ST. ANSELM MEMORIAL
1984

Hallways
of the
Mind

Class of '84 Annual
"The yearbook wasn't documenting the school.
It was mapping how people decide what's real."
St. Anselm Memorial High School · American Metaphysics District

A Note Before You Read

There are schools where people learn facts, schools where people learn manners, and schools where people learn how power works by getting hit in the face with it in homeroom.

This was not exactly any of those.

At St. Anselm Memorial, the lockers stuck in winter, the auditorium lights buzzed like they knew something, and everybody was always, in one way or another, trying to explain reality before fourth period. Some did it by arguing. Some by refusing. Some by feeding people, revising the premises, or setting the whole moral architecture of the building on fire with one sentence in AP English.

This yearbook records the graduating class as faithfully as possible, which is to say: not very faithfully at all. The facts are here. So are the rumors. So are the versions of each person the institution could tolerate printing.

Read accordingly.

St. Anselm yearbook committee
approved with reservations
Seminar Group Photo
Room 212, Spring Semester. Not pictured: consensus.
The arrangement was temporary.
The metaphysics were not.
Faculty
John Dewey
Mr. John Dewey
Civics · Practical Arts · Homeroom 212
MR. DEWEY — ROOM 212
Civics / Practical Arts / Homeroom
"Try it and see what follows."

He never said "learning objectives" without sounding like he was trying not to laugh. He treated the classroom like a workshop, the workshop like a public sphere, and the public sphere like something you were already responsible for whether you liked it or not.

In the group portrait, he reads exactly right at center: older, composed, sleeves rolled, standing over the open books like the only adult in the building who knows ideas are tools and tools are moral problems with handles.

Faculty Quote
"Thinking is what happens when habit breaks."
Unofficial Reputation
Can turn a cafeteria argument into a theory of democracy before the tater tots cool.
Faculty Comments on Seniors
  • On James: "Useful chaos. I mean that as praise."
  • On Peirce: "He asks the best question in the room and then punishes everyone for answering badly."
  • On Addams: "The only student who understood that institutions are made of lunches, schedules, and whether the door is unlocked."
  • On Du Bois: "He notices the structure before the structure notices him noticing."
  • On Emerson: "An excellent student if one stops insisting that school be the site of his education."
  • On Thoreau: "Attendance remains, in his view, a negotiable fiction."
Learning outcomes: inconclusive.
Human consequences: significant.
Class of '84
Senior Portraits
St. Anselm Memorial — American Metaphysics District
🧡
William James
"Most Likely to Change Your Mind Without You Noticing"
William James
Slightly off-center, mid-laugh, cassette recorder in hand. The amber bead catches light like it's listening too.
ClubsDebate (sometimes) · Theater (unofficial) · Everyone's Confidant
Quote"It only matters if you can live it."
ObjectCassette tapes labeled with moments, not people
RumorKnows what you were going to say before you say it. Not true. Worse—he knows what you could say.
Senior Message

If it feels like a real option, try it. If it changes something, keep it.
If it doesn't—don't pretend it did.

— W. James
scribbled, slightly slanted, like he wrote it mid-conversation
operationally
vague
— C.S.P.
🔧
Charles Sanders Peirce
"Most Likely to Prove the School Is Misusing Data"
Charles Sanders Peirce
Unsmiling, caught mid-note, chalk dust on sleeve, eyes locked through the camera like it just made a category error.
ClubsScience Olympiad · Newspaper (anonymous corrections) · AV (reluctantly)
Quote"Define your terms."
ObjectA notebook full of arrows, margins, and revisions
RumorHas a map of the school that doesn't match the official layout.
Senior Message

If your conclusion depends on hiding how you got there, it's not a conclusion.

— C. S. Peirce
clean, deliberate, every letter placed like a claim
DEFINE "GREAT SUMMER."
🏠
Jane Addams
"Most Likely to Know What You Need Before You Ask"
Jane Addams
Soft smile, keys at her hip, someone half out of frame already leaning toward her.
ClubsCommunity Service (founded it) · Peer Mediation · After-School Center
Quote"Come by. We'll figure it out."
ObjectA ring of keys that opens doors no one else knows about
RumorHas fed half the school at least once.
Senior Message

If it matters, it's worth doing near someone.

— Jane
warm, looping, like she's written it a hundred times for people who needed it
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
🪞
W.E.B. Du Bois
"Most Likely to See the School as It Actually Is"
W. E. B. Du Bois
Composed, immaculate. The reflection in the glass behind him doesn't quite line up.
ClubsDebate Captain · Yearbook Editor · Honors Everything
Quote"You see me seeing you."
ObjectA fountain pen that never runs out of ink
RumorRewrote a school policy and made it look like it was always that way.
Senior Message

If they give you a name, ask what it costs to keep it.

— W. E. B. Du Bois
precise, immaculate, impossible to misread
The institution documents
what it can recognize.
— W.E.B.D.B.
🌞
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Most Likely to Convince You You're the Main Character"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Radiant, slightly overexposed, like the camera couldn't quite handle him.
ClubsNone (by design) · Occasional Speaker at Assemblies
Quote"Trust yourself."
ObjectA leather notebook no one has ever seen opened
RumorGave a speech that made three people drop out and two people change their lives.
Senior Message

What you hear when you are alone is not nothing.

— RWE
stylized, almost like a brand
easy for YOU to say
— H.D.T.
🌿
Henry David Thoreau
"Most Likely to Skip School on Principle"
NOT PICTURED
during class, by choice
Henry David Thoreau
Candid, probably unauthorized, outside the building.
ClubsNone
Quote"No."
ObjectA pocket notebook filled with observations no one asked for
RumorGot detention and treated it like a retreat.
Senior Message

If it's wrong, stop doing it. It's not complicated.

— H. D. Thoreau
short, almost annoyed
Gone out.
Back when the air improves.
Clubs & Activities
The clubs nobody could keep in one category.
Debate Team
Officially about argument. Unofficially about whether argument can survive contact with reality.
Members: W.E.B. Du Bois (Captain) · W. James · C. S. Peirce
Season Highlight: Du Bois won Regionals by answering the question he was asked, the question beneath it, and the question the institution was hoping nobody would notice.
Yearbook Editorial Board
A nice student publication until Du Bois got hold of it.
Members: Du Bois (Editor) · Addams · Peirce (anonymous red ink) · James (captions)
Editorial Motto: "If the record is inaccurate, it is also unethical."
Science Olympiad / Inquiry Lab
The place where hypotheses came to school armed.
Members: Peirce (natural habitat) · James (tolerated) · Mr. Dewey (advisor, reluctant)
Rumor: They built an experiment so elegant the principal asked if it violated policy, and Dewey said, "Only if the policy fails replication."
Community Service / Mutual Aid Committee
Founded by Jane, which is to say it worked.
Members: Addams (founder) · Du Bois · James · Dewey
What they actually did: Tutoring, rides, food, conflict mediation, coat drives, emergency cash, and the kind of practical mercy that makes official systems look embarrassingly decorative.
After-School Center
Half refuge, half experiment in what school might be if anyone had a soul.
Run By: Jane Addams
Unofficial description: The only room in the building where being overwhelmed did not count as misbehavior.
AV Club / Tape Archive
A technical club until James got hold of a recorder and Peirce got suspicious of labels.
Members: James · Peirce (reluctantly) · Dewey (as faculty signatory)
Archive Policy: Tapes labeled with moments, not people. Which is either humane or terrifying.
Assembly Committee
Not a club so much as a recurring incident.
Featuring: Emerson (occasional speaker) · Thoreau (absent on principle) · Dewey (explaining aftermath)
Memorable Event: Emerson gave a seven-minute speech on self-trust and half the student body spent fifth period staring out windows like they'd just been diagnosed with destiny.
Outdoor Club
There was no Outdoor Club.
There was only Thoreau leaving.
Member: Henry David Thoreau
Activities: Skipping sanctioned activities. Recording birds. Treating detention as a residency.
Student Civic Forum
The closest the school came to democracy before the administration started sweating through its nice shirts.
Members: Du Bois · Addams · Dewey (advisor) · James · Peirce
Purpose: To ask whether school rules were educational, merely habitual, or just the accumulated sediment of adult cowardice.
Literary Magazine
One issue. Immense psychic damage.
Contributors: Emerson · Du Bois · James
Why it ended: No one could agree whether sincerity counted as a genre.
Do not confuse circulation with truth. — unsigned, obviously Peirce
Senior Superlatives
Official
Most Likely to Change Your Mind Without You NoticingWilliam James
Most Likely to Prove the School Is Misusing DataCharles Sanders Peirce
Most Likely to Know What You Need Before You AskJane Addams
Most Likely to See the School as It Actually IsW. E. B. Du Bois
Most Likely to Convince You You're the Main CharacterRalph Waldo Emerson
Most Likely to Skip School on PrincipleHenry David Thoreau
Most Likely to Turn a Food Fight into Democratic TheoryMr. Dewey
Pairs
Most Likely to Have One Argument Lasting All Four YearsJames & Peirce
Most Likely to Terrify the Administration for Entirely Different ReasonsDu Bois & Thoreau
Most Likely to Keep the School from Becoming Spiritually UninhabitableAddams & Dewey
Most Likely to Leave a Meeting Worse for Everyone but Better for TruthPeirce & Dewey
Unofficial
as voted by students who should have been studying
Best Hair Under Conditions of Metaphysical StressWilliam James
Most Likely to Correct the Wording of the Superlative ItselfC. S. Peirce
Most Likely to Have Spare Gloves, Soup, and a PlanJane Addams
Best Dressed While Dismantling Institutional IllusionW. E. B. Du Bois
Most Likely to Start a Movement by AccidentR. W. Emerson
Most Likely to Treat Truancy as a Sacred PracticeH. D. Thoreau
Most Likely to Say "Interesting" Before Assigning Group Work That Alters Your Moral CharacterJohn Dewey
Most Likely to Found a Club and Deny Belonging to Clubs as SuchEmerson
Most Likely to Make a Bad Idea Feel Weirdly Livable for 30 MinutesJames
Most Likely to Have the Master Key and the Actual Moral AuthorityAddams
Most Likely to Leave the Building and Win the Argument AnywayThoreau
Most Likely to Say "Let's Test That" and Ruin Everyone's Comfortable DelusionsDewey
ST. ANSELM MEMORIAL — INTERNAL MEMO
TO: Homeroom 212, Class of '84
FROM: J. Dewey, Room 212
DATE: Last Day of School, June 1984

You arrived, most of you, thinking school was a place where finished knowledge got handed down like cafeteria trays: standardized, stackable, and not improved by contact with your actual lives.

That was never the point.

The point was to discover that an idea is not really alive until it has survived use. Not private admiration. Not elegant phrasing. Use. Consequence. Friction. The hard test of other people. If you learned anything in this room, I hope it was that thought is not a decorative activity for the inwardly overlit. Thought is what happens when habit fails and you are forced to rebuild, together, without pretending the break never happened.

Some of you discovered that method is a form of honesty.
Some of you discovered that care is infrastructure.
Some discovered that refusal is also a civic act.
Some discovered that self-trust is either the beginning of freedom or a very theatrical form of laziness, depending on whether you submit it to consequences.
A few of you, God help us, discovered all of these at once and made the rest of the semester structurally impossible.

Good.

The world you are entering is full of people who confuse certainty with intelligence, polish with truth, and authority with legitimacy. Do not help them. Ask what an idea does. Ask who bears the cost. Ask what kind of life it makes possible. Then revise accordingly.

Build things. Test them. Repair what fails. Keep near the people who make you more answerable, not less. And when you find a system that injures human beings while calling itself necessary, remember that necessity is very often just habit wearing a necktie.

I have taught many students. A few learn quickly. A few learn deeply. Almost none learn without first being inconvenienced by reality. You have, all of you, been inconvenienced in unusually promising ways.

That is the nicest thing I know how to say.

— Mr. Dewey
This is the nicest
mutiny I have
ever supervised.
Signatures & What They Actually Said
In most yearbooks, this page is full of hearts, jokes, phone numbers, and promises nobody keeps. In this one, it looks like six theories of reality got hold of the same pen and refused to leave.
In William James's Yearbook
C. S. Peirce:
You are infuriatingly persuasive for someone whose categories behave like jazz. Still: you were often right earlier than the rest of us, which is not the same as being rigorous, but is irritating in its own distinct way. Define "works" someday before it kills you. — C.S.P.
Jane Addams:
You made people feel less alone without making a performance of it. That matters more than you let on. Also, three of these cassette tapes belong to other people. Return them. — Jane
W. E. B. Du Bois:
Charm is not innocence, but occasionally it is a delivery system for truth. Use carefully. — W.E.B.D.B.
R. W. Emerson:
Trust the pulse that arrives before explanation. The soul often knows by leaping. — RWE
H. D. Thoreau:
You talk too much. But sometimes usefully. — H.D.T.
Dewey:
Good instincts. Now submit them to consequences. — Dewey
He absolutely did not return the tapes.
In C. S. Peirce's Yearbook
W. James:
I still think you're wrong about at least three things, but I trust you more than almost anyone to tell me when I'm bullshitting myself. Which, annoyingly, is friendship. — W.J.
Jane Addams:
Thank you for caring enough about precision to make it social instead of merely private. Also thank you for fixing the volunteer budget spreadsheet after midnight without telling anyone. — Jane
W. E. B. Du Bois:
Method is honorable. But institutions also hide in method. Keep your knives sharp. — W.E.B.
R. W. Emerson:
Too much caution can become obedience to the already-known. Even a proof must, once, begin in audacity. — RWE
H. D. Thoreau:
You are the only person I know who could annotate a thunderstorm. Respect. — H.D.T.
Dewey:
The point of inquiry is not purity. It is repair. Don't forget the second half. — J.D.
This signature order implies no hierarchy. — C.S.P., obviously
In Jane Addams's Yearbook
W. James:
You are the only person in this building who could make "Come by, we'll figure it out" sound like a metaphysical proposition and a lunch plan at the same time. I mean that reverently. — William
C. S. Peirce:
You have the rare gift of making the practical more intelligent than the abstract. This is not anti-theoretical. It is a correction. — C.S. Peirce
W. E. B. Du Bois:
You understand that care without structure becomes exhaustion, and structure without care becomes violence. That knowledge is rarer than kindness. — W.E.B. Du Bois
R. W. Emerson:
There are souls who announce themselves. Yours builds rooms. — RWE
H. D. Thoreau:
You make civilization harder to reject. I'm still thinking about whether to forgive you for that. — Henry
Dewey:
The school should have learned more from you than it did. Some of us did. — Dewey
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
In W. E. B. Du Bois's Yearbook
W. James:
You always made the room more real, which is not the same thing as making it more comfortable. Sorry / thank you. — W.J.
C. S. Peirce:
Your analyses were devastating precisely because they were not ornamental. You traced consequences where others traced appearances. — C.S.P.
Jane Addams:
You never once asked anyone to settle for a smaller description of harm than the truth required. I admire that more than I can fit in this margin. — Jane
R. W. Emerson:
The self becomes majestic when it refuses the lie prepared for it. — RWE
H. D. Thoreau:
You don't just see the bars. You describe the metal. — H.D.T.
Dewey:
Never stop asking who pays for the arrangement everyone else is calling normal. — J. Dewey
"You see me seeing you" is either a warning or a method.
In Ralph Waldo Emerson's Yearbook
W. James:
You make interiority sound like a varsity sport. Disturbing. Effective. — W.J.
C. S. Peirce:
Intuition is not invalid. It is simply not self-certifying. Please stop smirking when I say that. — C.S.P.
Jane Addams:
You reminded people that they had an inner life. I just wish you occasionally remembered they also had rent. — Jane
W. E. B. Du Bois:
Self-reliance for whom remains the question. Still, you taught many how not to kneel inwardly. — W.E.B.D.B.
H. D. Thoreau:
Could have been shorter. — H.D.T.
Dewey:
A fine speech is not yet an education. Annoyingly, yours sometimes came close. — Dewey
The over-soul probably did not sign yearbooks, but if it had, the penmanship would be unbearable.
In Henry David Thoreau's Yearbook
W. James:
For someone so committed to refusal, you left a weirdly strong impression on everyone. Which I assume will offend you. — William
C. S. Peirce:
Your conclusions are occasionally under-argued and frequently antisocial. This does not make them false. — C.S. Peirce
Jane Addams:
Please eat something with protein this summer. — Jane
W. E. B. Du Bois:
Withdrawal can be witness, but it cannot be the whole politics. You know that. — W.E.B. Du Bois
R. W. Emerson:
You are the sentence I began and the argument that escaped into weather. — RWE
Dewey:
If you're going to reject the institution, at least leave notes for those still trapped inside it. — J.D.
I did. They called them absences.
In Mr. Dewey's Faculty Copy
W. James:
Thanks for repeatedly ruining my favorite abstractions by making me test them in public. — W. James
C. S. Peirce:
I object to your optimism, but less than I used to. — C.S.P.
Jane Addams:
Thank you for understanding that education is a social arrangement before it is a curriculum. — Jane
W. E. B. Du Bois:
Democracy, if it is to mean anything, must survive the facts. You never let us forget the first half. — W.E.B. Du Bois
R. W. Emerson:
You insist the soul submit its discoveries to consequence. Rude. Necessary. — RWE
H. D. Thoreau:
You were less wrong than the others. Don't get used to it. — H.D.T.
This is the nicest mutiny I have ever supervised. — Dewey
Marginalia
Found in corners, gutters, tape marks, and places the layout committee gave up on controlling.
SIDE A: what happened
SIDE B: what it meant
— beside James's page, in his own hand
DEFINE "GREAT SUMMER."
— in red pencil near Peirce's page
Cafeteria Meal Ticket #447
Bus Pass · Spring Route 12
for whoever needs it
— on Jane's page, taped
school spirit
whose? at whose expense?
— across the gutter near Du Bois
Folded note in James's hand:
"If an idea helps you breathe, that's not proof. But it's not nothing."
Index card, Peirce's hand:
"Do not confuse sincerity with validity.
Do not confuse popularity with truth.
Do not confuse my patience with agreement."
you are unique
you are answerable to your own deepest voice
— on Emerson's side, with sunburst doodle
🍂
DETENTION SLIP
Reason: unauthorized absence (x14)
— pressed leaf taped over it
Receipt-back note from Jane:
"If you're reading this and don't know where to go after graduation, come find me before Friday."
Heavy fountain-pen card:
"Some names are assigned to contain you.
Learn which ones cost too much."
Card stock, Emerson:
"Do not become merely legible. Become inwardly warranted."
Torn scrap:
Gone out.
Back when the air improves.
School memo paper:
Try it.
See what follows.
Revise honestly.
— J.D.
Not pictured: consensus.
Last Day of School

The bell rings. Nobody moves right away.

James is dubbing over an old tape because he says memory works better when layered.

Peirce is arguing with the yearbook staff over whether "Most Likely To" constitutes a valid predictive category.

Addams is making sure everybody got homecoming photos, lunch money, and somewhere to go after graduation.

Du Bois is standing still enough to make stillness feel like an indictment.

Emerson is out by the football field talking to one sophomore like he's delivering scripture through a sun flare.

Thoreau has already left, obviously, though somehow also remains the strongest position in the room.

Nobody agrees on what school was for.
Everybody leaves with a different account of what happened there.
And somehow that's the most honest record possible.

Hidden Ensemble Page · If you know, you know.
James→live options — experience as the test of what can become real
Peirce→method — correction, inquiry, the long discipline of not bullshitting yourself
Addams→proximity — care, material reality, the ethics of being actually there
Du Bois→structure — perception under power, consciousness split by the social mirror
Emerson→self — intuition, vocation, the terrifying possibility that inner authority is real
Thoreau→refusal — integrity, exit, the moral use of a slammed door
Dewey→the room itself — experiment, consequence, learning-by-doing, thought surviving other people
That's not a graduating class.
That's a complete philosophical architecture wearing varsity jackets.
"The yearbook wasn't documenting the school.
It was mapping how people decide what's real."
Some people graduate.
Some people revise the conditions of recognition.
Detention was temporary.
The metaphysics were forever.
St. Anselm Memorial High School · Class of '84