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Chapter 9: West Junior High - (Now Horace Mann Junior High)

After graduating from the sixth grade at Washington School
we attended West Junior High. My grade school, junior high and high
school were all located within 3½ blocks of our house.
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arithmetic – it included fractions, interest and other factors that made
a lot of sense to me. In the eighth grade we started algebra. Stupidly, I
didn’t realize the value it would have in college chemistry and statistics.
Ninth grade involved geometry – something I seldom used during the
remainder of my life.
Studying art was a requirement. We had a capable teacher. I’ve
always appreciated good artwork but utterly lacked any talent at creat-
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to use it later in life, I merely tolerated it as a college prerequisite.
Miss Maud Chugg taught English grammar and literature. She
had the reputation of being a “tough” teacher. She was invaluable to
me. As Winston Churchill wrote with regard to a teacher of his, “She
got into my head the essential elements of the English language.” Miss
Chugg taught grammar by diagramming sentences, a vital tool to under-
standing the rules of grammar. She also got us boys to stand before the
class and read – with good expression – plays like Shakespeare’s Julius
Caesar. I think I learned to like plays then. Miss Chugg also had us
memorize several poems, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes’s “Old Iron-
sides,” and Shakespeare sonnets, the words of which I still remember
with pleasure. She was a real help to me in my life.
My fellow students elected me to the Student Council in three
successive years. The principal function of the Student Council was to
decide the utilization of student body funds. Students paid a fee that
paid for performers before student assemblies such as important speak-
ers, magicians, etc. At the Student Council meeting I found that $50 (the
combined fees of one hundred students) was allocated to the purchase
of an oil painting. There were already oil paintings in the halls to which
we kids paid little attention. I therefore objected to that expenditure. The

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