The artist and poet, Frederick Oakes Sylvester, was born in Massachusetts in 1869. In 1888, determined to be an art teacher, he entered the renowned Massachusetts Normal Art School in Boston and graduated with honors in three years rather than the typical five years of study. Armed with his degree, Sylvester taught painting and drawing at Newcomb College at Tulane University in New Orleans for one year. In 1892, he and his wife moved to St. Louis when he was hired as art director at the new Central High School and where the family within seven years included a daughter and a son. Sylvester taught at Central High School until 1913. In 1901, he took on an after-school second job as art director of The Principia, ...