The Two Towers: Main

He came to his feet as if released from a tight spring, brushed past the lectern and strode to the front of the stage. The sleeves of his gown waved wildly with his swinging arms, and he moved his head from side to side so that not one person would miss what he had to say. Then his voice boomed out.

"The course we steer is well charted."

The audience settled back, reassured.

Even the language was familiar.

The day had started out like a nightmare. The procession had wound its way toward the gymnasium through a cold, damp mist which shrouded the campus. Everyone had nervously fidgeted while the chairman, who had obviously mislaid his notes, searched through one pocket after another. Acting out a role in anyone's bad dream, he left the stage, then returned, still without them.

Nevertheless, Wat Tyler Cluverius was duly introduced. From then on he took command.

There had been no few misgivings about the appointment of this retired Navy officer. To follow Ralph Earle, who had been immensely popular, was not an easy succession. Then, too, there was the matter of Admiral Cluverius' "advanced age"--past sixty-five.

The reservations about age were swept aside when Admiral Cluverius first moved on campus like a conquering armada. Maybe he was not young, but no one was more youthful. Youth, he said, was the one thing which his new life would have in common with the old. He spoke of his near-half century of "rigid routine of peace" and "active endeavor of war," a career which began as midshipman on the battleship Maine and carried him to the position of chief of staff of the United States fleet. He had known Admiral Earle well, had been his classmate at Annapolis, and had commanded the U.S.S. Shawmut in the mine-laying operations of the North Sea under his direction. To Ralph Earle's memory, no one would have greater allegiance. Moreover, the new president announced that he had come to Boynton Hill with the one intention of completing the "Ralph Earle program."

He wasted no time.

By June, at the first commencement at which President Cluverius officiated, the major part of the expansion was either finished or well on its way.

It was the 75th anniversary of the school's founding, appropriately raining, when the largest class in history passed over the new footbridge which curved across West Street. The bridge, which Ralph Earle had almost boyishly wished for and talked