As I look back on my years in St. Johnsbury Academy I know that I
appreciated to some extent what you were doing for the young people in
your charge, and especially the many kindnesses that you showed to me
in assisting me to prepare for college. It was not until the close of my
second year at the Academy that I made any definite plans to go farther,
but I appreciate very much more today than I did then the character of
the work you were doing. It was my good fortune to be brought into touch
with able teachers and educators during my entire education, but I can
truthfully say that not one of them took time out of a busy life to
arouse and assist a growing ambition for a broader education as you did,
and I shall always look back to the three years spent under you at St.
Johnsbury Academy as the time when my ambitions clarified themselves and
I began to look out toward a broader field.
Very sincerely,
MATT B. JONES, '86.
As one of the many students who in St. Johnsbury Academy had the
pleasure and advantage of your instruction, I am glad to acknowledge the
obligation I personally feel to you for the kindly and patient direction
given me at such an important period in a young man's life. It seems to
me that the knowledge that one has wisely directed the education and
lives of so many young men and women as you have, must constitute one of
the crowning and most satisfying joys possible, and I am sure that all
the youth who have felt the influence of your teaching sincerely wish
that you may live long to enjoy the happiness which you deserve for
service so conscientiously and cheerfully performed.
Very sincerely yours,
EDWIN A. BAYLEY, '81.
I am sending this letter hoping it may be opened by you on February 26,
which I am told is your birthday. I want you to be sure of the love of
an old pupil who never forgets you, and never will cease to be grateful
for your gifts to him during the three years that we were together in
St. Johnsbury. The Lord richly bless you with all good things.
Yours loyally and affectionately,
OZORA S. DAVIS, '85.
I wish to take this opportunity to write to you to extend congratulations
on your seventy-fifth birthday, and further to express my appreciation
for the service you rendered me back in St. Johnsbury Academy. You will
recall that when I entered the Academy I told you I wanted to become a
teacher and to that end I have always striven.
* * * * *
I must not weary you with too much of my own history, only enough to let
you know that after eighteen years of service I can still look back with
appreciation to the man who above all others in the Academy made a
lasting impression on my life. May the years that are before you be full
of sunshine and happiness.
Yours sincerely,
ARTHUR F. O'MALLEY, '93.
Some one tells me that you are to have a birthday tomorrow and I desire
to join with the host of your former students in sending you good wishes
on that day. There are many of us who still feel in our lives what
a factor St. Johnsbury was, and of all those in the old school you
were the one who meant the most to each one of us. When I think of my
experiences at the Academy--and St. Johnsbury meant more to me than
college or anything else--I always think of you and the great help that
you were to us boys in the time when we needed help. The pleasures of
my classes in Greek and all the other things in which you were of such
valuable assistance, will always be remembered. I only wish I might
do for some boy as much as you did for me. I send you my sincerest
greetings and best wishes for a happy birthday.
Yours for '85,
JAY B. BENTON, '85.
It hardly seems possible that you are reaching your seventy-fifth
birthday, but such, I am informed, is the case. I have really known you
quite a while; because you will remember that you were the Normal School
examiner, and I was in one of the classes graduating from the Randolph
Normal School in 1882.
I presume that as you think over the factors which have led to such a
hale and hearty old age, you will agree with Mark Twain who attributed
his seventy years to, among other things, never having smoked but one
cigar at a time, never having smoked during sleep, and not always at
his meals.
I hope that on this auspicious day you will take out the gold-headed
cane presented you by the class of '86 and, at least, wave it in the air
a few times; for, as I think I told you on the day of its presentation,
we hoped you might never need it for walking purposes.
I can never forget your many acts of kindness rendered me personally
during my course at St. Johnsbury. Were I to attempt to recount them as
they occur to me I am sure I should make this letter, which is intended
to be simply one of warm congratulations, far too long.
Among the many things upon which I think you are to be congratulated, I
would mention first the spirit which inspires you to still love your
work at seventy-five, and again the nervous and physical energy which
permits you to stay, as Roosevelt might say, "in the ring." No less are
you to be congratulated on the consciousness, which I know must be
yours, of the love and devotion of hundreds, yes, thousands by this
time, of your pupils throughout the world.
* * * * *
I am sure I have imperfectly expressed the love, gratitude, and
admiration which I always cherish toward you, but you can be sure there
is much of it here, as there is in the hearts of all who have come in
contact with you.
With cordial best wishes I am, sincerely,