Big Dick's Results

Two years ago long, angular Headmaster John Wayne (''Big Dick") Richards of Lake Forest (Ill.) Academy had an idea. Throwing his leg over the arm of his chair and scratching the back of his head, he reasoned that secondary education should be more vital, more effective. Last year his idea became a plan (TIME, Aug. 18). Lake Forest's recitation periods were extended to 90 min., 45 min. being devoted to discussion and preparation of the next day's lesson. Staggered and rotating, the school schedule was revised to permit all subjects to share equally the advantageous hours of the day. As a proper setting for the plan, the dingy, formal old schoolroom desks in Reid Hall--carved by four generations of Lake Foresters--were ripped out. Tables, chairs, businesslike office desks were installed. A classroom at L. F. A. now looks like the board room of a successful but curiously youthful business house. Last week Headmaster Richards was able to announce the tangible and intangible results of his plan. To him they seemed highly encouraging.

Compared with the averages of the three preceding years, the percentage of failures in all subjects taught in 1930-31 at Lake Forest had been reduced 47%. The honor roll (grades of 80% or better) had lengthened 21%. No longer was there necessity for extra study hall for loafers. "A marked general horizontal increase in all grades" had occurred. Each day from willing moppets a master could get 150 lines of Vergil whence but 30 lines could be wrung before. Headmaster Big Dick felt that he had made his boys work and --what was more important--like it.

Proud is Headmaster Richards to know that his idea is spreading to other schools. Says Chauncey Samuel Boucher, dean of the College of Arts, Literature and Science at the University of Chicago: "It is the most fascinating scheme in preparatory education yet devised."

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