Athletes with Faculty Shield, 1911

A portrait of Phillips Exeter Athletes with the Faculty Shield. The meaning of the shield is described in Oscar Fay Adams' 1903 book "Some Famous American Schools":

The visitor to the gymnasium is very sure to have pointed out to him for notice what is known as the Faculty Shield, a prize established by the Faculty in 1897 to promote a proper class rivalry, as well as an improvement in track athletics, the fact of the gift being thus made testifying strongly, if any such testimony were needful, as to the position of that body regarding the place of athletics in Exonian economy. Upon the class winning the greatest number of points, the points in question being awarded on a basis of competition afforded by athletic conquests, gymnasium decoration, and class attendance, is conferred the honour of having its numerals engraved on the shield. Since 1897 the two hundred and twenty yard board track has seen an annual contest on Washington's birthday, while that illustrious patriot has been still further honoured from an Exonian point of view, by a series of indoor events celebrated in the gymnasium on that same national holiday.

This image (as well as several others that were offered to the Archives at the same time) was delivered as a badly damaged glass plate negative. Given the poor condition of the glass, which was broken and showed signs of mold, the image was scanned, but the negative itself was returned to the donor. As an experiment, an attempt was made to restore the image using photo editing software. Both the original digitized version of the image and the edited version are included with this record.