Early Life and Education
Lawrence's parents and grandparents were from Tennessee. Lawrence's father attended Vanderbilt University, where he was a noted student-athlete who graduated in 1924. Lawrence was a native of Nashville, and attended local schools. When in the fourth grade, Lawrence composed a poem called Little Fly:
- Little Fly
- I saw a little fly up on the wall.
- I said to him "Little fly, aren't you afraid you'll fall?"
- He looked at me a minute, then winked his eye.
- And then he shifted into second, and then into high.
Lawrence distinguished himself as a student athlete at Nashville's West High School, and in 1947 turned down a scholarship at Yale University to attend the United States Naval Academy.
Read more about this topic: William P. Lawrence
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.”
—Gerald Early (b. 1952)
“In order to master the unruly torrent of life the learned man meditates, the poet quivers, and the political hero erects the fortress of his will.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“There used to be housekeepers with more energy than sense—the everlasting scrubber; the over-neat woman. Since the better education of woman has come to stay, this type of woman has disappeared almost, if not entirely.”
—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)