Charles Edward Putney Part 2

Sincerely and lovingly yours, G. H. PROUTY.

Patey and I were speaking and writing some time ago about the seventy-fifth birthday. As the boys would say, "That is some birthday,"

and it is fitting that more than ordinary notice should be taken of it. I expressed a belief that expressions of loyalty and grateful remembrance were more to you than material things would be. I hope the expression will be as spontaneous at this time as it has been from year to year all through your service. I have never known in any other case such a continued and universal loyalty as the students of St. Johnsbury Academy have given to you. By reflex action it has been inspiring to me and cultivated in me the same desire to serve my pupils which you have shown.

With best wishes, FRANKLIN A. DAKIN.

Words are after all poor subst.i.tutes for the genuine feelings of the heart but I know you will be able to brush aside the words and get at the sentiment back of them.

In three more days from this date you will be rounding out seventy-five years of a very useful life.

I am sure you will let an old pupil and one who has received so much inspiration and good cheer from your life tell you so at this time.

Your boys and girls are in many lands but they are still your boys and girls. Never have I seen a man retain the affection and esteem of those who have come under his influence to a greater extent than you have.

May the good Lord continue to bless you and yours is the sincere wish of your former pupil and friend,

HEDLEY PHILIP PATEY, '86.

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 a.s.sisting 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 a.s.sist 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 const.i.tute 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 cla.s.ses in Greek and all the other things in which you were of such valuable a.s.sistance, 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s 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, grat.i.tude, 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,

GEORGE E. MAY, '86.

Tribute written by Mr. Roland E. Stevens for the _Hartford Gazette_, a paper printed by Mr. Stevens' small boy.

Editor of the _Hartford Gazette_:

Every day in every year, I suppose, has a special meaning and interest for some one or more of the great human family. The day of the present week that has a particular interest and meaning for me (and without doubt for many others whom I know) is Friday the twenty-six. Why?

Because nearly thirty years ago when I was an awkward, spindling boy, thirsty and hungry for an education, without means and not in very good health, I wrote a letter to the princ.i.p.al of St. Johnsbury Academy, telling him of my ambition to enter the Academy as a student and asking him if he thought I could find work by means of which I could earn enough to pay my way at the Academy. When I was writing the letter I was half discouraged and rather feared and expected that I wouldn't receive an answer, because I knew the letter was not very well written or expressed, and I was almost sure that so great a man as I supposed the princ.i.p.al of St. Johnsbury Academy to be, wouldn't pay much attention to such a letter.