I had a difficult relationship with Mr. Westgate while a student at St. Bernard’s. Once, during a class, he told me that if I didn’t like what he was doing, I could leave. I left and went home, copying the Russians who were walking out of the U.N. at the time.

Another time, during a homework period, I was admiring my baseball cap. Mr. Westgate came over, took it from me, and tossed it out of the window. I thought this very unfair, as did he, for a half-hour later, he told me to retrieve the cap. I went out on the street and pretended to look for it. Pretended, because a classmate had already retrieved the cap and it was safely back in my desk.

But once I was graduated from St. B’s, our relationship improved. Indeed, while I was a student at Columbia Law School, Mr. Westgate asked me to teach one afternoon a week at the school, taking over Sam Peabody’s class and sharing with the boys my insights on current events.

When I finished law school, Mr. Westgate asked me, completely out of the blue, to go to Puerto Rico to start an elementary school, teaching there for four months until the permanent head could come from England. He had been requested by a trustee of the new school, a former St. Bernard’s parent, for help in finding both a permanent and interim head. His offer was hugely appealing to me, for after three rigorous years of study at law school, followed by intense cramming for the bar exam, I needed time away from the law. And so I became head of an elementary school in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, exchanging my nineteen-year status as a student for that of teacher and school administrator.

Following several sessions at St. Bernard’s with Mr. Westgate, who explained to me what was expected of a head, and loaded down with books he gave me, I set off on my first job.

In San Juan I was met at the airport by the school board chairman and driven directly to meet Sister Maria José. She ran the Catholic school in Fajardo and was concerned that the new school would take her best pupils. My apprehension about the meeting vanished when she opened her mouth and I heard the familiar accent of Brooklyn, U.S.A. Sister Maria José and I got along fine.

The school was located in a beautiful house, once a private residence, with a garden. The students were the children of parents working as managers at a sugar plantation, the Fajardo East Sugar Company. Fajardo Academy opened with a student body of twenty-one, both boys and girls, and three teachers, including me. In one classroom I taught grades four to eight–eleven of the children–in all subjects but Spanish and art. My presentations on American history drew heavily on Allan Nevins and Henry Steele Commager, whose Short History of the United States I fortunately had taken with me. The children, ages nine through thirteen, furiously took notes as I lectured.

The school day ran from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. I then performed administrative chores, went swimming, had supper, and returned to the school to work until 10:00 p.m., preparing lessons for the next day. My educational philosophy was simple: Learning should be fun. Passersby on the street would hear gales of laughter issuing forth from the open windows of the school. I was assisted in making learning fun by the arrival of Misty.

One morning the students and I came upon an abandoned, undernourished puppy on the porch. The children named her Misty, and the school adopted her. Spoiled by all of us, Misty became quite the performer, jumping on my desk and wagging her tail to the intense delight of the students, and later, during her teething phase, nipping children, seated at their desks, at the ankle. No child dozed with Misty in the room.

Being human, at times I would be grouchy with the students, especially when they were sloppy in their work. Too grouchy, for some of the girls would cry. Having attended only all-boy schools, I was not prepared for this.

One day I had my comeuppance. A letter arrived from the New York State Board of Law Examiners notifying me that I had failed the bar exam. From that point on, I became more sympathetic to the academic difficulties of my students.

These events occurred in the fall of 1962. Mother would call at night from New York about a missile crisis in nearby Cuba. I told her I had no time to worry about such things, being too busy preparing lessons for the next day.

My inability to speak Spanish was not a major problem, since the children all were bilingual. When dealing with the woman garbage collector, who spoke only Spanish, or by telephone with education officials in San Juan, I would summon the Spanish teacher, or an eighth-grader, to serve as interpreter.

Time passes quickly, too quickly. As Christmas drew near, the students bade me farewell. Tears were shed, including mine. To the tune of “The Halls of Montezuma” the students sang,

Mr. Dean, why do you have to go?
You have been so nice to us.
You have taught us all we know,
So now our brains aren’t dust....

(Hmmm. I might have done more work with the children on rhyming.)

The new head arrived from England. His first official act was to banish Misty from the premises. She found a home with one of the children. I returned to New York to take the bar exam again, this time successfully, and begin my career as a lawyer.

At age twenty-five I was a retired headmaster, a status not yet achieved by Mr. Westgate, as I delighted in pointing out to him. Through work together on the school project, our relationship had deepened. “Mr. Westgate” became “Bill,” and we became friends.

No. 32, Spring 2005, page 5