It is a great pleasure for me to add my word of appreciation with
respect to the splendid influence that Mr. Putney exerted at St.
Johnsbury Academy. He was always fair, always friendly, and his sense of
humor was a delight. A thorough scholar himself, he was not satisfied
with superficial work. He was able to sympathize with the pupil's view
of life and yet he knew how to enlarge that view. The branches of Latin
and Greek which he taught did not afford him full scope for expressing
the originality that was a remarkable part of his character; but I
remember a course of reading in English literature which our class took
under him as an extra, and there he was able to disclose the poetic part
of his nature, and we were able to know him as a thinker and a seer.
I look back with gratitude to the days at "St. Jack."