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Page 3
Under the mentoring of a young English teacher, Edwin A. "Red" Smith, who was the first teacher to stir up Ted's thoughts of a writing career, Ted began to read the verses of Hilaire Belloc. He loved the rhymes, read them over and over, and recited them as he walked home from school. "As a friend to the children, commend me the Yak./ You will find it exactly the thing:/ It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back. "/Or lead it about with a string."
When he was not invited to join a fraternity his freshman year (he looked like a Jew), he turned to the Dartmouth humor magazine Jack-O-Lantern, called Jacko for short. Soon Ted began to get some lines published, then some illustrations. One of his first illustrations elicited welcome laughter: a young woman's rounded calf beneath a fashionably short skirt, with the caption "The Fatted Calf." Among the magazine staff, Ted began to be noticed for his good humor, his hard work and persistence, and his wit and modesty. He began to appreciate those who pursued academic discipline, but not enough to follow in their footsteps. He decided that Jacko would be his focus, and was content with the 2.4 grade average he maintained. The following year he took the psychology of advertising, and a semester each of zoology and botany. His notes for the science classes were cartoons of plants and animals. The professor, Arthur H. Chivers, told Ted and an also recalcitrant friend that if they would learn the Latin names of four trees they were studying, he would give them each a mark higher than what he expected to give them. They complied and both received a C for the course. Ted continued writing and drawing for Jacko, and was elected to the art staff in January, 1923. He resolved to become editor of the magazine in his senior year. In his junior year, Ted took his first class in creative writing, aimed at the writing of articles that were fit to be offered for sale. "Ben" Pressey held informal discussion groups at his home where students were encouraged to read their papers. At one meeting Ted insisted that method was more important then subject matter. He wrote a book review of the Boston & Main Railroad timetable to prove his point. Only the teacher and Ted saw the humor in it.
The copyright of the article Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, 1904-1991 - Page 3 in Famous Childhoods is owned by Mary Lou Derksen. Permission to republish Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, 1904-1991 - Page 3 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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