You fancy dead.
—Robert Louis Stevenson.
APPRECIATIVE WORDS FROM TEACHERS AND PUPILS OF BURLINGTON HIGH SCHOOL, 1920
To live to old age; to keep one's physical health and mental vigor to the very end; to work at one's chosen task with undiminished enthusiasm; to know one's self greatly useful and greatly beloved; to go, at last, swiftly, and to be mourned by many friends;—what could one ask, of all the gifts of life, better than that?
The impression left by Mr. Putney is that of a singularly serene and happy old age. And surely, if ever a man had reason to look upon his life with serenity and quiet satisfaction, Mr. Putney had reason to do so.
It is a touching and also an inspiring thought, how the successive generations of young boys and girls passed through his life, each one receiving something of the rich gift which Mr. Putney had to share with all, but then too, each returning something of the fresh outlook and untarnished faith of youth to keep his old age green.
Mr. Putney lived long but never grew old. Perhaps because of his very association with the young, he tasted the fountain of perpetual youth.
How valuable and how prized was the gift which he imparted, is best known to those who best knew the man himself. No pupil of his seems to think of him primarily as a teacher, but as a wise and kindly friend, whom to know was, somehow, to become one's self wiser and of a more human spirit.