Payson Sibley Wild
(1869-1951)

Payson Sibley Wild is known to us primarily as the author of the
Club's second printed history, covering the years 1924 to 1946. As
the Club approached the end of its one-hundred-twenty-fifth season, the
Anniversary Committee issued this brief biographical sketch as a trib-
ute to Wild for his many contributions to the Club.

Payson Sibley Wild was born in Craftsbury, Vermont, on May
25, 1869, the son of a Congregationalist minister. He received his
early education at St. Johnsbury Academy. Following graduation
from Williams College in 1891, he went into teaching. He married
Caroline Peabody in 1895 and moved to Chicago in 1899.

Shortly after coming to Chicago, Wild founded the Princeton-
Yale preparatory school, which later merged with the Harvard
preparatory school. He was by profession a classical scholar and
a frequent contributor to classical journals. He is remembered by
many as a favorite contributor, for nearly forty years, to Bert Le-
ston Taylor's column "Line 0' Type or Two" in the Chicago Tri-
bune, and a book containing some of his contributions was pub-
lished in 1918.

Wild was a member of the Club from December 2, 1902 until
his death on February 6,1951, a total of forty-nine years. He was
president of the Club in its 1915-16 season. In 1920 he succeeded
Frederick Gookin as recording secretary and treasurer and held
these twin positions for thirty years. In addition to writing the
second history of the Club, he presented nineteen papers. Four of
them were selected for publication, a number equaled by only one
other member.

Read before the Club: May 3, 1999