Alumni Bulletin, February 1943

              KiskI Alumni Bulletin
PAGE ONE KISKIMINETAS SPRINGS ScHooL, SALTSBURG, PA. FEBRUARY, 1943
LETTER TO THE ALUMNI
I’ve been at Kiski just slightly more than a year and a
half, and I don’t suppose there has been as exciting a year
and a half out this way since the Allegheny Mountains
popped up from a primeval sea.
As I wrote you last year, the school was purchased by
a group of Trustees, and now belongs to you. We started
military training along aviation lines in September, 1941,
nearly four months before Pearl Harbor. The boys are in
uniform three days of the week. A summer school was
initiated in June, 1942 and was a grand success, combining
the opportunity to freshen up on certain courses, with a
marvelous opportunity for enjoying the beautiful countryside
around Kiski. We completed this first year in the black.
The fall term of this year started Out with dire fore
bodings as to whether preparatory schools could continue
to exist. We had lost virtually all boys over eighteen, but
the second biggest group in school was the freshman class.
With the start of the second semester, we had a considerable
increase in students and income. Our seniors who are eight.
een will be deferred until graduation. Those sworn in as
aviation cadets have already left for camp in Miami, Florida.
However, with losses and additions, we are well on the
safe side of our budget for this year.
I believe we are giving the boys the best education they
could obtain anywhere. They all get up at 6:45 a. m., go to
breakfast and classes until 1 :00 luncheon; after luncheon
is military, followed by supervised athletics, and supper at
5:45. There are three periods after supper: the first is a
cultural period devoted to orchestra, glee club, band, or choir,
or such other activities as school paper, photography, etc;
the second period is for all boys who are below 85% in
any subject—this study hall is well attended, only about
fifteen in the whole school not qualifying for it; the third
period is for those who have flunked a subject.
We had a good football team, which tied Mercersburg
here and beat them 13-7 at Mercersburg. Basketball is con
fined to teams in our immediate vicinity, and we have a
very good team. The school morale is high, and I believe
we have developed a real interest in our aviation program,
in our farm work project and in our academic activities. The
reports from Amherst, Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Cor
nell indicate that the boys who entered there last summer
or fall have done well. No one has written us that our boys
who graduated last year have not done well in their studies
this year.
In the February Atlantic the first two articles are on
“Students in Uniform”; the first by Archibald MacLeish,
and the second by President Dodds of Princeton. You should
read these. Students between fourteen and eighteen, who
may be wearing a school uniform but not one of the army
or navy, are a most important part of American life today.
Kiski is doing its best to keep the torch burning for these
boys until they have to get into the more serious business
of fighting the war, when they become eighteen.
The problems of educating boys over eighteen have now
become the concern of the army and navy since those boys
are in uniform. The army has made a great effort to provide
complete democracy in the selection of the boys who are
to be returned to college. The overwhelming majority of
the men selected for commissions are college men. The army
claims that colleges function as an agency attracting quality
rather than an institution developing quality. Consequently,
the fact that so many college boys are selected is due to the
fact that the more desirable went to college, rather than that
the college built them up after they got there.
The program laid out for the men selected by the army
to be returned to college will not call for the courses which
our regular college work had given previously, but a more
technical type of work which can be passed by a greater
number of applicants, and which will develop technically
trained men. The assumption by the army is that a college
education does not develop leadership. To most business
executives, who have learned the excellent return in a few
years from young graduates of liberal arts colleges, this
would appear to be an error in judgment; but if the war
can be won more quickly without having them include lib.
eral arts courses, it is obvious that this should be done. If
the war is over soon this omission may not be important
because many will enter the army who have had several
years of college work. If the war goes on for a few years
the new class of men coming in may be without that very
important asset of leadership, which I believe is greatly
helped by a good liberal arts education.
This is where the high grade secondary schools of the
nation must step in. Only a small proportion of the boys in
secondary schools intend to go on to college. This small
proportion must study a great deal more and sharpen their
brains on tougher problems than their classmates. Prepara
tory schools differ from high schools in that all the students
intend to go to college. Very few boys go to college anyway