USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > The sesquicentennial record : in commemoration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., May 18, 19, 1928 > Part 3
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BY CLAUDE M. FUESS
M ANY hours spent in studying the history of Phillips Academy have impressed upon me the in- fluence and the enduring quality of the theories upon which it was established. When it opened a century and a half ago, it seemed small and unimportant; but, like the acorn, it had within itself immense possibilities for growth, most of which have been so far realized that the school is today a mighty oak in American secondary education. Since its foundation, it has passed through strange vicissitudes: buildings have been erected and burned and replaced; masters have come and gone, leaving memories, good and bad, behind them; lean years have succeeded fat years, and calm has followed storm. Yet Phillips Academy, in spite of its expansion and its amazing physical changes, has remained spiritually un- altered. It is unaltered today so far as the essential things are concerned, and the ideals which it now up- holds are those which actuated the founders in 1778.
Broad-minded, national, and democratic in its policies, the school has adjusted itself without difficulty to a changing world, simply because any world not
(Continued on page 69)
Page Twenty
HEADMASTER ALFRED E. STEARNS From the portrait by ALEXANDER JAMES
Page Twenty-one
"He Came to Himself"
BY ERNEST M. HOPKINS President of Dartmouth College; Trustee of Phillips Academy
T HE school and college of modern times have very different problems than pertained to such educa- tional institutions in the earlier stages of past centuries.
There was a time in the early Middle Ages when the amount of knowledge available to mankind was so limited that men could aspire to possess themselves of all knowledge then knowable. This was the aim of the encyclopedists. Some men among these to a consid- erable degree achieved their purpose.
Our look now in the educational field is forward rather than backward. Our search is for access to new knowledge rather than for complete acquaintance- ship with the factual history of the past. Nevertheless, we cannot safely take up thought in regard to the future until we have some acquaintanceship with that best thinking of the past which constitutes the accumulation of the world's store of wisdom.
Meanwhile, as civilization advances, man increas- ingly needs subjective knowledge to relate himself intelligently to the more complex objective existence of which he is a part. This is the only way in which he can know reality. Herein is a new and difficult problem for education.
I am no great believer in an attitude of morbid intro- spection, but more and more I am convinced that a man must acquire some superficial knowledge at least in regard to himself, before he can apply himself with major intelligence to the problem of learning. More and more, I believe, our great preparatory schools and our colleges must apply themselves to the problem of giving the individual man guidance to himself. In no other way can we expect fruitful thought from future generations on the problem of how best to maintain the needful balance between the needful virtues of indi- vidualism and the exacting necessities of self-abnegation for the benefit of the group.
Any final solution of this great question is far off in the distant future. Meanwhile, nevertheless, many of our great schools and colleges are devoting their in- terest to the matter and securing obviously greater results than have been secured heretofore. It becomes increasingly apparent that amid all of the different pur- poses for which the great schools must stand there should be added this function of overwhelming (Continued on page 71)
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ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN 1875
".A row of three severely rectangular buildings."
Page Twenty-two
F
THE OLD ENGLISH COMMONS WHEN DR. THWING WAS AT ANDOVER
"Teems with stories of rough and rugged fun"
A Looking Backward Prophecy
BY CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING, '71 President Emeritus of Western Reserve University; President, United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa
MOST school and college boys think much about their futures - as they ought - and talk much about the futures of their comrades - as is also instinctive and proper. I now want, however, to give a bit of backward looking prophecy about some of the boys of my years in the Academy (1868-1871).
My interpretation is summed up in the simple re- mark that these boys have developed into a manhood abler and finer than the Academy years intimated. This development refers both to their public career and to their character.
For who would have thought that "Johnnie" Patton would have become a senator of the United States, or Charles Sumner Bird a political and civil leader in the Commonwealth, or Almet Jenks (dear Almet) a member of the Supreme Court of New York, or "Sam" Isham an historian of art, an art which his brush helped to enrich, or "Billy" Moody a Representative in Congress, Attorney-General of the United States, Secretary of the Navy, and a Justice of the Supreme Court? These names are starred in the catalogue. But there are other names of the living, representing equal usefulness and eminence, of whom I do not write.
For I am just now interested rather in the develop- ment of the character of these brothers than in their public achievement. Whenever, year by year, or de-
cade by decade, my class or my schoolmates have met together, I have been impressed by their improvement and enrichment in all the manifold things which con- stitute what we call character. The strong have be- come stronger; the weak, less weak; the timid have taken on courage; the hesitating, directness; the self- distrustful, self-reliance; the iconoclastic have become constructive; the radical, reasonably conservative; the boastful, essentially humble; the selfish, altruistic and cooperative; the careless, considerate in mind and heart; the narrow, magnanimous; the emotional, in- tellectual; the unstable, self-controlled; and the pleasure loving, laborious. They have sailed on in the course in which the compass was early set, but this course they have pursued worthily and more and more worthily as the voyage has lengthened out.
Occasionally one finds an opposite process and con- clusion. The weak have become weaker; the able, less able; the selfish, more selfish. But the general move- ment is evident and most impressive: the good have become the better; and the better, the best. The gen- eral biography is the story of the ascent of the boy into a character nobler and finer than he would himself have dared to hope.
'To consider with any degree of adequacy the causes (Continued on page 71)
Page Twenty - three
NEWMAN DNETO
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT COMES TO ANDOVER FOR HIS SON'S GRADUATION IN 1913
The President may be seen at the extreme right. Professor Forbes is standing in the doorway and at the extreme left is David May, a familiar figure on the Hill today.
Andover's Value to the Sons of the Rich or Great BY ARCHIBALD B. ROOSEVELT, '13
M UCH has been said of the value of our school to the boy of no means, or of moderate means. I want to take a different point now and show the value of Andover for the sons of wealthy or prominent people.
"As worthless as a minister's son." That was a say- ing of the last generation. Until recently I could not understand where this idea arose. The ministers' sons that I know, with only one exception, are above the average in both character and ability, so the facts did not, in my experience, bear out the theory. Then it came to me that it was a saying inherited from a previous generation. Undoubtedly there were many ministers' sons in times past who bore out the old say- ing, and a little thought made me understand why the saying grew up.
In Colonial days, and shortly thereafter, the min- isters, by reason of being almost the only educated class, were the outstanding men in their community. Roger Williams and Jonathan Edwards were not only preach- ers of the Gospel, but were the political and social leaders of the small frontier-like settlements of what is now the United States. All the schools and colleges were in the hands of the clergy and were mainly con- cerned in educating young men for the pulpit.
As a result of this the minister's son received a better education, and had a higher social position than the other boys of the town. He had an entrée into every house, high or low. But unfortunately in many cases his education in book knowledge was completed before
his character education. He had no transition between the strict discipline of a Puritan home and the liberty of the outside world. So when he left the door of his home, he was sure to run into those men who exist in every community, who live by what they please to call their wits. Naturally, a well-educated boy, with such splen- did social connections, and an unformed character, was only too often easy prey for sharpers who used the boy's brains and social connections and debased his character to further their own schemes.
Today the minister is not the outstanding figure in the community that he was in colonial days and shortly thereafter. We all are - or think we are - educated. The outstanding man in a community is apt to be the multimillionaire or prominent lawyer, or well-known politician. And it is to the sons of such men that the sharpers of today look for their natural prey. It is by using the connections of these youngsters that the sharper tries to advance himself. And here is where I think we are better equipped today than in former times.
We are constantly talking today about the ad- vantages of modern education for the boys of poor or moderate circumstances. But, speaking as one whose father achieved prominence in the nation, I feel that the sons of the outstanding figures of the community are the peculiar beneficiaries of modern education - especially such education as is given us at Andover.
(Continued on page 68)
Page Twenty four
An Andover Hymn
(Tune: "Crusader") BY HENRY H. TWEEDY, '87 Professor of Practical Theology at Yale University
Eternal God, whose wisdom led Our founders to this hill To build a home for glorious youth, Be with their children still! Our fathers' God, To thee we sing!
As thy rich blessing through the years Brings to our faith and toil success,
We pledge our hearts' full loyalty To manhood's nobleness.
We guard those beacon fires of truth, Whose light grows never pale.
We tend the altar flames of love, Whose warmth shall never fail. O Andover! Blest Andover!
Mother of men who cast out fear, Brave hearts that conquer hate and wrong,
God's warriors who in all their fight Sing love's great battle song.
Here let a man be prized for worth, And not for fame or gold,
And virtue, thrift and sturdy faith Rule as in days of old.
O Andover! Brave Andover!
Till from the grime and greed of earth Hearts shall at last be fully free,
And peace and brotherhood shall reign On sunlit land and sea.
O home of beauty, truth and love, To thy great trust be true!
Walk in the paths our fathers trod! Their vows to God renew! O Andover! Our Andover!
Thank God for thee, thou friend of man, City of youth on wisdom's hill!
We pledge our minds, our hearts, our hands To work with thee God's will!
A Bit Odd; but not so Very
BY THE REV. CARROLL PERRY, '86
A WILD winter's day, on a Sunday, during my time at the G. S. W. (Greatest School in the World) I received a visit from my father, who took a room at the old Inn of the Eighties, and invited me to dine with him.
A blizzard starting in the neighborhood of the Tewks- bury Almshouse swept across the valley and beat against the windows of the Tavern on the Hill. The old gentleman was greatly preoccupied, however, and gave little thought to the weather. For had not his father been a student on Andover Hill in 1817, and had not this forbear sat at the feet of Moses Stuart, the first American scholar to achieve a European reputation?
Not only this: my father rose from his chair by the glowing fire and began to pace up and down the room in accord with habitual custom when he had anything especially upon his mind. "Sonny", said he, "do you realize, do any of you boys realize, that we listened this morning to a sermon of extraordinary ability and fascination?" I confessed that this was knowledge not as yet in my possession, and he went on, in his enthu- siastic way, about the message of a very tall slim young
Professor who carried (and was to spread) the name of George Foot Moore.
In after years I thought about that Sunday visit many times; and it gradually came over me that the Boys' Academy was not the only thing that had happened on Andover Hill. There was a great intel- lectual tradition here; it had begun with my school, but had been incalculably enriched later by my grand- father's school!
We are about to have on these famous grounds a noble Library in aid of, and in memory of, American scholarship. This hill is a cool place in summer. Our buildings could comfortably house a small group of post- graduates. Eager students might meet in the summer months for lectures by the world's best scholars on the subjects of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin literature.
I am not talking about a Summer School for lame ducks; nor about a Poultry or Plumbing Institute. I am talking about using fine buildings, in the fine season, for the fine art of presenting Hebrew and the Human- ities in a place where both have been loved and lovingly interpreted by gifted men for over a hundred years.
Page Twenty - five
SAMUEL PHILLIPS, Esquire The father of the founder of Phillips Academy
".I Phillips crossed the water with John Winthrop, and from him descended a long line of ministers, judges, governors, and councillors-a sterling race, temperate, just, and high-minded." -A writer in Harper's
Page Twenty-six
Canada Our Neighbor
BY THE HONORABLE WILLIAM PHILLIPS American Minister to Canada; descendant of the Founders of Phillips Academy
F OR years we have been thinking of that vast region to the north as an undeveloped, underpopulated stretch of mountains and plains and mighty rivers, possessing unlimited natural resources and a capacity for hydro-electric power such as the world has never known. We have discovered that capital was needed there to start the wheels of industry, and we have supplied it in such a way as to bring benefits upon the people, as well as upon ourselves.
An increasingly active trade has grown up between the two countries, until now we find that the people of Canada, next to those of Great Britain, are our largest customers. The happiest of commercial relations exists between Americans and Canadians, who have come to realize more and more that the prosperity of this continent can be stimulated and increased by closer contacts between its northern and southern halves.
A new era has dawned. The last Imperial Con- ference in London in 1926 recognized Canada's new status within the British Empire, in the following language: "They (the Dominions) are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations." With a view to regularizing her new status, Canada has already established direct diplomatic intercourse with the United States, and the exchange of duly accredited
ministers plenipotentiary between Ottawa and Wash- ington has placed the relations of the two countries upon a new footing.
It is high time for us Americans to give more thought to the splendid qualities of the owners of this mighty northern domain. Business intercourse with them is highly beneficial to us as well as to them. But there is something more to be gained from life than material success. Already we have the business contacts, but we lack the human relationships on which alone is built a foundation of solid friendship.
Our Canadian associates have exactly the same standards of right, justice, and fair play as we have. Moreover, they are a delightful people with a capacity for friendship that comes straight from the heart. They are steadfastly loyal to their mother country and to their great Empire. And in this sense of loyalty is to be found one of the finest qualities in their character.
Let us hope that more Americans will learn to know them, and to appreciate them at their true value, and may we hope that more Canadians will come into personal touch with us, and will realize that we are really very "good fellows", and that we keenly desire for all times their warm friendship.
Cooperation between Americans and Canadians will go far towards stimulating the friendly associations between our country and all parts of the British Empire, and this in turn will have a mighty influence on peace and progress throughout the world.
. .
4
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THE OLD LATIN COMMONS ON PHILLIPS STREET "As simple and unpretentious as it was possible to make them"
Page Twenty -seven
Highways of the Air
BY SENATOR HIRAM BINGHAM, '94 Ex-Governor of Connecticut, Explorer, and Aviator
M EASURED by achievement, it is a far cry from the hazardous experiments of an Orville Wright to the masterful accomplishments of a Lindbergh. Measured by years, however, it is but a brief span since those daring, purposeful pioneers, the Wright Brothers, inspired by prophetic vision, put to the supreme test their theories of air navigation, and on the bleak, wind- swept heights of Kill Devil Hill in North Carolina made the first successful power-driven flight.
It is not yet quite a quarter of a century ago that this epochal event took place, when, on December 17, 1903, for the first time in all history a machine carrying a man raised itself into the air by its own power in free flight, sailed forward on a level course without reduction of speed, and landed without being wrecked. For twelve seconds it lasted. Four flights were made at that time, the final attempt covering a distance of 852 feet, and the plane remaining aloft for fifty-nine seconds.
What a contrast this picture presents to the distance and endurance records of today, when the "Spirit of St. Louis" has spanned the Atlantic and in a few hours' flight has borne America's goodwill greetings to Europe!
The past year in American aviation has been espec- ially notable for a steady increase in the amount of flying, not only military and naval, but in the Com- mercial field as well. It has been notable also for a growing public understanding of the problems and potentialities of air navigation, and a growing public willingness to accept aircraft as normal instruments for the conveyance of persons and property.
Continued improvement has been manifested in the planes themselves, especially in respect of heightened efficiency and lowered weight of power plant and in- creased use of metal in wing structure, as well as in de- creased cost to the point where airplane engines are now produced at a cost per horse power that is less than the cost of many automobile engines.
A conspicuous service is being performed by the Department of Commerce in the lighting and marking of airways, so that night flying may be carried on and steadily increased. This work was inaugurated by the Department in 1926, under the authority and stimulus of the Air Commerce Act of that year.
While the development has been marked in all branches of aviation, and the public interest has been keyed to a high pitch by the various attempts to estab- lish distance and non-stop flying records, some of which, possibly ill-advised or ill-timed, have ended in disaster, there is perhaps less common knowledge of the well- nigh phenomenal growth which has characterized the activities of that capable public servant, the air-mail.
When this service was inaugurated several years ago the Post Office Department took the initiative and for some time Departmental fliers piloted the air-mail
planes. It was not intended, however, that the Govern- ment should continue indefinitely in this venture, but it was felt that it should very properly be the pioneer in demonstrating its practicability, thus marking the trail for private interests to follow when initiative and capital should combine to develop commercial flying to the point where contractual relations could safely be entered into between the Government and private enterprise for the carrying of the mails by airplanes.
That time was not long in arriving. In October, 1925, the Post Office Department began making con- tracts with commercial companies for the air-mail, and has gradually enlarged the service. Some months ago the Department retired from the field entirely as an active air-mail carrier.
Five contracts were signed October 7, 1925, including the following: Route No. 1, Boston via Hartford, to New York and return, 192 miles each way; No. 2, Chicago to St. Louis, via Peoria and Springfield, Ill., 278 miles each way; No. 3, Chicago to Fort Worth and Dallas, 987 miles each way; No. 4, Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, 600 miles each way; and, No. 5, Salt Lake City to Pasco, Wash., 530 miles each way.
The first of these routes to begin to function under contract was No. 5, on April 6, 1926, although a route, the contract for which was signed in November, 1925, that from Detroit to Cleveland, 91 miles each way, antedated No. 5 in actual operation by about seven weeks.
Steadily the number of air-mail routes has been in- creased until today, if visible to the eye, they would be found to mark off the heavens in tesselated pattern. There are now in operation eighteen domestic air routes for the carrying of mails. Their total length is 8,044 one-way miles, making a total of more than 16,000 miles flown daily going and returning. The longest of these routes is 1904 miles; the shortest, 91.
Contracts have been let also for seven additional routes, over which there will soon be daily flights of more than 7,000 miles.
By July 1, 1928, therefore, it is expected that twenty- five air-mail routes will be in operation, with a total daily flight of nearly 25,000 miles.
Northward, southward, run these invisible highways of the air, reaching out to the four corners of the land. Daily, nightly, the intrepid air-mail pilots, mastering nature's moods as a matter of everyday routine, pursue their unseen courses, beset by perils of which our fore- fathers never dreamed, but rarely stayed by storm or stress of circumstance, following their long, long trails into the rising and the setting sun, arrow-like in their direct swiftness.
Of them was Lindbergh, until imperishable fame enshrined him, living, among the immortals.
Page Twenty -eight
THE OLD STONE ACADEMY (right) The corner of Chapel Avenue and Main Street in 1860
Sixty Years Ago and Today BY THE REV. FREDERIC PALMER, '65
R EMINISCENCES by the old are seldom interest- ing to the young, though they may have an interest for the middle-aged, since these stretch a hand in both directions. When I was in the Academy and elderly men came into our meetings and proceeded to talk about the School as it was in their day, I was bored and wanted some subject more vital. Yet I shall venture to recall two aspects of the condition of Phillips Academy from sixty to seventy years ago, in order to illuminate the far greater wealth of its condition today.
When I entered the Academy in 1863 baseball in its modern form had just come into existence, and the first School team was organized about that time. The only other provision for athletics was the hint at a gymna- sium suggested by a swing whose ropes were untrust- worthy and a pair of parallel bars standing in a corner of the field opposite the Latin Commons. I need not point to our many playing-fields and well equipped gymnasium to mark the contrast today.
But the change of even greater importance, though the athletic managers might dispute its priority, is in the relation of the students to the head of the School. Those were the days when authority was expected to express itself in brute force, and in most schools, in England and here, the expectation was realized. In the
decade from 1860 to '70 the Principal of Phillips Acad- emy was Dr. Samuel H. Taylor, "Uncle Sam," as he was called, or more commonly "Uncle". He was by nature a shy man, who, like many shy men, supposed. that a blustering manner was important and necessary to assert authority. He was a large, heavy man, over- bearing, bullying, especially terrifying to small boys. Spies in his pay among the poorer students kept him informed of actions which were unlawful or suspicious; and many a boy was "requested to remain" after Prayers and accused on an unnamed charge in the expec- tation that he would drop some admission of guilt. 1 was once summoned to Uncle's study and was met with, "Palmer, your course has cost us sleepless nights of anxiety". I did not know that I had involved sweet Mrs. Taylor in I knew not what. "Why, Dr. Taylor, what have I done?" "That we will not discuss at present; but your course has cost us sleepless nights of anxiety, and unless it is speedily changed, your connec- tion with this institution must cease". "But, Dr. Taylor, I have done nothing out of the way". "We will not now consider that, but your course," etc., with renewed reference to nights of conjugal wakefulness. The interview lasted twenty minutes, when I was dis-
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