'A model for all of us': St. Viator community mourns science instructor, priest Milton
The Rev. John Milton is being remembered for his work establishing the science department at St. Viator High School, as well as having the foresight to bring computers to the Arlington Heights school and incorporate them into the curriculum.
Alumni, faculty and members of the Clerics of St. Viator are mourning the loss of Milton, who would have celebrated 70 years as a Viatorian this year and 65 as a priest. He died Jan. 24 at 92.
"John had a deep passion for science," said the Rev. Arnold Perham, a former math teacher at St. Viator and classmate of Milton's. "He looked upon math and science as the language that God expressed in the creation of the cosmos."
Milton taught physics at St. Viator for 20 years, helping to carry out the school's founding vision for a curriculum that offered a "well-planned classical, scientific and general course of study."
He also worked to keep the school on the cutting edge. Colleagues say Milton was the driver behind bringing the first computer into the building, a minicomputer produced by Digital Equipment Corp.
"John's college degree was in electrical engineering, and his master's degree was in physics," Perham said. "He was the perfect person to inject computers into the curriculum."
Milton next pushed for a computer lab in the school - stocked with Commodore PET personal computers - and he worked with Perham to create a groundbreaking class, "Computer Supported Problem Solving."
"It was at least 10 years ahead of its time," said Bob Zeh of River Forest, a computer engineer who graduated from St. Viator in 1987. "I used some of the math that I learned in that class in my interviews with my last employer."
After leaving St. Viator in 1986, Milton continued his academic career at DePaul University, where he taught another 24 years. When he retired in 2010, Milton was awarded the Via Sapientiae Award, the highest faculty-staff honor at DePaul.
In his retirement, Milton found great satisfaction in helping to build the science department at Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep in Waukegan, of which Viatorians have been an endorsing community since its opening in 2004.
Like the early days at St. Viator, Milton brought in his own handmade components to introduce students to new experiments, and he regularly asked his colleagues in statewide physics associations for any unused equipment that he could donate to the school.
In recognition of Milton's dedication to the school and his work in creating its AP science programs, Preston Kendall, president of the school, dedicated its physics lab in Milton's name. They had hoped to surprise him, but he never made it back to the school to see it.
The Rev. Daniel Hall, provincial of the Viatorians, celebrated Milton's funeral Mass on Tuesday and described him as a dedicated priest and teacher who quietly inspired others.
"To me, John represented a certain stability in an unstable world," Hall said. "He was a model for all of us as to what it means to be a deeply spiritual man."