Issue link: http://latinschool.uberflip.com/i/246730
An upper school class schedule from 1937. method of mental progress through life… Great attention is paid to teaching the boy to concentrate, to think out for himself the problems that no one else can solve for him so effectively." A reporter at the time noted the fairly progressive views of teaching and learning at Latin in the early '30s: "Ideas are expressed freely, and even a little boy in the lower school feels at liberty to speak up and tell an instructor how a subject looks from his angle." At the same time, classes remained small and the curriculum decidedly classical. Just as his predecessors had, Northrop relied on a strong faculty. He believed that Latin's teachers were exceptional, and he had little patience for an educational system that would try to mold and regulate them. Much like Mabel Slade Vickery had during her time, Northrop was happy to stand behind the independent values of the school. "I recall an encounter with a pedagogical Grendel, the haughty inspector of the North Central Association, who had come to exact his undeserved tribute," Northrop wrote in the 1938 Sigillum. "When asked if a standard for graduation based on the College Entrance Examination Board would be sufficiently high to cover certification elsewhere, even at a State University, he said he had never before been asked this question. He beat a hasty retreat and we gladly resigned from the association and were free to choose a faculty nourished on stronger fare than the unappetizing messes brewed by teachers colleges. Without that freedom we would have been debarred from the selection of men who have given the school much of its intellectual distinction." Early faculty members like Mr. Bosworth, English Department chair; Mr. McLeod, the math teacher from Scotland; German teacher Fraulein Arnold; and Miss DeMerritt for French were held in highest regard by the alumni who wrote about their experiences at the school in the 1938 Sigillum. Also during Northrop's tenure, Latin began its financial aid program. An anonymous donor founded the George Norton Northrop Scholarship, valued at $6,000. In addition, according to the 1933 school brochure, the school made available eight or 10 free tuition scholarships "for boys of character and keen mentality who otherwise might be unable to avail themselves of the type of education upon which the school lays special stress." Latin's financial aid program began in 1933. Latin Boys School students. LATI N SCHOOL OF CHI CA GO 37