s possible for you to drop the bomb that ' s stowed on your plane squarely, that cruiser will be blown sky high. The bomb is of a new type, two hundred times as deadly as anything we ' ve got yet. All the charts and data that you ' ll need are here on this table. You take off in ten minutes. Good luck, bud, and God be with you. With that Kennedy turned and strode from the room. Pilot Dacey looked after him; then he turned and began studying the charts which lay before him. He made several notations in his note book, gathered up several of the charts, and walked out to the flight deck. Before him stood rows of mighty planes, all stored neatly so as to conserve space. Slowly he walked down the deck to the foremost plane, the motor of which was turning over slowly. Climbing into the cock- pit, he put his charts in their case and fastened his helmet. Glancing across the deck, he saw the signal flashed for him to take off. Checking his instruments, he waved away the mechanics and slowly slid the throttle forward. The mighty plane seemed to take on new life as the motor roared. He began moving slowly at first, but rapidly gaining speed, he raced down the deck. Swiftly the end of the carrier moved up to meet him; then suddenly it was gone. Rising quickly in tight spirals, he climbed high into the air. When the carrier was a mere dot on the surface, he banked to the west and sped on his mission. One hour passed and then two, and slowly far away he spotted the enemy cruiser, a dot on the surface, moving slowly in the direction from which he had come. Ducking behind a friendly cloud bank, he flew on unseen. When he again emerged from the clouds, he had banked around and was moving in the same direction as the cruiser. Gripping his controls tightly, he pushed them forward slowly until the cross-chains of his dive-sight split the tarket. Down, down his plane plunged with the propeller screaming like a thousand unleashed demons. Suddenly dirty black puffs of smoke began bursting all around him, as the Japs, now fully aware of the danger, sent shells rushing skyward to welcome the on- rushing plane. Oblivious of the deadly fire, Dacey never wa- vered. Increasing air pressure gripped his throat, wrists, and heaving chest in a vain at- tempt to crush the life from his body, but the enemy cruiser remained fixed in his sights. Larger, larger it grew — closer and closer it came with each lingering second — expanding like some evil monster until suddenly its massive form seemed to fill the cramped cockpit. Swiftly Dacey ' s hand moved to the bomb release and the plane, its lethal load of death released, swerved upward in a shrieking arc. A moment of agonizing suspense — then the huge steel mon- ster was gripped by an expanding mass of dense black smoke and flames. Without lingering to watch the sea drag the stricken ship down into its depths, the plane climbed back into the sheltering clouds and dis- appeared. Then turning. Dacey sped swiftly toward his rendezvous with the carrier, his task completed.