I bet you were wondering when I'd mention our studies. Okay, by about Fourth Form (junior year), the shit started to get thick, and you had to buckle down for college admission. This was, after all, college preparatory school. The atmosphere was competitive in all forms, but it was even more so in the later ones. The masters posted the student grades for all to see at mid-semester and at the end of each semester. In addition, our ranked, weighted grade point averages were posted in every house. If you were screwing up, everyone knew about it.
It was universally acknowledged that the most solemn and important challenge facing each of us was learning how to bullshit. At least in the liberal arts subjects, that is. Those students who had mastered the art of bullshitting were the objects of immense admiration. (I never met one, but I knew many students who insisted that they had.) The most accomplished bullshit artists were usually Fifth Formers, unless you yourself were a Fifth Former, in which case you realized that there weren't as many as you had once thought.
In any case, bullshitting was the key to success in school, in college, and in the great beyond called life. Yes, it was sad but true that one's success depended on a well-developed capacity for creative dishonesty and skillful obfuscation. Or so we believed.
| Lesson: Now you know why ethics scandals regularly rock the business and professional worlds. |
At our level, bullshitting meant not doing the reading but being able to give the impression in class that you had. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the hang of bullshitting. It was a bit like my attempted jump shots rolling harmlessly off the fingertips. The problem was that the bullshitting ethic is based on the assumption that if you had in fact read the material, then you would know what you were talking about. This was not the case with me. I was clueless about literature and history, whether or not I had done the reading. I can tell you, however, that this kind of thinking is still alive and well in education. I once had a professor in graduate school, an author of books, who coached us on how not to read the assigned text.
| Lesson: If the prof says don't bother, don't bother. |
We believed that what separated the merely good from the truly great in any endeavor was the ability to bullshit an enormous, steaming pile. If you're a Democrat, think of the devious Richard Nixon, and if you're a Republican, think of the dissembling Bill Clinton. Both are masters of verbal deception, built up over a lifetime, one word and phrase at a time.
| Lesson: Style is always more important than substance. |
The curriculum at Lawrenceville was traditional: English, history, and math every year; at least one foreign language; at least one lab science; electives in art and music; a short class in religion for Fifth Formers.
The humanities classes were small, with no more than twelve or thirteen students in each. They all had oval wooden tables that were designed, we were told, to facilitate class discussions. The students faced each other, not the master. I can tell you that there was precious little in the way of engaging discussion in my classes. Not that it mattered much to me. Even on those rare occasions when there was a discussion, I couldn't understand what they were talking about.
In math and the sciences, the classes were a little bigger, maybe fifteen students. The master lectured from the blackboard in the traditional way, with all the student desks facing him.
Arthur Graham Down, the music master, was one of the shallowest people I've ever met. That he gave me my lowest grade, a 62 (60 being the lowest passing grade), in my four years has nothing to do with my personal dislike of him. Well, okay, maybe a little. Anyway, in my opinion, he was a mile wide and an inch deep.
A tall, almost towering, high-strung man with a massive, balding forehead and a perpetual five-o'clock shadow, Mr Down was a dynamo of nervous energy. He taught music and history, served as the master of Upper House, the biggest house on campus, and served as the academic advisor for the entire Fifth Form, the biggest form. I'm sure there's one such person in every school.
He also had the biggest mouth on campus. The thickness of his British accent only made the loudness of his voice and the abruptness of his interpersonal style all the more inadvertently comical. As someone once said, he not only overflowed with learning, but he stood ankle deep in the slop. That our music textbook didn't mention any genre of music other than classical didn't exactly play to my strengths. (It has since been revised to include sections on jazz and blues.)
What was more important to us, however, was that no one could figure out whether Mr Down was gay, straight, or clergy. Someone said that, although he played religious music on the organ every morning in chapel, and an extended program on Sundays, he didn't believe in God. I guess that eliminates clergy. No one had ever seen him within ten feet of a woman. I guess that eliminates straight, too. But neither had anyone ever seen him with an adult male friend. I believe that he has since gone on to an educational think tank or some such thing. He should be quite comfortable there, gassing it up all day about something as inherently nonsensical as educational policy.
| Lesson: Beware mile-wide, inch-deep. |
To be fair to Mr Down, I did learn one term in his class: Tiers de Picardy. Tears of ... what? No, not Tears. Tiers! Tiers de Picardy. That's when a composition that's written in a minor key resolves on a major tonic chord. How did I remember this term so many years later? Simple, the name is so bizarre, you can't forget it.
| Lesson: There's a psychological lesson in there somewhere; I don't know where. |
I noticed in our twenty-fifth reunion questionnaire that several of my classmates cited Mr Down as best teacher. Go figure. Maybe I was missing something. Were I to mention a couple of masters who had a positive influence on me, I'd say Dudley Morris, the art master, and Ross Harrison of the math department.
Mr Morris was a painter who used to pick up a few dollars now and then by selling his oils of Nassau Hall to rich Princeton grads.
| Lesson: Understand your market. |
Unlike that of the high-strung Mr Down, Mr Morris's classroom style was low-key. Sometimes he would walk around the studio and make a few quick comments about your work. For the rest of the class, he sat on a stool in the front of the room as we worked, and made random remarks, many of them of a sexual or bathroom nature, to no one in particular. He never lectured. The year was divided into thirds: first drawing and oil painting, then sculpture, and finally architecture. I struggled with the drawing and painting. The only useful thing I learned about oils was how to make a cool-looking mahogany color out of the primaries.
One of the drawing lessons involved three-dimensional objects like cones, spheres, and rectangular solids. We were supposed to learn how to shade these objects from a light source, and this was supposed to help us in our attempted depictions of buildings, streetscapes, and interiors. To Mr Morris's chagrin, however, all I wanted to do was more abstract cones, spheres, and rectangular solids. I had little desire to depict reality.
For the final project in the oil painting section, I was able to do a still life that looked a little like a still life. The painting was of a wooden bowl done in my favorite color, mahogany.
| Lesson: The hardest thing in the world is to have a creative breakthrough while working under time pressure. |
Sculpture was harder than painting. The master took one look at a shrunken human head I was trying to do in clay and advised me to move along as quickly as possible to the architecture component of the class. I preferred the architecture.
| Lesson: Don't worry about what you can't do. Focus on what you can do. |
Mr Morris's style may have been quirky, but he was willing to work individually with each student. He never judged you or threatened to fail you if you were lacking in talent. He motivated by encouraging, not discouraging.
Due to a mistake in the academic office at the beginning of my rhinie year, I ended up in an accelerated math class with a bunch of guys who were headed for Harvard University and other such places. The other master who would have an affect on me, Dr Harrison, taught this class. He was a real piece of work: a PhD, an outstanding teacher, and a rotten human being. He was in the habit of hitting students who didn't know the answers, or, even worse, inducing them to hit each other for the same offense.
We were supposed to be doing two years of algebra and one of geometry in just two years, and the pace was scorching. I tried my best to keep up and am happy to report that I did reasonably well.
On one occasion, a new student from somewhere in the Middle East, as I recall, arrived in the class. His English was good, but not perfect. Dr Harrison nevertheless publicly criticized his flawed speech and sarcastically referred to him in his presence as "our exchange student from Outer Mongolia." The student left school the next day.
I'm fond of saying that, in spite of — or perhaps because of — the atmosphere of fear in his classroom, I learned more math from Dr Harrison than from all the other teachers I've had. I say that as someone who majored in math in college and took an additional year of graduate study in applied math. He taught me how to think mathematically. The simplicity, the discipline of mathematics. As math lovers sometimes say, you can't realize its beauty and power unless you're willing to undergo its rigor. I know that sounds corny, but it's the truth. That's the secret of mathematics, and he knew how to teach it.
As any calculus teacher can tell you, your success in the subject depends heavily on having a thorough understanding of elementary algebra and geometry. The payoff for being in Dr Harrison's accelerated classes came in Fourth Form, when I took calculus. By way of a rare statistical fluke, I ended up with the calculus prize. I had never thought about the prize or where I stood relative to it. I always assumed it would go to one of the golden boys who walked around campus with an air of inevitable success in life. After all, they were getting all the other prizes. I was happy to be simply keeping up and enjoying what I thought was a fast-moving but well-taught class.
I attended the final all-school meeting in the spring at which the headmaster awarded the prizes. The same golden boys marched to the podium to receive their awards. I failed to notice that he hadn't awarded the calculus prize that day. I was surprised, therefore, a couple of weeks later when I received a letter informing me that I had won.
| Lesson: You don't need to set explicit goals. It's often more important simply to pursue your interests. |
Despite my modest success in math, I understood well that everything is relative. When I arrived at Lawrenceville, there was a precocious student who was a couple of forms ahead of me. Paul Werbos had already completed all the math classes that Lawrenceville offered, and was allowed to take classes at Princeton. His professor there was Alonzo Church, the famous logician. Paul went on to do groundbreaking work in the study of neural networks and has long-time professional ties with the University of Maryland and the National Science Foundation.
| Lesson: Don't let your head get too big. |
Let's face it — if you're in school for twelve years, you're going to have your share of rotten, stinking teachers. I know I've had mine. I must say, however, that each of the four English masters I had at Lawrenceville are among the worst teachers I've had in any subject at any level. In Second Form, I had Henry Woods (Ivanhoe and The Merchant of Venice); in Third Form, it was Dony Easterline (The Grapes of Wrath and Macbeth); in Fourth, it was L Wendell Estey (Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet); and in Fifth Form, Hugh King Wright (Huckleberry Finn and Hamlet).
There was one master among them, however, who was measurably worse than the others, and who may be the worst teacher I've ever had. He would regularly kill time in class by reading aloud. No context, just reading. Not, here's something I like, for the following reasons. Not, the work I'm about to read illustrates the following principles of good writing. Just reading, seemingly at random, to kill time.
John Burnaby used to sit every day at the opposite end of the table from this master and mumble through his teeth along with him as he read. The master couldn't hear the mumbling, but the rest of us could. Everybody was cracking up under their breaths, but he never knew the difference. He was also the slowest teacher I ever had when it came to returning corrected papers. He was retired on the job. I heard through the grapevine that the school hadn't given him a raise in years.
I hate to pick on my English masters, but they are such big, fat targets that I can't resist. Most of them repeatedly made the same comments on all of my compositions. For example, one wrote, "thin" at the bottom of all of my papers. Others might, on rare occasions, write "good" or "nice job." These were the same people who would stand up in front of a class and talk with a straight face about the importance of using colorful, evocative words that excite the reader's imagination, not bland, almost meaningless words like good or nice.
| Lesson: Do as I say ... |
My English masters also insisted that our papers contain what they called "specific references to the text," rather than vague generalizations. Their comments, however, appeared without any specific reference to my paper, again violating their own rules. It might have helped me to develop as a writer if I had known which parts of my papers were good, or nice, or thin, and which were not.
I now know that teaching, much like writing a student essay, is an exercise in communication. It's an attempt to get ideas across within the constraints of a given medium. Here the medium was the master's comment area at the bottom of the student's paper. If I were grading my masters, I'd give most of them an F, for lack of effort and imagination.
My English masters' writing may have been substandard, but their point was clear: "I have no time for you; nor will I even offer you the dignity of following my own rules in your presence." Believe me, we got the message. They only had time for you if you were a superstar and were able to massage their egos. They liked you if you appeared to be one of them, a nascent English teacher, an up-and-coming literary critic, and had little time for you otherwise.
The usual excuse is that teachers are underpaid and overworked. They were too busy doing ... what?
I've always felt that the educational system is backward. The students should be grading the teachers, not the other way around. They work for us, not we for them. Teacher-employees should be evaluated regularly. Now you know why I had a spotty record in school.
Looking back, I wish I had had courses on more useful subjects like cooking, typing, or household finance. I'm sure they would have enhanced my life in ways the other courses haven't.
The school offered no such courses for a reason, however. It was assumed that you would be a professional man and that you would have a Girl Friday to do your typing and office chores. I've never had an assistant in my life — I've always done all my own paperwork. It was also assumed that you would go home at night to a wife who was from the right social station and who would fuck you mechanically when she wasn't cooking, cleaning, or raising the results of all the mechanical fucking.
| Lesson (Extra-Credit): Pay particular attention to the ideas that remain unspoken. |
Speaking of fucking, I would add human health and sexuality to my list of unoffered courses, but it frightens me to contemplate what kind of Victorian sexuality they might have taught. It probably would have been either punitive abstinence or perverted whips and chains, with nothing in between.
Instead of teaching us practical things, they taught history, for example. Or one version of it. As I remember them, all the readings were about kings, wars, and treaties. For example, in 1598 King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, which gave the Huguenots a degree of religious and civic freedom. Whatever the hell that means. But if you don't memorize it for the test, you flunk.
Here was the history sequence: First and Second Forms: ancient Greece and Rome; Third and Fourth Forms: early and modern European history; Fifth Form: United States. You get the picture: Western, Western, and Western, with a heavy emphasis on empires, as viewed from the top down. In short, we learned all about the barbaric ways in which the various empires treated each other and the rest of the world.
Yes, the indestructible Great Man Theory of History. There was little mention of women, children, slaves, peasants, nonwhites, heathens, or plain, ordinary folk with runny noses and gaps between their teeth. Unless, of course, the folk got sick of it all and rose up and created Big Problems for the Great Men.
| Lesson: Ambrose Bierce was right when he defined history as, "An account, mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools." |
| Lesson: There's a difference between history and The History of Me. |
| Lesson: You can't dehumanize the telling of the story of humanity without dehumanizing your audience as well. |
On one occasion, Frank Heyniger, my Fourth Form history master, took a break from his riveting monologue on the Holy Roman Empire (yawn) long enough to draw a long, straight, horizontal line across the width of the blackboard. The line, he said, represented the contemporary American political spectrum from extreme left to extreme right. He drew a short vertical line in the middle of the board to indicate the center of the spectrum. Then he put a big, fat dot a couple of inches to the left of the center line, and announced, "Here's where you want to be."
Twelve boys nodded.
If he were still teaching today, he'd probably put the big, fat dot about two inches to the right of center, but the idea would be the same.
| Lesson: Times change. Witness the migration of the political consensus in only a generation or two from two inches to the left of center to two inches to the right. |
If you want to understand what prep school is about, you have to understand people like Mr Heyniger. He was independently wealthy; he didn't need to teach at Lawrenceville or anywhere else. I heard that he took a yearly paycheck of one dollar. He coached the golf team and embodied the spirit and aesthetic of amateur golf. He was the only master I knew who lived in his own house on the school's golf course. He dressed meticulously in well-cut blazers and slacks and colorful but tasteful ties.
His face was as red as a beet. At first I thought that this was because of his preference for extra-tight Ivy-League-style button-down collars, or perhaps because of the long spring or late-summer afternoons on the links. I realized later that booze may have been a factor.
In any case, Mr Heyniger taught the slow sections, like mine. He complained that there was only one student in the class who was college material. (For what it's worth, Walter Plaut is a homebuilder and volunteer firefighter in Maine.) Mr Heyniger warned the rest of us not to ask him for a recommendation to college. We didn't worry about it much, though. We all knew that, as long as we graduated, one college or another would be more than happy to take our parents' money.
| Lesson: Not everyone is college material, but anyone with money can go to college. |
I excelled in math and science, where there were right and wrong answers, but floundered in the arts and letters, where everything was a matter of interpretation. The accelerated classes were fun and challenging and exciting, and the dumbed-down ones were a form of lengthy and exquisite punishment of doubtful constitutionality. In my opinion, the tracking system and honors or AP classes are heaven for the better students and hell for everybody else. That is, the few accelerated classes robbed the many regular classes of their life, of their best students and teachers. This created a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy of mediocrity for the many.
| Lesson (Extra-Credit): To quote my friend and housemate Jack McCarthy, who is now a lawyer in Princeton, "Never let school interfere with your education." |
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