And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days.
Anyone from Sioux Falls who attended Lowell School knows these lines, I would wager, from James Russell Lowell's poem "The Vision of Sir Launfal." My hometown was founded in the Centennial year of 1876, so it's not surprising that many schools were named after notable 19th-century Americans: Longfellow, Hawthorne, Garfield, Eugene Field, Cleveland, Horace Mann, Whittier, Edison (my junior high).
I've written about this before, but when I was little, I assumed that my school was named after our milkman, Jim Lowell, who would let us ride in his truck: Of course they should name a school after him. When I discovered who James Russell Lowell really was, I dug that just as much.