Neoclassic Scourge

John Barker Stearns—Dartmouth A.B. 1916, A.M. 1917 and Princeton Ph.D. 1924—taught Greek and Latin in the classics department, and Greek and Roman Art in the art history detriment, where I had him in 1937. He had a Hellenic profile and an impressive shock of white hair. As he lectured about the scenes on the Acropolis and in the Roman Forum we were transported hack to '.hose days. We could; imagine John Stearns striding about in his toga, among the columns and returning from the baths to watch the gladiators in the Coliseum. This classic image was shattered otic morning in 101 Carpenter Mail when we gathered for Art 12 and beheld our praeceptor clumsily shuffling our attendance cards wearing a pair of white canvas motorman's gloves. When we betrayed our curiosity'he satisfied it. "Gentlemen, for more than 40 years I have been that I was favored" with an immunity from poison ivy. Last I volunteered to weed my neighbor's yard of that nox- ious scourge." He pulled one glove off and held up a red, swollen, and blistered hand. "I was wrong."

Ivy-beleagueredStearns showed pluck.