Woodward Academy - Phoenix Yearbook (College Park, GA)

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268fSenior Tribute The Senior Class Of l978 Pays Tribute To Mr. A. T Ferguson, The Good Major At a meeting of an E.T.S. advisory committee last June in Princeton, the headmaster of one of America's most prestigious prep schools told me what he considers to be the key to any private school that strives for excellence - outstanding classroom teachers. A.T. Ferguson immediately came to mind. I have looked for his peer at many academic institutions. including two of world re- nown, and can confidently report that I have found none. Students at Woodward Academy to- day are fortunate that they too can sit in the classroom of an individual whose teaching I have no hesitation in labeling an outstanding pedagogi- cal achievement for more than thirty-five years. There are scores of educational treatises writ- ten every year that deal with teaching method- ology. When chairman of the department at Woodward, I used to tell Major Ferguson that a young person aspiring to teach could benefit more from one hour in his classroom than from all the educational texts ever written: I can attest to this fact in my own professional career. In I96O, our classroom was in a long, somewhat drab room under the library in the extension to Founder's Hall, and during the winter months the heating pipes clanked ominously. On the wall to the left as one entered was a poster of Caesar's Gaul and a rather tattered Pater Noster. CWhen I resigned from the faculty in l972, I would swear that the same Pater Noster was up on the wall in Brewster HaIl.D The decor mattered little. That classroom was then affectionately called the Sanctuary, and something quasireligious did indeed take place within its walls. The Good Major would sit on the right-hand side of the desk in a straight chair whose back legs were an inch or so shorter than the front. On the desk were the texts, a small, blue grade- book, and a few assorted papers. That was it. There were no teaching aids, visual aids Cother than the above-mentioned celebrated postersj, or learning devices. Major Ferguson was the teach- ing aids, the visual aids, and all the learning de- vices imaginable. The material Cwhether Latin de- clensions, French irregular verbs, Ovid's Meta- morphoses, Daudet's La Derniere Classe, or the unparalleled experience of singing La Marseillaise to an ancient recording of Lily Pons supposedly worth millions if found in the originalj was at- tacked with earnest rapidity and a large measure of religious zeal. Errors were simply not tolerated and when they did occur were immediately dis- patched with righteous indignation. The French call the sort of gift Major Ferguson has le feu sacre - the sacred fire. His zest for teaching, his uncompromising demands for excel- lence, his ability to motivate beyond the wildest dreams of the educational-text authors only par- tially explain what takes place in his classroom. I could not definitively characterize what happens there any better than I could definitively explain Houdini's magic, for what transpires is, in the last analysis, magical. In presenting the Senior Tribute to Major Fergu- son. this year's senior class is really presenting him a tribute from three and one-half decades of senior classes. His formal titles have evolved with the times, from Captain Ferguson in the early forties, to Major Ferguson when he chaired the Foreign Language Department in the fifties, to Mr. Ferguson when Woodward Academy came from G.M.A. in the sixties. Whatever title preced- ed his name, his presence on campus and, espe- cially in that Sanctuary as it has moved from one location to the next would put Hilton's Mr. Chips to shame. His is that rare type of greatness that my headmaster friend was referring to last summer. For myself, all I can say is a humble Gratias tibi ago. l have no doubt that thousands of former pupils would say the same. EdltOl S Note: The Phoenix staff requested James F. Jones, Class of I965, to write the tribute. Dr. Jones received his A.B. from the University of Virginia in I969, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received his M.A. from Emory in I972, his Master of Philosophy from Columbia in I974, and his Ph.D. in French literature from Columbia in I975. Currently, he is Assistant Professor of French and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Romance Languages, Washington Uni- versity, St. Louis. In addition to receiving the Senior Tribute, Mr. Ferguson was selected the I978 Star Teacher by Andrew Nuss.

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