Charles E. Putney Memorial Association

“ Putney stands out clearly and vividly, as if the days under him at St. Johnsbury Academy were but yesterday. Here was a man quiet and unassuming, and yet I am conscious, and always have been conscious, of a certain power that flowed from him into the lives of his pupils.
Such a force does not lend itself readily to analysis. Like most fundamental things, it is subtle, undefinable. But some elements in the character of Mr. Putney in the retrospect are clear as air. In the first place, he was a born teacher. His scholarship was backed by thoroughness of application in the classroom. ”

“ There is such a mingling of emotions—sorrow for the loss, joy that he has been with us so long, gratitude that it has been my privilege to keep in so close touch with him during most of the years since I, a school girl, first came under the influence that has never lost its hold for a minute.
No one individual has ever had more to do with the shaping of my life than he and whatever little good I have been able to do for boys and girls is largely attributable to the influence that has helped me for so long. ”

“ Every Sunday afternoon he passed my house, going to visit a comrade whom illness kept at home. And he was a religious man—a Christian man. Faith was mixed with his life. God strengthened him with strength in his soul. He was a deacon of this church, and while his strength permitted, a teacher in the Sunday school. He lived by his faith, and he thought about it. It was one of the great interests of his mind. There is plenty in every man's experience to limit him, to confine him, to make him small and petty. ”

“ When one sees a man investing his work with personal charm, one knows the difference between a photograph and a painting—a photograph with its hard, incisive fidelities, and a painting with its living colors, its appeal to feeling, its lovely beauty, something luxuriously human in it. A teacher has a special reason for floating his service, if it may be, upon a stream of personal worth and personal charm, because he deals with children and youth who respond to what he is, as well as to what he teaches. ”

“ Nevertheless they were great teachers because a virtue went out from them which touched the lives of their pupils and was better than all instruction.
There have been great instructors who could not be respected, because along with intellectual brilliancy and clearness went a narrow, or a low, or a selfish outlook on life.
Mr. Putney measured up in both respects—he was a large-minded man, he was a great teacher.
The very nature of his profession precluded any wide or ringing fame. His work was done quietly, unobtrusively, one might almost say, obscurely. A teacher's work is always so. ”

“ A great teacher depends for his success on his moral character. No one could ever question the sincerity and force of Mr. Putney's character. With clear vision of the work he wanted to accomplish, with a devotion to his high purpose which never wavered, with a simplicity and straightforwardness which showed in every action, he impressed on the students his high ideals. At the same time he won [61] their complete confidence and made them feel his sympathy.
Such a man leaves a widespread heritage in his pupils. He leaves also a heritage of fine tradition for the Academy he served. ”

“ In the years to follow the sheaves of influence of Professor Putney's life will come many times to the youth whose privilege it has been to be associated with him, and they will rejoice that his influence [88] entered their careers. Who shall measure the influences for good that he has set in motion in the young lives and in the life of our community? Happy the man to whom it is thus given to grow old beautifully! ”

“ When in later years I found that his benign presence and quiet influence was bearing daily fruit in the same, or even greater respect and reverence with a younger generation of students, I realized [52] afresh under what a rare teacher I had had the privilege of coming, and how profoundly true it is that such a personality teaches constantly, often when least suspected, the finest and most profound lessons. The vision which he communicated is one of the most precious treasures. ”

“ Devotion to duty was characteristic of him in school and church, in home and public life. He was a good soldier and to him citizenship meant service. He was a true friend and that meant the helping hand.
I honor and revere his memory. My humble tribute is one of gratitude for his noble life, which, touching mine, revealed more clearly for my stumbling feet the shining pathway that he trod to worthy self-investment, to truth and God. ”

“ Putney had the gift of making those old stories real.
But of one thing I am quite sure. Mr. Putney gave me my first sense of language as a living and growing organism, come from far beginnings; and he first made me see in the English language, in particular, a stream of many confluents. This is the chief reason why it seems to me a disaster that the classics are passing out of fashion. For with them all true understanding of our rich and noble tongue seems fated to pass out of fashion. To be too much bound to the past is of course an unhappy thing. ”

“ Some of them come into my room every day at the close of school for an hour's uninterrupted study and I am going to tell you some of the things which they have said to me about you. "Mr. Putney is such a lovable man." "I thought I should be afraid of him, but he makes us feel he is interested in us and I don't feel one bit afraid even though he does know so much." "He is full of fun too. There is no one in the class who sees anything funny quicker than he." "I am so glad he is in the school while I am here. I shall always feel it to have been a great privilege to have had him for a teacher." ”

“ After the great war was over he entered Dartmouth College. He was graduated from the institution as "honor man." And since then wherever he has gone he has been the "honor man." Men, now old themselves, speak with fondest regard of their teacher and state that he showed them the right way to success. He prepared not only himself but others. Isn't that a glorious thing? What greater hero is there than the fashioner of the thoughts and character of the young?
Let us then, as I have said before, set up Mr. Putney's life as a life to live by. ”

“ Johnsbury Academy that I am [28] conscious of, is an increased and unbounded faith in him as a Christian gentleman, love and respect for him as a true friend, gratitude and admiration for him as a teacher and wise counsellor who has ministered generously to the physical and spiritual needs of many besides myself.
You know, of course, that I refer to Prof. C. E. Putney who was principal of St. Johnsbury Academy in the days when it ranked with Andover and Exeter and for a number of years has been teaching Latin and Greek in the Burlington, Vermont, High School. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 constitute 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 [23] live long to enjoy the happiness which you deserve for service so conscientiously and cheerfully performed. ”

“ Many old pupils gratefully acknowledge his service. Both in the classroom and in private personal contact he had an enthusiasm for teaching. He managed to secure knowledge of what he taught. He was interested in his pupils and he was interested in his subject and interested in bringing the two together. Teaching I should think would be difficult without all of those interests. No doubt Mr. Putney had a gift for teaching, but in teaching as in other kinds of work one does much to make one's own gift. Barring conspicuousness for a calling, this creative energy is the man himself. ”

“ Believing that the only real satisfaction to a teacher after all is the knowledge that somewhere down the years there sounds an echo of his effort, I am venturing to add my word of appreciation to you on your birthday. ”

“ The presence of Mr. Putney has been a benediction to our high school. How thankful you must be that he had no lingering illness but just laid down his books and entered into the fuller life. We thank God for such a presence in our midst.
From an associate teacher.
In the years in school Mr. Putney was always ready with good counsel to the younger men. He never seemed to lose his courage nor even to grow old. The last time I saw him, his smile was as bright and his voice as cheery as I remember it always to have been.
[71]
From another associate teacher. ”

“ He was my first teacher, at Norwich, when for the first time I went to school, and his kindness and consideration helped me over the strangeness and discomfort of the new experience. He taught me Latin and I began Greek with him.
He was a most delightful principal of the school, and thought of the pleasantest things for us boys and girls to do, in and out of the classrooms; for instance, long walks together in which he accompanied us. ”

“ Putney had a quiet glow of humor, and many an incident comes to mind to show how large and wholesome a part this characteristic played in his career. But most of all I would pay tribute to the Christian gentleman. His idealism was not too lofty for "human nature's daily food." Rather it expressed itself in practical devotion to the best interests of his pupils, to good things, and to noble causes. He was a leader because he allowed himself humbly to be led by something above him. ”

“ And, agreeing that few people ever pick up at school or college anything which in later life they can put their finger on, that for many people the so-called higher education is a pure waste of time, I added, "The only man who ever taught me anything was a Greek teacher I had at a preparatory school in Vermont."
That Greek teacher was Mr. Putney. Perhaps Greek is no longer taught at the Academy. I don't know. It is not the fashion nowadays. ”

“ It is given to only one man in ten thousand thus to link close to his own personality the genuine affections of organizations representing extreme youth and advanced age.
To have done all this is proof that Professor Putney in every sense of the expression "grew old beautifully." The human interest element serves to bring out this side of his life still more impressively. It was his ambition that he might teach on his eightieth birthday. A few more days would have witnessed the consummation of this allowable wish. His conscientiousness was supreme however. ”

“ He went back at last in imagination and desire to the roothold of his life, and that was well and fair, for he represented the fineness of that New England inheritance. One perhaps should not boast, but at least one may say that it is a goodly inheritance of solidity, fidelity, seriousness, fitness to live in a community and take part in its affairs. ”

“ As I look back on those classes in "Beginning Greek," and in Cicero, I recognize his painstaking thoroughness. The fundamentals were clear to him, and it was his work to make them clear, definite, and lasting in the minds of his pupils. If he made a mistake it was in his conscientious care that no dull or backward or thoughtless pupil should fail to have these fundamentals of the subject drilled into his mind. How many hundreds of pupils owe their sense of accurate and clear thought to his persistent efforts day in and day out, I have no idea. ”

“ On the twenty-sixth of February, seventy-six years ago, there was born into the world a man who now holds a very high place in the thoughts of [33] hundreds of men and women. That man was Charles Edward Putney, our beloved and respected teacher.
The lives of great men, it has been said, are the greatest teachers. Let us then take the life of Mr. Putney and see what a lesson it teaches us in preparedness.
At the early age of seventeen, Mr. Putney was teaching school. If he had not studied and prepared himself could he have filled such a position at the early age? ”

“ Thrice happy that man who in thus growing old beautifully is able to bring down to the latest generations the best traditions of the past and through them to make his life a benediction to many generations to come.—Burlington Free Press. ”

“ With high reverence for what men had known as wisdom and beauty in the past, with sane and clear-eyed understanding of the shifting needs of the present, with confident faith in the ultimate good, whatever the future, he taught many lessons which we did not know until long afterwards that we had learned. ”

“ Particularly as a teacher of Greek did he excel. He led his pupils through the necessary technique of parasangs to the mastery of the sublime secrets of this imperial mother of tongues. He possessed the capacity of taking infinite pains and played no favorites among his scholars. I imagine the responsibility of administration irked his gentle spirit and the rawness [59] of self-centered youth must have tried his conscientious soul. ”