PINKERTON ACADEMY · Winter 2024 · Torch: U.S.
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Greek courses there is a Classical Club to which those who have a grade of eighty per cent or above in Latin and Greek are entitled to belong. The object of the club is to inculcate a greater interest in classical studies by the aid of Latin plays and other supplementary work.”
The Club has undergone several name changes; originally styled with a Hellenized possessive Acadēmīās, befitting the word's etymology, it was soon Latinized as Societās Classica Acadēmīæ Pinkertōniæ. Classical Club followed and, due presumably to the loss of Greek at Pinkerton by the 1928-1929 school year, a total nomenclatural overhaul was felt warranted. Forsaith laconically sums it up thus, “Societas Classica burst forth in 1925, to be followed five years later by a Latin Club.” Helen Munroe, the founding advisor, therefore also taught the Academy’s last credit-bearing Greek class, ēheu!
Robert Frost is locally remembered to have taught at Pinkerton from 1906 to 1911 (his classroom is one of the Latin classrooms today!), when the atmosphere of the school felt most like a private school’s. PA’s status is complicated; though established by the New Hampshire Legislature with direct taxation of the town paying for its operation, along with tuition and donations, the “Public School or Academy” was a semi-boarding, semi-day school that, while non-sectarian, was fundamentally a Christian religious school. Pinkerton has, to slightly misquote Crassus in Spartacus, trodden the ridge between public and private schools with the skill of a mountain goat! In the 1950s, Pinkerton contracted to accept all public students from Derry, and subsequently a number of those from surrounding towns as well, such that Pinkerton today, a public academy, is both the school of record for public school students of five towns, while also a private employer with a self-electing Board of Trustees.
As of the mid-20th Century, the Latin Club, with various routine events of Classically-inspired crafts, creative observations of Roman holidays, surely oodles more Roman banquets, and even a Classical shadow play once at assembly, has also participated in Junior Classical League events, sending students to the national conventions as early as the 1960s. Thankfully, the Classical Society’s willfully obtuse “slave auctions” were left behind in the 20th Century. But on a cheerier note, a fact long-forgotten: Christine (Fernald) Sleeper, one of the Founding Mothers of the National Latin Exam, taught lively and creative classes at Pinkerton and served as Classical Society advisor in the early 1940s.
From a play: Theseus & the Minotaur!
In the modern era, the Club continues to be a stalwart chapter of the NHJCL (ut grānitum tenācēs!) and has restored and identified ancient Roman coins, run Mini Latin Club series for middle schoolers at Chester Academy, made Roman-style curse tablets in Latin, held marathon Classics D&D quests, toured museums (not to mention Italy and Greece), viewed a million or so Classics-oriented films and documentaries, and has visited many Mediterranean restaurants for her annual Symposium banquet. Among myriad other projects and whimsical one-offs, like her recent Latin murder mystery afternoon, SCAP conducts Ancient Greek summer classes, occasionally makes paper from our generous papyrus plant Stu, and competes with vim in the various national JCL contests and competitions.
Derry News, February 10, 1928.
Derry News, October 31, 1930.
From a Classical Society trip to the Old Cemetery of Londonderry to read the surprisingly wide array of Latin inscriptions on the gravestones, including those of the Pinkertons themselves!