Corning was a man possessed of unusually diverse talents. He was a classroom teacher in three fields, a successful coach of crew for over 20 years and a dormitory man for 14 years in Abbot and a superb administrator. He was a skillful, imaginative designer and worker with wood; the man who designed the first Harkness Table. While the heart of the Harkness plan was the reduction in the student-teacher ratio and the gatherings of a discussion group around the Harkness table, this period of Academy history also witnessed a massive building program. To this day there exist in the blueprint vault of the Academy plans and blueprints of dormitories and wooden houses meticulously drafted by Corning himself.

-H. Hamilton Bissell, Colin F.N. Irving and
Charles M. Swift

As director of admissions, Pike was well-known for his integrity, his incorruptibility. He won the respect even of celebrities because of his refusal to favor them or their sons. He refused on principle to accept any gift, however little, from the parent of an admissions candidate. He was conservative, reticent, determined, even forbidding until you got to know him-stern yet tender, like the Academy itself. In January and February, at the peak time of the annual admissions process, he would cover the floor of his office with neat piles of folders-sorted by grade, geography, alumni or faculty sons, private or public school, school athletics or other skills-in a system of which only he was master. Had he been incapacitated, or had the wind blown suddenly through an open window, the school would never have recovered.

--H. Hamilton Bissell, James W. Griswold, John B. Heath, Herrick M. Macomber Leonard N. Rhoades and Paul Sadler Jr.

The eighth principal described Wells Kerr as "an ideal dean"; the ninth principal wrote of him: "He was a strong and gentle man. He could read the Riot Act to an individual or to the whole school and nobody mistook his meaning." It was as the dean that Wells Kerr became part of Exeter legends. Students thought of him as a towering figure of righteous wrath; one boy described him as "the only man I ever knew who was capable of instant rage." Boys trembled when they found a Dickie slip in their mailbox. Other boys, however, knew him in a different role-a gentle, concerned human being, capable of kindly encouragement and genuine interest in the individual's problems. Many of those in whose requirement to withdraw Wells had to be instrumental became his close friends and our loyal alumni.

--Robert W. Kesler, Paul Sadler Jr., William G. Saltonstall and Charles M. Swift

Norman Lowrie Hatch will be best remembered, he will be always remembered for his ne plus ultra contributions to the great "L" 's of his life-Latin and lacrosse. Of lacrosse at the Academy, Hatchie was the recognized and respected father; in Latin, he ably extended a long dynasty of distinguished teachers of that language. Hatchie was first, foremost and always a teacher. His commitment to teaching and to learning was total and many a student can show the scars to prove it. In his teaching, as in everything he did, Hatchie demanded of himself and gave of himself 100 percent at all times. From his students, he expected no less, he tolerated no less. Lack of ability he understood and accepted; lack of effort quickly brought from him the resoundingly lowered boom.

--Edward C. Echols, H. Hamilton Bissell, David D. Coffin and Howard T. Easton

In the classroom his talent for listening encouraged participation; he was a master of the unsettling question that challenges a prejudice or puts a discussion back on the rails; he could sit without speaking for most of a period and then make a trenchant remark at the end. A like skill guided the stroke of the pen that would purge a paragraph or strip a sentence clean. And he made available his quiet warmth and shrewd judgment to both the boy in difficulty and the able and creative. His students felt that he was seeing them as individuals; in him the Harkness classroom became a reality.

-Richard F. Niebling

The immense changes in the school made possible by the Harkness bequest were just getting underway in June 1931 when Dr. Perry appointed Jack to the faculty as the first chairman of the newly created science department. Jack set about the task of bringing the science curriculum up to a standard that would presently make it a model for other schools. Despite some faculty opposition and more by logic than tact, he pressed successfully for a science course to be introduced into the 9th grade. The first course in biology followed in 1936. With the help of Dr. Charles Bickel, appointed in 1936, he then set about writing textbooks for the first- and second-year chemistry courses. [The two men also] began the creation of a combined two-year course in physics and chemistry for the 10th and 11th grades. Demanding of his department colleagues and meticulous in his oversight of their performance, Jack was responsible for creating a department of national stature.

-Richard F. Brinckerhoff and Robert M. Galt

Dr. Perry charged Arthur with overhauling the music program and turning the Academy into a "singing school." Referred to as "Maestro" by undergraduates, Arthur is remembered by many generations of alumni as the teacher who played the piano for daily chapel services. Members of the Glee Club and Choir remember him for his capacity to inspire them to sing with understanding and maturity well beyond their years. His sensitivity to the message in music gave his interpretations style and conviction. He could make the patter of Gilbert and Sullivan seem important.

-William N. Bates Jr., Henry F. Bedford, A. Irving Forbes, William R. Jones and Robert W. Kesler