Earl Reed Silvers (1891–1948)

Picking up just where Jackson of Hillsdale High left off, this third and final book about the athletic adventures of Ward Jackson and his friends and rivals at school opens with the banquet celebrating the Hillsdale High football team's recent victory. The boys soon discover that Mr. Merritt, their much-admired principal and coach, has accepted a new job as Field Secretary of the State High School Athletic Association. He meets with Ward, Bill Barrett and Joe Krasowski to ask them to show more continue the good work they have all done, in building school spirit, and supporting the honor system. This isn't as easy as it would seem, as the basketball season ahead presents some challenges. Stretch, always prone to resentment, is offended that he wasn't included in the meeting with Mr. Merritt, and refuses to be supportive. Jed Krasowski is still doubtful of the idea of an honor system, although his brother Joe is now a firm supporter, and talented newcomer, Sid Henderson, has principled objections to the idea, believing that honorable men don't need to make a show of their honor, by taking oaths. The first section of the book is devoted to the resolution of this crisis of faith, and the new principal, Mr. Meistrell, a "shark" at chemistry and physics who seems to care nothing for athletics, takes an unexpected hand, giving a speech at the YMCA about the links between patriotism and school spirit, thereby influencing the boys. Ward's own decision as captain to take his best friend Bill off the team for one of their games, for the good of the team, convinces the cynical Jed that he means what he says.

When the school heating system is broken during a cold snap, and school is closed for the week while it is being repaired, some of the Hillsdale boys - Ward, Stretch, Bill and Joe - head to a country club in western New York state for a little vacation. Here they have an impromptu game of basketball with the locals (naturally), and solve the mystery of a string of robberies taking place in the area. Heading home, they discover that Hillsdale has been invited to participate in the first ever state championship, to be held at State University. Representing Union County, they head to Collegeville to compete, meeting up with Mr. Merritt again, and finding themselves hosted on campus by the Alpha Alpha fraternity. The remainder of the book is devoted to their struggles on the basketball court, and their experiences with the Alpha Alpha, who eventually give Ward, Bill and Stretch a bid to join the fraternity themselves, when they come up to college the next year. With a strong team spirit, good play, and smart leadership on Ward's part, the Hillsdale boys show that they are indeed champions, and the book closes with the triumph that the title promises...

Every bit as engaging as its two predecessors - At Hillsdale High and Jackson of Hillsdale High, The Hillsdale High Champions explores many of the same themes - the links between sport and good citizenship, the inclusion of newcomers in the American Dream - that those earlier books did. The former is something explicitly touched on in Mr. Meistrell's speech at the YMCA, in which he tells the boys of the Hi-Y club that "the patriot... is the man who loves his country, who subscribes to its laws, maintains it high ideals. And the boy who loves his school, who works always for its betterment, who stoutly defends its honor in the face of odds, is a patriot in the making." It is this speech, and Mr. Meistrell's response to Sid Henderson's questions, that convince the newcomer to support the honor system at the school. This is something seen in many of Earl Reed Silvers' books, the linking of school affairs to the affairs of the nation, and the idea that through athletics and good sportsmanship, boys will grow into men, moving from the smaller stage of the school to the larger arena of politics. The debate between Sid and Ward about the nature of honor was quite fascinating, and although the narrative supports Ward's position, I had a great deal of personal sympathy for Sid's idea that honor doesn't need to flaunt itself, that "honor is something that can't be forced upon a fellow. He either has it or he hasn't." Of course, there's also something to be said for Ward's position that "honor is something that can be taught a man." Although Silvers clears favors the latter position, I appreciated the fact that he demonstrated, through the disagreement between Sid and Ward, that it was possible for people of good faith to have differing views, without one or the other being the villain of the piece.

Although we don't see as much attention paid to the issues of ethnic and class tension, and the incorporation of the outsider into the group, as there was in Jackson of Hillsdale High, where they were a major theme of the book, they are still of concern here. On the train ride through New York City, Ward listens to Joe Krasowski describe how hard his father had to work, when the family first came to the country, and feels pride at the opportunities offered to immigrants: "some country of ours...it doesn't matter whether a fellow is a Krasowski, or a Goldstein, or a Costello, he's got just the same chance as any of us." Although it is a debatable assertion that newly arrived Polish-American, Jewish American and Italian-American citizens had quite the same chance as their native-born WASP fellows in the 1920s, it is nevertheless quite interesting how Silvers explicitly includes them in the national story, and attempts, through Ward, to welcome them into the fold. It is an argument, not for each group to be accepted as a distinct ethnic enclave of their own, but for their incorporation into a broader American culture - an argument for the 'melting pot' idea. This is made explicitly clear when Ward, pondering his earlier hostility to New York City, thinks to himself that "now he saw it in a new light. A place where men were given a chance! A melting pot of nations!" The idea that all groups are welcome to join, if they "play the game" - if they become willing partners in the American project - is reaffirmed later in the book, when Hillsdale High plays against the Union team. This latter includes "Nick Tomasso, an Italian; an Irishman named Murphy, and Ira Cohen, a Jew," amongst others, and are judged by Ward to be "gentlemen" and "good sports," who "play the game."

All in all, this was a worthy conclusion to a series I found both entertaining and quite informative, in opening a window into 1920s America. Recommended to anyone who read and enjoyed the first two books about Ward Jackson and Hillsdale High. show less

High school athletes Ward Jackson, Bill Barrett and Stretch Magens, along with their track and football coach, Mr. Merritt, head to Sunrise Camp in New Hampshire in this sequel to At Hillsdale High. On the steamboat up the Hudson, Ward saves a young boy his own age from drowning, when he accidentally falls overboard, and a firm friendship is born from the act. Mr. Merritt and Bill readily accept Antonio 'Tony' Cuppola, who is bound for Pinetree Camp, the rival of their own Sunrise, but the show more resentful Stretch wants nothing to do with a "Wop" (a derogatory term for Italian-Americans). Once the companions reach camp, Stretch demonstrates that he also has little use for "highbrows," as he calls the two other campers - Rex Skillman and Curly Lockwood - who share a tent with the Hillsdale boys, and who attend Exeter Academy, a prestigious boys' boarding school in Exeter, New Hampshire. The first half of the book chronicles the experiences of the boys at Sunrise Camp - how Ward rose to many personal and athletic challenges, to eventually win the Silver Cup, awarded to the camper who did the most for the spirit of the camp, at the end of the summer; and how Stretch learnt to overcome many of his prejudices, and to put the good of the group, whether team or camp, before his own personal desires. This latter involved a number of dramatic incidents, from a foolish rock-climbing episode in which the much-despised Tony saved his life, to a misguided effort to repay a debt owed to Rex Skillman, for his generous actions in the tennis tournament.

The second half of the book sees the boys returning to Hillsdale, where they discover that their old principal has retired, and that Mr. Merritt has taken his place. They also learn that due to a fire destroying the high school building in nearby Wintonville - a manufacturing town a few miles away from Hillsdale - their school will be playing host to around fifty unknown students for the year. Ward has his doubts about these working class "roughnecks," and how they will fit in with the Hillsdale High spirit, which he had worked so hard to improve, in the previous book. He quickly realizes he is being prejudiced however, and prepares to welcome the newcomers, only to find them hostile and standoffish. Led by Joe and Jed Krasowski, whose father works as a foreman at the Mencken Chemical Works, the Wintonville students don't seem eager to fit in at their new school. Although Mr. Merritt convinces the Krasowski brothers, who are natural football players, to try out for the team, along with other Wintonville boys, there is still much tension between the groups. This is exacerbated by the Honor System that the football team adopts, whose provisions include a prohibition on smoking, and whose terms require the boys themselves to police one another. When Jed Krasowski is caught smoking, he is ejected from the team, leading to bitterness between Ward, who is the one who informed on him, and Joe, Jed's elder brother. The remainder of the book is devoted to how the two boys - the best players on the team - work out their differences, and how all the students, whether middle or working class, whether Hillsdale or Wintonville residents, become one in spirit...

Like so many of Earl Reed Silvers's other novels for young people, Jackson of Hillsdale High features sport prominently, and there are copious descriptions of tense athletic competitions, from swimming matches and tennis tournaments to baseball and football games. As mentioned in my review of At Hillsdale High, sport is the lens through which Silvers explains and understands the world, and the individual's place in that world. A boy who lives up to the finer ideals of good sportsmanship - honesty, support for a fair playing field, a keen sense of honor, a belief in the ennobling aspects of competition, and a willingness to put the good of the group ahead of one's own personal glory - will wind up becoming a good man and a good citizen. A boy who will fight and sacrifice for his team and school, will fight and sacrifice for the good of his nation. In this sense, Silvers seems to be an inheritor of some of the ideas of 'Muscular Christianity,' a 19th-century English philosophy - most famously put forward in Thomas Hughes' classic Victorian boys' story, Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857) - in which moral and physical education were inextricably tied together, and were meant to produce good subjects of the British Empire. Although Silvers' stories, which began to appear in 1920 with Dick Arnold of Raritan College, are strictly secular, they do tie the athletic and the ethical together, and give a sense of what values the author thought were important for young American men to adopt. Given that this is so, it is simply fascinating to see how he addresses the incorporation of the outsider into his schema - into his vision of American masculinity.

Although very much of its time and place in some ways, Silvers' work could also be startling progressive, and nowhere is that more evident than here, in the way in which he addresses ethnic tensions through his story. Published in 1923, at a time when Anti-Italian prejudice was still strong in the United States, the narrative in Jackson of Hillsdale High explicitly rejects the notion that Italians could not become good Americans. Although Ward himself initially thinks of the "dark-skinned" Tony as a "Wop," he also notices that the other boy looks lonely, immediately wants to befriend him, and has no hesitation in risking his own life to save him. It's interesting to note that after the initial appearance of this pejorative word in his thoughts, Ward never again uses the term, either silently or verbally. The only one who does is Stretch Magens, who is usually the "problem child" of the Hillsdale High set, and whose reformation, in this and other matters, make it clear that he is no moral example to be followed. When Ward defends Tony as being "all right," after rescuing him, Stretch replies that "he's a Wop, just the same," going on to state that he doesn't care for "foreigners." Mr. Merritt interjects to say that "A man's a man, whether he is an American or a South Sea Islander," challenging the underlying idea that to be foreign is to be lesser. Later in the story, Tony's brave actions in saving Stretch, and his adherence to the masculine code of honor promoted by Silvers, shows that, whatever his background, he is a true blue American. Consider the following passage, in which Tony conquers his fear of heights, and climbs down a cliff-face to save Stretch:

"It did not occur to him that his action was doubly heroic in view of the continued hostility which Stretch Magens had manifested toward him. All that he knew, or cared to know, was that a human life was in danger, and that he was in a position to help. And never once did he consider the possibility of turning back; in spite of the fear which gripped him, he resolved, calmly and courageously, to see the thing through, no matter what."

The moral character and manly courage depicted here, the narrative sympathy with Tony's feelings, make it clear that he is a boy to be admired and emulated, one worthy of being an American. Compare this depiction to another children's book from the era: Laura Lee Hope's Three On A Vacation, or, The Mystery at Peach Farm, which was published in 1925 as part of the Blythe Girls series. In this story, we find the girl characters confronted with frightening "foreign" characters, who speak in a language that "seems" to be Italian, and who turn out to be dastardly thieves. This is the more common depiction of Italian-Americans, especially during Prohibition, when popular imagination painted them all as gangster-style Al Capones. It's interesting to note how much more progressive boys' fiction of this period was, when it came to white ethnic pluralism, than girls' fiction, a trend I have noticed in the course of reading many vintage children's books. Compare the famous Hardy Boys, for instance, who had both an Italian-American and a Jewish chum, to Nancy Drew, who couldn't even stomach the idea of an African-American or Irish-American housekeeper.

If Silvers confronts ethnic prejudice in the first half of his book, he confronts both ethnic and class prejudice in the second, as the Wintonville students come to study at Hillsdale with their more affluent peers. Here again, we see that Ward has an initially prejudiced thought, thinking the new students are "roughnecks," a pejorative term referring to a kind of rowdy, uncultured working-class man, one usually employed in some kind of manual labor. Interestingly, this term is often used today to refer specifically to oil rig workers, and seems to have been reclaimed, as a number of sports teams in the United States use the name. Ward soon sees the error of his ways, of course, being the hero of an Earl Reed Silvers' novel - if Silvers' books have a weakness, it would have to be the tendency of the protagonist to be almost a paragon of every virtue - and does his best to include the newcomers at the school, and to make them feel that they belong. This rejection of prejudice is reinforced by Mr. Merritt, who tells Stretch that "here at Hillsdale, one man is just as good as another. There isn't any such thing as a roughneck; it's the stuff inside of us that counts." Here again, we see that the moral authority of the story is providing a template for acceptance, not in the contemporary sense of taking everyone as we find them, but in the sense of allowing everyone into the in-group, or native community. Ward reflects on this, realizing that although the Wintonville kids are different from him, that they too deserve a "square deal," that this "was what the American nation stood for."

Although Silvers' depiction of some of his non-WASP characters is not without a certain paternalism, and possibly even stereotype - is Joe Krasowski being a little bit stubborn and slow meant to be a nod to the absurd idea, abroad in American culture for many decades, that Poles lack intelligence? - he is nevertheless head and shoulders ahead of many other writers of his day, in terms of promoting acceptance and tolerance between different communities. One wonders whether this could be down to the equalizing potential of sport? It's interesting to note that his Irish-American characters don't seem to be treated in quite the same way, and tend to be more accepted as everyday Americans, just as a matter of course. Magens, for instance, is an Irish surname, but although Stretch is often a problematic figure throughout the series, his ethnicity never seems to be a factor, is in fact never touched upon. At one point, it is mentioned that he is from Missouri, and needs to be shown things - a reference to Missouri being the "Show Me" state - but no other background information is given. If the reader didn't known that Magens was an Irish name, they wouldn't know that Stretch was any different than the other Hillsdale High boys. No doubt this points to the fact that by the 1920s, the Irish community in the United States was better established and more accepted than they had been in the 19th century, when they faced extraordinary levels of prejudice.

Leaving aside such fascinating social themes, this was an engaging and well-told tale, one I enjoyed reading. Highly recommended, to anyone who has likewise read and enjoyed At Hillsdale High. show less

New Jersey boy Budd Williams goes west to California in this first of two novels devoted to his adventures, attending Menlo prep school on the San Francisco peninsula. A poor boy who works after school as a caddie, at the Colonia Country Club, Budd does everything he can to help his widowed mother, who takes in sewing to keep them afloat. He is convinced by the local doctor that going to college is a good idea, but when his mother's sight weakens to the point that she can no longer sew, he show more feels he must leave school in order to support her. It is then that Dr. Adriance steps in, offering Mrs. Williams a job as his housekeeper - a position that will spare her eyes - and sending Budd across the country to Menlo. Here he struggles to fit in, missing New Jersey, hostile to California, and convinced that the other boys do not accept him, because of his humble origins. It takes time for him to win friends, and to see the beauty of his new home, but eventually he gains the love of state and school that are so essential to the Menlo spirit...

Like so many of Earl Reed Silvers' books for young people, sport is central in The Spirit of Menlo: A Story of the Heart of a Boy, and Budd's experiences playing golf and football form a large part of the story. That said, the author explores other themes as well, and his descriptions of Budd's homesickness, and of his unhappiness at feeling like an outcast, were quite moving. Questions of social class and belonging are often interrogated in Silvers' books, but this treatment felt more immediate, probably because the tale was - atypically for the author's work - told in the first person. Silvers ties school spirit and loyalty to larger issues of citizenship here, as he does in so many of his books, with school principal Mr. Clements speaking of "school spirit being another name for patriotism, and how the boy who loved and fought for his school was the one who in after life worked for his home city, his state, and his country." Budd struggles with this idea of school spirit throughout the book, mostly because he doesn't feel like he belongs at Menlo, and because the other boys are frequently intolerant of his dissenting views.

There is an emotional resonance to this story that I find atypical in Silvers' work, which I tend to enjoy, but rarely find especially moving. As mentioned above, the first person narration is no doubt one reason for this. Another is the fact that Silvers devotes more time to his protagonist's inner struggles. Usually his heroes, if they have doubts at all, are easily won over to the central idea of loyalty to school and team, and doing one's best for the group. Here the process is more gradual, and the hero more reluctant. I was often uncomfortable with the intolerance shown to Budd, which I sometimes felt veered into the realm of bullying, and which the narrative seemed to support. On the other hand, I appreciated the fact that Silvers allowed Budd to come to his own conclusions through a longer process of experience, rather than through instant conversion.

A final aspect of the book which made it a little bit richer than many of Silvers' others, and was greatly appealing to me, was the wealth of lovely descriptive passages in which the beauty of the natural world was extolled. I loved the moment when Budd, newly arrived at Menlo, feels a connection to the oak trees: "I raised my eyes to look at the oaks again - counting them, somehow, as my friends." Later on that night, Budd looks out at the moonlit landscape, and is enchanted by what he sees: "the twisted oaks looked like gnomes in a fairy tale, and it seemed, somehow, as if they were holding their giant arms out to us in welcome. The night was still, and the fragrance of many flowers was all about us."

This is an obscure book, and difficult to track down. I sought it out myself because I am interested in Silvers' work. Still, if one can somehow obtain it, it is worth a read, particularly for those interested in sports fiction for younger readers, or vintage American boys' fare from the 1920s. show less

Barry Browning, Budd Smith, and the rest of the gang from Cranford High return in this sequel to Barry the Undaunted. With the exception of Budd, who still has a year to go, most of them are graduating, and Valedictorian Barry has some things to say about carrying on the "high ideals of citizenship, of fair play in the game of life as well as in lesser games." With everyone soon to head off in different directions - Budd staying in Cranford, Andy bound for college, and Mildred, who won show more honors in mathematics, off to Vassar - it looks like the summer will be the friends' last time all together. So it is that they decide to spend the two months as a group, first embarking on a boat trip to Staten Island Sound, then heading to the Jersey Shore for some time at the resort town of Seabreeze, where Barry and Andy both have summer homes, and finally making their way to Mr. Browning's hunting cottage near Lumber Lake, in upstate New York. Throughout it all, they have many exciting adventures, aiding each other in some life-threatening situations - both Mildred and Andy come close to drowning, at different points - and apprehending a group of bootleggers smuggling whiskey across the Canadian border. They also, of course (this being an Earl Reed Silvers novel), have plenty of sporting contests and encounters, and while they don't always win, they always play the game...

Like its predecessor, I found Barry and Budd to be an immensely entertaining read, and I appreciated both the engaging story and the finely drawn characters. While it is true that Barry and Budd are sometimes a little bit too much like the female and male paragons of the group, possessing every imaginable virtue, they still make for sympathetic figures. Budd's many virtues, in particular, are explored here, as he conquers one of his few fears - that of heights and/or flying - in order to rescue Andy at Seabreeze. He also manages to work out his conflicted feelings about the Yacht Club set, at the ritzy resort town, compromising on his initial refusal to dress like a "gentleman" - at one point, he declares that "it isn't what a fellow wears that counts, it's what he's got inside of him - and agreeing to conform to the dress code if Andy will agree not to swim in such dangerous waters. As appealing as both eponymous figures are, I also have a soft spot for Andy and Mildred - the aggressive, overly-competitive, sometimes jealous chauvinist and the overly critical, sometimes shrill, and always militant feminist of the group, respectively - who spar constantly with one another throughout the book, but still manage to remain friends, and see the good in one another. When Mildred becomes stuck beneath a pier on the boat trip, and is close to drowning, it is Andy who stays with her, supporting her through the ordeal, and telling her afterward that she was a "good sport" (one of the highest compliments possible, in an Earl Reed Silvers novel). When it is Andy who is close to drowning, off the coast of Seabreeze, unable to get to shore, his friends unable to get out to him, it is Mildred who begins to pray for his safety, as Barry "the undaunted" can only weep.

Although there is, as mentioned, plenty of sporting content, for me what stands out in Silvers' trilogy of novels about this group of friends - begun with Barry the Undaunted, it continued here, and concluded with Barry Goes to College - is the interpersonal drama. The boys are strong and manly, but occasionally weep. The girls are independent and feisty, but also supportive. There is much here that might feel a little outdated - the book was published in 1925, after all - but also quite a bit that is still relevant. The class issues that surface, for instance, when the group of friends, of various socio-economic backgrounds, all go to a resort town together and find themselves confronted with a certain kind of wealthy "summer set." Some - Andy and Barry - fit in with this group, and some don't, but because of the strength of their school ties, the Cranford High friends remain closely bonded. I have often heard it said that one of the greatest social benefits of a public school system, other than the education it provides of course, is the equalizing effect it has on students of diverse class, ethnic, and eventually, racial backgrounds, and that is borne out here, at least in terms of class difference. There are also regional issues - something that has always plagued America, and seems in this current day to be getting worse - that are explored in the section of the book set in upstate New York. At one point the narrator observes with a bit of surprise, during the 4th of July celebrations at Cottons Corner that the locals were "fellow countrymen, many of them without our advantages, provincial perhaps and not always cultured, but nevertheless Americans...endowed with the nation's ideals of fair play, and honest living, and a square deal for every man."

There was something rather charming, reading this in 2015, about young people being so earnest in their citizenship, in their sporting and scholastic ideals, and in their respect for the law. There was something charming about the fact that the members of the group could have such different views on some matters - especially Andy and Mildred - but remain friends, and through that friendship, sometimes change their minds. It is Andy, after all, who opines that the girls should not get involved trying to apprehend the bootleggers. And it is Andy, when confronted by the fact that the girls had succeeded in catching said bootleggers, who "took his medicine like a man," concluding that "a lot depends on who the girls are." Highly recommended, to anyone who has read and enjoyed Barry the Undaunted. show less