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WEEK of December 3, 2007
@BFS! archives

80 Years Ago at BFS: Pageants, Plays, Sports and “The Life”

by John R. Martin

When Brooklyn Friends first opened its doors 140 years ago, it did so to educate the minds of students through work in subjects like English, mathematics, and science. The students’ main reason for attending the school was to be taught by excellent teachers in these subjects.

Today, that still holds true. The main purpose of Brooklyn Friends, and any school for that matter, is to educate their students during school hours in interesting and challenging classes. However, the school is also a means for extra-curricular activities that fit any child’s interest, from athletics to acting, singing, and writing. The 1920s was the time period in Brooklyn Friends history when many of these now traditional activities became popular.

To be correct and fair to the times before 1920, there were the beginnings of extra-curricular activities dating back all the way to 1869, when calisthenics was first introduced to students. In 1902 the yard started to stay open until 4 p.m. so students could play outdoors. However, it was not until the 1910s when an emphasis was placed on athletics that any real extra-curricular activity began.

While the budding athletic program was great for anyone blessed with physical prowess, many other student talents were not being put to their full use. Slowly but surely, these talents in various fields began making themselves known in the Brooklyn Friends community. With Principal Guy Chipman at the helm starting in the fall of 1918, clubs of all kinds began to flourish.

The first big activity other than sports at Brooklyn Friends was a school magazine. Friends School Life was first published in December of 1919. Edgerton Grant North described the magazine in his book Seventy Five Years of Brooklyn Friends School as “a composite periodical containing a number of sections equally divided between sketches and poems of a purely literary nature and scholastic coverage.” (Read an issue of The Life.)

The magazine started off with three issues a year; the price tag was 20 cents per copy or 50 cents for an annual subscription. The magazine was an outlet for creative writers and artists to display and publish their work. Eventually in the early 1930’s Friends School Life became The Life and switched over to a newspaper format. However, demand led to a literary version of The Life being brought back in 1935.

The first editor-in-chief of Friends School Life was Wallace Wegge. Wegge holds the honor of being the first recipient in 1920 of a long-forgotten award, the Morris Bacon Jackson Memorial Prize. The winner of the prize received $10 worth of gold and was chosen by the Faculty because they believed he or she best exemplified the ideals of the school. Wegge, as the editor-in-chief of the school magazine, demonstrated that work and achievements outside of the classroom would stand alongside the other ideals of BFS in the 1920s.

The 1920s also brought about the formation of Junior and Senior Drama clubs. Plays and pageants had occurred somewhat infrequently at Brooklyn Friends dating back to 1914. By the 1920s, the formation of numerous dramatic clubs was testament to the students were deep interest in theater and performance. The faculty of Brooklyn Friends felt strongly that putting together a successful play taught students many valuable things:

“In the planning of performances to be given, originality and ingenuity are encouraged. In the construction of a stage, manual dexterity is developed. In designing and arranging its settings, the artistic talents of the student come into play. Through the presentation of the play itself comes a keener appreciation of literature, art, and music, together with an ability to express oneself clearly and without hesitation.”

In the spring of 1928 the Upper School performed the first three-act play in school history, “The Goose Hangs High.” Students from every grade began making performances of some sort every year and the entire student body would join together for a Christmas Pageant each year.

Not far behind theatrics was a strong interest in music. Between 1922 and 1927 Brooklyn Friends’ Music Department blossomed under the direction of instructor J. Trevor Garmey. Garmey started the first Orchestra in school history and also founded the Boys’ and Girls’ Glee Club in 1924. Garmey wrote the music for the school’s Alma Mater, which was accompanied by lyrics written by Edgar Pangborn, Class of 1924.

Music and theater remain a strong and integral part of student life at Brooklyn Friends today. Clubs of all kinds continue to be created to give students the opportunity to nurture their talents and expand their interests. The School’s policy in the 1920s said it best: “The ideal of the school is not to manufacture the pupil into a standardized product of a set curriculum, but rather to help him to grow to his full stature and power in the broadest, noblest sense, of the word, growth.”

photos, from top: The Life; BFS championship team in 1925; girls 1927 hockey team; Third Grade play in 1927; “manual training” in 1925; a riding class in the park in 1927