Collaboration

1940 · réf. vita5588 — New York: Whittlesey House McGraw-Hill Book Company 1940. First Edition. Octavo tan cloth hardcover viii 359 pp. Very Good with light rubbing to covers. “We Kennedys were a dynasty of schoolteachers -- three generations of us our sway extending from 1820 to 1919; just one year short of a century. When we took up the rod of office we were precocious youngsters. Grandpa the most mature of the three male teachers was twenty I was nineteen while Father was only seventeen with cheeks still downy and full stature not yet attained. I am not sure how old Aunt Caroline was when she began teaching but she was somewhere near the verge of motherhood. Of course not one of us had had a day of professional training for such work. Nevertheless Grandfather and I were both invited into the service by the school patrons who regarded us as eminently qualified. Father any my aunt went into it of their own accord but had little trouble finding places. When these three elders began their work there was not even the semblance of an examination to test their ability and aptitude. Our three lifetimes witnessed an evolution from the most primitive type of American school the isolated one-room log building with earthen floor and backless benches to the modern small-city type with all the rural district schools eliminated and one central well-equipped plant for a township and everybody riding to it in a bus. In that ninety-nine years we saw new horizons appear saw our nation reach westward to the PAcific saw the boundless forest replaced by farms and municipalities; we saw a new America built and American social life and education change almost beyond conception especially in the towns. In the country when I finally put away my textbooks therre was still discernible a faint tang of our old pioneer atmosphere -- but it too was fading rapidly before the pungent breath of the automobile.” Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company, (1940). First Edition. hardcover books