School is in!...even for the backward child with no personality!

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Summer's over, well, Summer from the standpoint of anyone going back to school. I miss the days when Summer felt as though it lasted 4 months. And then reality hits (How old were you?), and Summer is barely more than 8 weeks. I think I was 14. The harsh reality of a new school or even a new class was a real buzz kill.  There was a time, when your "keepers" may have actually considered sending you to something other than a public school. They might have even turned to the recommendations of a high-brow publication such as the Literary Digest. I managed to pick up a copy from 1922 while vacationing in the middle of New York last week. I have to confess, that's not the cover of my copy, but it's close - to within 15 months. Thanks to the high quality color covers of this publication, it is difficult to find one with the cover intact.

Click for larger image

I mainly bought it because, A) it was a dollar; B) there were a number of ads that looked like candidates for the Ad Quiz; and C) The Literary Digest, like a lot of magazines, had either a page of ads featuring the "finest" schools or a page of recommendations like these...you may have to squint:

The fun comes from 2 of the sections within. There are the typical categories for college and preparatory that are not surprisingly separated by sex, followed by a tiny co-ed section. At the bottom was a most peculiar section:

What are backward children? Do you start them at the 12th grade and they regress to kindergarten? Did they come into this world butt first and only to be the subject of discrimination? Why isn't there a section for "lefties" then? Maybe this is the first form of the phrase now known as developmentally challenged. If that's true, we have come a long way with our social graces. But wait, there's more! It seems that there was another deficiency that needed to be addressed in the careful crafting of young minds.

 

This seems innocent enough until you realize that some poor kid had to attend personality summer school as a  result of flunking out during the normal personality school year. I'm not sure I'd want to meet anyone from that graduating class, but I wondered what they might look like -  So, I did an image search for "Group of people with no personality" and this is what I got.

The Jersey Shore Never watched an episode...never will.

The Literary Digest lasted, through most of the depression, thanks to the income level of its subscribers, but came to a strange end in 1936. From Wikipedia:

...It conducted a "straw poll" regarding the likely outcome of the 1936 presidential election. The poll showed that the Republican governor of Kansas, Alf Landon, would likely be the overwhelming winner. This seemed possible to some, as the Republicans had fared well in Maine, where the congressional and gubernatorial elections were then held in September - as opposed to the rest of the nation, where these elections were held in November along with the presidential election, like today. This seemed especially likely in light of the conventional wisdom, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation," a truism coined because Maine was regarded as a "bellwether" state which usually supported the winning candidate's party.

In November, Landon carried only Vermont and Maine Franklin Delano Roosevelt carried the then-46 other states; Landon's electoral vote total of eight is a tie for the record low for a major-party nominee since the current U.S. two-party system began in the 1850s. The Democrats joked, "As goes Maine, so goes Vermont," and the magazine was completely discredited because of the poll and was soon discontinued.

As a footnote: We survived Hurricane Irene, though more than half the State of CT was without power, and will be for several more days. I am a little disappointed that it didn't hit "Jersey Shore" a little harder.