Those were days of exceptional privilege in the eighties and nineties
for the shy but eager boys and girls of rural Vermont who found their
way to St. Johnsbury Academy, there, under Mr. Putney and the able and
friendly faculty of his choice, to catch enlarged vision and the
preparation to fulfill it.
The quiet, unobtrusive life of such as Mr. Putney lends itself to fewer
striking, outstanding memories than more brilliant careers, yet how
positive the impression and far-reaching the influence, and how sweet
the incidents one does recall!
My first acquaintance revealed his friendly interest and thoughtfulness.
Discovering that I, a timid new-comer, was the only girl enrolled for
Greek with twenty young men, he sent a kindly word of encouragement and
the hope that I would not let the fact discourage me in my purpose. That
pledge of sympathy on the part of one of my first male instructors had
large weight in deciding me to brave the ordeal. It was, too, a pledge
fully and most wisely carried out, so discriminatingly administered
by daily, tactful consideration as to set me wholly at ease and to
establish the most natural, unconscious comradeship with the class.
The only visible evidence of his thought came in occasional approving
comments upon the little rivalry in scholarship in the class and the
requests that I conduct the class sometimes when he was necessarily
absent. Thus he made of the experience, by his fine tact and wisdom,
a happy and fruitful one.
I was early inspired with a confidence that the ideals he held for us
were but those of his own life. The urgent suggestions to drill and
review our lessons thoroughly were the more forceful when I learned that
it had been a habit of all his own student life to review each Saturday
the entire daily work of the week. A trying epidemic of colds and coughs
was prevailing one winter, disturbing school exercises greatly. At the
close of chapel one morning Mr. Putney told us in his quiet, earnest
manner the dangers of allowing a cough to become aggravated and the
possibility of entirely controlling it. Skeptical of this, I well
remember with what gleeful malice I scoffed at it in the hearing of a
teacher who made the lesson one of life-long practice by telling me of
the heroic, thorough treatment to which Mr. Putney had in early life
subjected himself, so that he had spoken out of personal experience
again. When his life had been despaired of because of supposedly fatal
illness he had effected a complete recovery by checking the deep-seated
cough.
When in later years I found that his benign presence and quiet influence
was bearing daily fruit in the same, or even greater respect and reverence
with a younger generation of students, I realized afresh under what a
rare teacher I had had the privilege of coming, and how profoundly true
it is that such a personality teaches constantly, often when least
suspected, the finest and most profound lessons. The vision which he
communicated is one of the most precious treasures.