OH!
Upon graduation from parochial grade school in 1940, my
parents could have decided to send me to either of two Catholic high schools,
St. Peter’s Preparatory located in Jersey City (Jesuit institution, all male,
and my brother’s alma mater), or St. Michael’s located in Union City (taught by
some order of nuns, co-ed). Both charged tuition, a bit more than my folks
could pay. Other drawbacks to attending these schools from my perspective
included the necessity to wear a shirt and tie, and to commute by bus and/or
trolley car. I must admit, continuing to learn more about religion did not
appeal to me.
My brother persuaded my parents to send me to public
high in hope I might win a scholarship to attend Stevens Institute of
Technology. This college awarded three full scholarships annually to graduating
students based upon the results of a test administered by the high school.
When September 1940 rolled around, I found myself
attending David E. Rue Junior High. A number of my parochial grade school
classmates joined me, making the transition to an all-male public school easy.
I loved being taught by men teachers. My Latin teacher motivated me to be the
best student in his class. I graduated a year later, an Honor Roll student in
all subjects.
This junior high school is located at the intersection of Third and Garden. Directly across the street, facing the telephone poles, is the apartment building in which my family lived at my birth.
I then attended A.
J. Demarest High
School
The senior high school is located just one block from Rue, at the corner of Fourth and Garden.
In the spring
of 1944, my English teacher, Miss Marnell, began encouraging me to take the
Stevens two-day long competitive examination in order to win a scholarship. One
section of the test covered English, the other Mathematics and Science. Based
on the fact she considered me her best English student coupled with my honor
roll grades in Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics, she thought I would
win one of the three scholarships available.
Remarkably,
only ten students took the test. One student, Robert Meyer, had graduated six
months earlier, and had studied rigorously for this exam during that time. He
finished first and then joined the Navy. Upon his return, he entered Stevens,
joined my fraternity, and graduated with me in 1950. He didn’t use the
scholarship, finding it more lucrative to attend under the provisions of the
G.I Bill.
Donald
Flechtner, one of my best pals at Demarest, won the second scholarship, as I expected.
His mathematics and science grades exceeded mine. He entered Stevens in July
1944, at age 16. He graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree at age 18,
after two-years eight-months of continuous study.
Having
conceded these two scholarships, my hope of winning the remaining one rested
upon my ability to “ace” the English part of the examination. I did not. Paul Willenborg won the last full scholarship.
I did not even finish fourth. I came in fifth, mainly because my English score
was relatively low. Miss Marnell came unglued when the results were announced. Another
teacher had prepared the English section of the exam, and the two students who
outscored me were in his class. She suspected he had tutored them. It made me
suspicious at the time.
Later, the
school principal, Arthur “Smokey” Stover called me into his office and said,
“Joseph, you are not suited to attend Stevens, but if you insist on pursuing an
engineering degree, I can arrange for you to obtain a scholarship to Newark
College of Engineering.” Reluctantly, I accepted his offer.
NCE was
located in a bleak downtown building. In my brief interview with the Dean of
Admissions he told me, “We will award you a full scholarship with only one
stipulation. Each semester you must pass with a B average for it to
continue.”
I turned down the offer, one of the first adult
decisions I ever made. In contrast with the Stevens campus, NCE looked more
like a factory than a college.
Mr. Stover arranged
for me to obtain scholarships from other schools, such as Cooper Union, but I
had my heart set on attending Stevens. Sometime late in June, my brother took
me to meet the school’s Dean of Admissions, Harold Fee. He scanned my
transcript and immediately offered me a partial scholarship. My brother
accepted the offer on my behalf and promised to pay the balance of the tuition.
How he planned to do this, I could not fathom. At the time, he found himself in
the army Signal Corps, stationed at Ft.
Monmouth
Stevens Institute of Technology Administrative Building
The view of NYC from the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology, 2011.
I began my freshman year at Stevens on July 1, 1944 , hardly a week after graduating from high school. Most
of its undergraduates at that time were attending college under the provisions
of the navy’s V-12 program, intended to graduate a supply of marine engineers.
The navy had stopped accepting new applicants to this program the previous
year.
My freshman class
consisted of ninety students, almost all of whom lived within fifty miles of Hoboken
The Dean of
Admissions, Harold Fee, gave the class an orientation talk. While we were seated
on the grandstand in the athletic field, he asked us to shake hands with the
person on either side. "Now, wish them good-bye. Statistics indicated that
two of every three freshmen flunk out."
During peacetime, that held true. In wartime, the dropout rate exceeded
that statistic. After four months, only sixty of the original ninety students
remained in school, including Flechtner and me. Some had flunked; others had
joined the service.
Four months
later, our class number dropped to thirty. The effort to keep pace with the academic
work load could not have been more difficult. Classes took up thirty hours each
week, including a half day on Saturday morning. We were required to take
Physical Exercise class three hours a week. We civilians took the same military
training program as the V-12 naval students. We climbed ropes in the gym,
simulating shipboard conditions and underwent the rigors of an outdoor obstacle
course designed to toughen the student sailors.
My third
semester ended in June 1945. Having failed Physics and Chemistry and now
classified “One-A,” it seemed prudent to drop out of college and await my
impending draft notice for military duty, which came in August.
The following
semester, only ten of the original ninety civilian students remained enrolled. All
of them, including Flechtner, graduated in the spring of 1947, less than three
years after they began. Donnie had just turned 18 and had difficulty finding a job.
Who would hire such a youthful Mechanical Engineer? It is tough to be too soon
too smart.
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