St Johnsbury Academy - Lamp Yearbook (St Johnsbury, VT)

Page 17 text:

THE ACADEMY STUDENT 15 CLASS HISTORY FINALS FOR 1940 R-R-R-R-R-R-Ring (The bell rings and the buzzing ceases.) Booming Voice: Turn your tests over. Read the directions carefully before starting and then write with pen dipped in humor. Ques. I—Describe the first few weeks of the memorable fall of 1936. Ans. I—T’was but a short time ago we meekly sought out room 6. How we labored over the first few weeks’ homework! (I wonder what there was about those teachers that scared us so. Gosh! what else happened??) Ques. II—Tell something interesting that happened in the sophomore year. (Please omit the fact that you told the incoming freshmen where to get off, usually in the wrong place.) Ans. II—Tanned and freckled, the more steady freshmen proudly stepped into sophomore shoes. (Sounds familiar doesn’t it?) That year Robert Frost established a summer home only seven miles from St. Johnsbury. (My, it must be nice to be famous enough so that the “Student” seeks an interview.) Ques. Ill—If you have not mentioned a teacher in the previous question, answer the following one. When would you have most enjoyed a teacher’s company? Ans. Ill—During our sophomore year our faculty developed a wanderlust. Most noticeable were the following three: (Maybe if 1 give three I'll get extra credit.) To begin with, our g' ial U. S. history teacher was beckoned to the greeting of beautiful Hawaii. Tales of these islands were welcome diversions from the ever lasting task of making seniors “think” (“some of you aren’t thinking”.) Miss Grover’s travels in the wild and woolly West brought back a thrilling line, too long for a chapel period. Mrs. Goodrich crossed the bounding main to sunny Italy. (I always did want to sail the seven seas. Dear me, I could have crossed two off my list.) P. S. Mr. Smith and Mr. Redington both booked for a long voyage on the uncharted sea of matrimony. Ques. IV—Tell about something that has material stability and which caused a hubbub in tlie junior class? Ans. IV—Most of us were budding out satisfactorily but needed some little thing to make us feel secure. So, we got hitched to the Academy. If you can’t guess now, just look at your fingers. Here was something to make our junior boys houseclean their fingernails. Ques. V—As long as you have been itching to get at this question, write concisely and thoughtfully what you will remember about your last year in the Academy? Ans. V—1940 was the census year and again the events of the past ten years are coming back to light.

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14 THE ACADEMY STUDENT indeed indebted to the creator of the short story. This man was Edgar Al’an Poe. America is indebted to him for the greatest single achievement in American literature. His genius is doubly impressive when it is realized that in France and Russia, where the people are less familiar with his tragic life, Poe’s short stories are classics. Writing with the conception that a short story should be about a single incident and should create a single impression, Poe succeeded perfectly in carrying out his own ideals. In most of his own stories this impression or effect is one of horror. Dark and dismal scenes are presented. Disease and insanity are expressed in his characters. Murder lurks in their minds. Death is the key-note of his plots. Near the end of his life Poe wrote to James Russell Lowell, “My life has been a whim, impulse, passion, a longing for solitude, a scorn of all things present.” That same halo of mystery, gloom, and yearning for solitude that enveloped his life is found in his stories. Yet. contrary to his belief that his life was Avasted, it is evident in the course of the literature that has followed him that what he created shall live forever. Although the short story has changed in many ways it is evident that the best short stories of today are those that follow Poe’s idea of creating a single impression on the reader. Originality pays dividends in all phases of life, and this has proved exceptionally true in literature. Eugene O’Neill, Walt Whitman, and Edgar Allan Poe combined new subject matter with new form in their particular fields of literature, and produced works Avhich may be described as truly great and truly American. - Nicholas Economou

Page 18 text:

THE ACADEMY STUDENT This last year we entered with a keen feeling of having a place in the world, but forgot our importance long enough to welcome six new teachers, and to mourn the loss of the more familiar ones. Also we pause to mention our regret that Mr. Redington, Miss Wilson and Mr. Oldham were unable to finish the year with us. In the next census our athletic team will have a nickname if the ballots hold out (we hope.) Ques. VI—What kind of public services could the senior class offer in case there was a shortage? Ans. VI—Frankly speaking we’ve got some swell musicians and just enough singers to keep them busy. Our numerous actors and actresses are all set for anything after four years’ training under Miss Clark. The public need have no worry about not having a means to get “further details to be found in their newspapers.” Our newspaper staff is ready to take over the New York Times any day. We are well supplied with promising young farmers and have a sufficient number of home economics girls to add the finishing touches to their grade A-)- produce. As for sports, well just look at the husky men Academy sports have developed. Mighty proud we are of our players. If the public needs someone to help them put a bill through Congress they need only to address our debaters. There’s no doubt but what they could turn the tide of public opinion. You can never tell, we probably have the second U. S. president from the Academy developing right in our class. W hy, our accomplishments are u'nlimii d. There never was and there never will be another class like 1940 (excluding the figures.) do all those concerned, we are leaving all our mistakes and sorrows loi the past to worry about, and are looking forward to a wondrous future, or are we surmising incorrectly? Signed by the History Committee Professors. Chairman, Kathleen Stanhope Rose Langlois Earl SilsL , Charles Flanders Allene Beattie Luella Drown Elmer Morrison George Boutwell Bishop McGill