When James Schooler started his freshman year at Wittenberg, Calvin Coolidge had just become president, Charlie Chaplin films were playing in theaters, and the Charleston was all the rage on the dance floor.

Scientists discovered the first galaxies outside the Milky Way. The year was 1923.Schooler, now 97, is the university’s oldest-living African American alumnus. Sometimes, he still pulls out a sepiatoned photograph he keeps in the living room of his Durham, N.C. home and carefully unrolls it, foot by foot:

It’s a class picture from his Wittenberg days. There, on the left, among the sea of mostly pale young men in crisp business suits, is Schooler’s dark face. After nearly 80 years, he doesn’t remember the names anymore, but he remembers the place.

It’s where he learned to love Greek, and where he drank in a myriad of other subjects. It’s where he picked up some of the teaching techniques he would use later in a lifelong career as a public school teacher and administrator.

It’s also where he learned the way Schooled for life Oldest-living African American alumnus personifies education things were for a black man in a white world. “I learned about segregation at Wittenberg,” Schooler said recently from his apartment in a Durham retirement community.

“The way it operated. Not in class, but outside class — nobody spoke to you.” One incident is seared into his memory: A girl fell outside a building on campus. He helped her up. When she saw who he was, “she flew,” Schooler said. There’s no animosity in the way he tells the story — just amusement.

He enjoyed Wittenberg enough to send two of his sons there. The world was simply a different place in the 1920s. Indeed, Schooler would leave Ohio for a small tobacco town in North Carolina, where the schools were segregated, and the water fountains were labeled “Colored” or “White.”

In time, he would grow famous for winning battles to get funding for the equipment and supplies his schools needed, even if they were black schools. He would be beloved by generations of children to whom he taught his love of learning. And he would never forget some of the lessons he learned himself, at Wittenberg.

“The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,” Schooler said in German, translating Shakespeare. Schooler was born on Dec. 3, 1904, the third of nine children who survived infancy. His family had a plot of land in Kentucky, where they raised tobacco, sweet potatoes, corn, wheat and sugar cane for molasses. S chooler inherited his yearning to learn from his mother.

She had attended college and urged her children to do the same. “Although she didn’t work in [education], she felt like she had a lot of advantages in understanding the world and family life,” Schooler said. His family later moved to Ohio, and he graduated at the top of his class at Yellow Springs High School. Rees Edgar Tulloss, then president of Wittenberg, personally invited Schooler to attend his university, offering him a scholarship.

The money wasn’t enough to cover all his costs, so Schooler worked whenever he could, cleaning up in factories or selling ice. “I’d park my ice truck with ice in it, and go to class,” he said. He spent so much of his free time working that he didn’t have much of a social life. Besides — students of different races weren’t really interested in getting to know each other.

“I had one or two friends, white friends, but that was all,” he said. Things were similar for his son, James Schooler Jr. ’57, now a chemistry professor at North Carolina Central University in Durham. Although he was active in several clubs, honor societies and the Shifters at Witt, black and white students didn’t mingle much.

After he graduated, Wittenberg began to increase its numbers of minority students, and today, African Americans make up 10 percent of the student body. But the elder Schooler enjoyed his time in the classroom, studying all kinds of subjects. “I dabbled,” he said. “I saw so many things I wanted to know about — Greek, German, French and English.”

He also picked up some teaching skills he would use for the rest of his life. “I watched some people in the college where I went, and I liked the way they conducted the situation,” he said. “And I figured I’d try it myself.” When Schooler graduated in 1927, the Great Depression was just around the corner.

A recruiter came to Ohio looking for teachers for Durham schools, and Schooler jumped at the chance. He moved south in 1929, and his first task was to teach high school biology and science. He quickly rose up the ranks and became principal at several elementary and junior high schools.

Schooler became known for his firm but fair discipline, and generations remember his ring of keys: Whenever someone would step out of line, he would slide the keys across the polished wooden floor to the person’s feet. That person knew to bring the keys back — and to have a talk with Mr. Schooler.

“I still see people on the street, and they do this,” Schooler said, pulling his arm back as if to toss the old keys once more. When kids ran off from his school, Schooler hopped on his bicycle and toted them back. If his students were getting less than white students, he would pay a visit to the superintendent.

“He knew I would make a public issue out of it if he didn’t change things,” he said. His love for children never faded. “I found early on that I could change some of them,” he said. “So I kind of liked it.” As a young man, Schooler went back to Ohio and fell in love with an angel in a church Christmas pageant.

He married her in 1935, and James and Frances Schooler spent 65 years together, until her death in 2000. They had five children, who went on to become scientists, teachers, missionaries, and foreign aid workers. Schooler retired in 1970, but he stayed active, starting the first black

Cub Scout pack in North Carolina, teaching adult Sunday school classes, biking, bowling and playing tennis. He volunteered with youth organizations and Meals on Wheels. “When he was in his 80s, he was talking about how he had to do some things for the old folks,” said James Schooler Jr. He can’t do as many pushups as he could three years ago, although he’s still a firm believer in fitness.

He avoids alcohol and high-cholesterol foods. He still smokes a pipe occasionally. These days, Schooler spends a lot of his time in his living room, working his crossword puzzles and watching TV. Sometimes, he’ll pull out that old photograph and unwind it. The last time he visited Wittenberg was about 12 years ago.

Though he no longer remembered the building names, he recalled its beauty. “It was a rather pretty campus, with lots of lawns, slopes and elm trees,” he said. Such a setting inspired Schooler eight decades ago and prepared a path for him to inspire hundreds more. “I always tried to urge students to go on and find something they like to do,” Schooler said. He certainly did. — Vicki Cheng Vicki Cheng is a reporter for the Raleigh News-Observer in North Carolina.