IN MEMORY of BRYCE LAMBERT

My first year at Deerfield was spent as a sophomore in Mr. Lambert's dorm. Looking back, I know I was a handful. More than once he brought me back to earth with "the look" and a shake of the head. It sometimes seemed that nothing got past him. But for my class and so many others, that included our strengths and potential. He taught us we had a limitless future, and showed us a model of a spirited and giving life.

A few months ago, I found myself talking to a global educator who is studying the lives of leaders in fields from business to civic affairs to the arts. These achievers were asked what they saw as the greatest contribution to their success in life. The overwhelming majority named a teacher. These are the men and women who give deeply of themselves to help young, searching minds, and encourage young hearts that need faith and hope. They are the guides who set all students aiming high, and help build their confidence to become what they dream.

Bryce Lambert was such a teacher. He made a difference in countless students' lives. Each of us was privileged to grow and learn under Mr. Lambert's eye. Today, as we share the sorrow of his loss, we also share his gift to us: his inspiration as amazing teacher, constant friend, and great human being. Mr. Lambert, rest in peace, your students will carry your gift forward, to help generations to come.

Ever since, even in conversation, I have hesitated before using the "V word" as an adverb. Mr. Lambert demanded the courageous and imaginative use of the English language. Like Saul Bellow, he did not consider it a sin to consult the dictionary. He reveled in words. To paraphrase Patrick Dennis's immortal quip in Auntie Mame, Mr. Lambert believed that the English vocabulary is a banquet and most poor bastards don't sit down at the table and eat. But the courageous and imaginative use of the language was not enough. He required that the grammar and the syntax be correct, too. No matter how latter-day lexicographers and grammarians may have capitulated to popular misusage and the relentless debasement of the English language, thanks to Mr. Lambert, I know that "eager" and "anxious" are not synonyms, that it's "different from," not "different than," that "aggravate" means "worsen," not "irritate," and that "none" is singular, not plural.

Precision, unswerving commitment to the highest standards, and the gumption to march to the beat of one's own drum, particularly when upholding cultural standards, characterize every aspect of Mr.Lambert's well-lived life. His devotion to Constant Comment tea, his invincibility on the croquet lawn, his treasured "Lorna Doone" (the Lincoln Continental with the "BVL" license plates), and his sardonic witticisms that deflated the pretentious, the smug, and the egotistical without belittling them, are all manifestations of the strict tenets by which he lived his life and by 'which he expected his fellow human beings to live theirs.

But Mr. Lambert was more than a revered teacher and mentor. On a hot afternoon in late August, 1966, a little more than three months after I was graduated from the Academy, he became my friend. On short notice, my mother and I had made a trip to London, for a valedictory visit with a terminally ill family friend. One afternoon, walking back to the hotel, I heard that unmistakable voice: "What brings you to London?" I invited Mr. Lambert to join my mother and me for tea at Claridge's. Within two hours, he and my mother were as thick as the clicked thieves, and Mr. Lambert had metamorphosed into Bryce. Our friendship lasted more than 40 years, and the myriad of memories will go on providing reinforcement and inspiration.

Luckily, Mr. Lambert did allow the "V word" as an adjective within an idiomatic expression.

Thank you, Bryce. You were, and are, the very thing.