As I said, all challenges and obstacles. But I think it would be a great mistake to try to make school any other way. Except for the challenges and obstacles, how could we find out what sort of persons we are? How would we ever learn which of the prizes are worth having and which don’t matter? School—at least Wells School—insists that you measure up to things: to mathematics, to composition, to dramatic or musical or athletic challenges, to getting along in an intense, changeable, rather small world of adolescent boys and their teachers. School—at least Wells School—insists that there are worthy things, true things to measure up to. In a way, the school measures you by assigning you this or that grade or by placing you on a first or second team, but more importantly you measure yourselves against past performance, against your more gifted, less gifted, equally gifted fellows, against the system, against the odds.
School can be very intense, and as many of you know, it can make you feel tense, but it also makes you feel alive, sometimes—when you are trying hardest, when you are most engaged—almost supernaturally alive. This feeling, rare as it is, is worth pursuing. I think you’ll find that it is most likely to occur when you pursuing or “measuring up to” what is good in its own right: for example, excellence, rather than an ‘A’ or a victory. Of course real excellence often coincides with ‘A’s’ and victories, but it is a fatal mistake to confuse the two. They are not the same thing.
At any rate, I hope each of you will take on the challenges and obstacles of this school with enthusiasm. Each of you is different and will quite rightly take on school in a different way. But in one important respect you are exactly alike, perfect equals. And in this one respect we will expect the same thing from each of you. I am talking of course about the moral side of things, besides all those other particular challenges, this school is also going to insist that you measure up to basic honesty and decency. As we have explained to all of you before, new and old boys alike, we are going to insist on your telling the truth and on your treating each other and us teachers as you yourself would like to be treated. These challenges are obvious, ancient, and often very tough. None of us is worth a damn without them. They are not, however, very hard to understand. The quality of this school depends on your meeting them, and so does the maintenance of civilization. There is no way to avoid these challenges, either. They will commence as soon as you leave this hall, if they have not commenced already.
As I was putting these remarks in order last night, it dawned on me with some irony that they were not, really, very original. I’ll bet their equivalent were said, certainly more eloquently, by Ionian and Athenian schoolmasters on opening days 2500 years ago. The descendants of those Greek schoolmasters without question told aristocratic Roman boys the same thing five hundred years later when Rome’s empire was in the ascendant. And I happen to know that such words were spoken by headmasters Guarino and Vittorino to their Italian pupils fifteen hundred years later still, during the Renaissance. The same things were said, perhaps more forcefully than ever before, by certain great English schoolmasters just over a century ago. So my remarks to you this morning have been terribly unoriginal, but perhaps for that very reason terribly important, too.
The idea that there are eternally worthy and true standards which men can understand and which they ought to measure up to, while very ancient and at times thought to be the very foundation of civilization, is not in style at the moment and has not been in style for a good part of this century. The opposite view—that there are no provable external standards and therefore no obligations to them—takes thousands of forms and is very much among us. If there are no true standards to measure up to, according to this view, the Self is free to do as it pleases. The Self, after all, is supplied with a mixed bag of feelings, some of them marvelously pleasurable, and with standards out of the way, these may be pursued without interference. But, maddeningly, without interference, the pursuit of pleasurable feelings leads to unutterably bad feelings. People get impatient, careless, bored, gross, gouty, alcoholic. They seek remedies from the bottle that caused the sickness. People overdose themselves with liquor or drugs or with sex or with power or with things—even when there is clear evidence that these pursuits are the cause of their dissatisfaction in the first place.
The decade recently passed has been called the “Me, Decade,” and I certainly hope it is over. I say this not because I am a puritan who hates to see a Self out having a good time, but because of a certainty—maybe my only certainty—that in the long run the Self can’t have a good time in pursuit of its own satisfactions. Few of us with the perspective of several decades’ time have observed any net increase in energy, productivity, or happiness during the Me Decade. It’s been, frankly, a flat and anxious decade. Even the anti-war and ecology sentiments expressed at the beginning have quieted, mainly, I think, because these were movements aimed at measuring up to standards, like justice and world peace and healthy environment. The pursuit of standards and the pursuit of the self are incompatible.
If we’re honest, we admit to feeling driven both ways. If we’re honest, most of us will also admit that the selfish drives are stronger; we might know better, but it’s so easy to do what we feel like doing. Without help, we always do just that.
The help is training. Training. We get it in good families, we get it in enduring religions, and, if we stick to business, we get it in school. It’s not always fun, but it really isn’t supposed to be. Nevertheless, I think that if you can commit yourselves to business, to “measuring up,” you will be surprised, at least if the history of Wells School is anything to go by, at how often fun tends to crop up, often when you least expect it.
Well, I’ve gotten rather near a sermon, haven’t I? But I risked doing it because I wanted so badly to say that I hope you measure up—and that you want to measure up—this school year. Incidentally, I hope that I measure up. The fun, I am sure, will look after itself. It always does.
At this point Mr. Upjohn has a few instructions about this morning’s meetings, about schedules, and about books. The real business of the day.
Have a very good morning.
4 September
Mrs. Margaret Greeve
Little House
Ticonsett Lane
East Sandwich, Massachusetts
Dear Meg,
Lousy news about the tests. The only thing worse about being in a hospital overnight—even one with a view of Buzzard’s Bay—is being in a hospital overnight far from home. I wish I believed that their marvelous instruments could actually isolate the cause of your feeling fluey and run-down. My own dark intuition is that it’s the equivocal tap water of Little House. I don’t even trust it with toothpaste and have, as you know, come to treat it cautiously with bourbon before swallowing it. But what do I know? You have probably been fighting swine flu, and they have just the thing for it.
I wish my concern for your health were less selfish, but at the heart of the matter, I want you to come back here for my own delight. I want your company. I’ve grown accustomed to your face. It almost makes the day begin. I want you to cook my breakfast, etc.
My good-hearted colleagues have had me to dinner practically every night, in itself a problem, as each supper is rather a big deal: drinks, fancy things, an enormous roast, more fancy things, etc. I come home bloated and tired and in an unwilling frame of mind to prepare a balanced budget for the Finance Committee of the board. So I write a letter or two, read a bit of something improving, and doze.
The house is very neat, but dusty. The kitchen is spanking clean except for the one tumbler and the one tea cup I use. The lawn is cut, the garden horrendous, but with the falling of the leaves, we can easily conceal them from the public view. I have not had a Faculty Reception yet, because I am afraid that our recent appointment in mathematics, Florence Armbruster or Armature or Armchair, will make a pass at me in my apparent eligibility.
I’ll call you Thursday at the hospital, around six. Decide before than what I can send you besi
des your mail. Write me, love.
J.
P.S. Around noon today, I drove into town to go to the bank, and what should I spy out on the jct. of rte. 9 just past the bridge but a tiny dark-suited hitch hiker wearing a bold, not-yet-spotted Wells tie. Two and a half days and he was headed home for Hartford. He quite naturally assumed I was out on a daily roundup of escaped third formers and dejectedly hauled two mammoth suitcases into the back seat of the wagon. He told me there was no dissuading him. He had “tried it” and it was no good. It seemed to me that there was nothing for it but to go to McDonald’s, which turned out to be a stroke of genius, a faint but sure strand of continuity with his hearth and home, such as it must be these days in Hartford. Hardly a scene from Mr. Chips, but the lad is staying on. Really a very nice boy, almost garrulous with me now. His name is Marc Slavin, and he is the first in his family to try a private school. Never got to the bank.
5 September
MEMO To Phil Upjohn
Director of Studies
Phil-
Just a note of congratulation and admiration for the way you pulled together opening exercises. Never smoother! Faculty and boy morale seem buoyant. Agree? We ought to keep an eye on Ms. Armbruster though. Seems a little skittish. (I hope young Frankel has been refused welfare and is beating his breast in rage on the West Coast.)
Again, a fine start. We should huddle before the weekend about “Wells Ten years and After.” Ugh.
Best, J.
5 September
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Slavin
1300 Chafee Circle
West Hartford, Connecticut
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Slavin,
I am writing somewhat impromptu to let you know that I have had the pleasure of making Marc’s acquaintance and to share some impressions. He may have told you that his initial experience of Wells was less than rapturous; he tried to go home, but was intercepted. Nothing too unusual in this. Less determined boys just bite their lips and cry in solitude. At any rate, I think he is going to stick. One of his roommates shares his interest in lasers and holography, and he has met another boy in Hallowell House who is mad about Tolkien.
Incidentally, I find Marc a likable, direct, disarming person and am awfully glad to have him among us. I hope you won’t hesitate to write or call if you have any concerns about his early progress here.
My good wishes,
John O. Greeve
6 September
Mr. Brian Greeve
General Delivery
Cape St. Vincent
PORTUGAL
Dear Brian,
I am writing to Cape St. Vincent on the slim chance that you may have returned or that, possibly, you never left. At any rate, it’s the last post office at which we made definite contact. You know, it’s hard to write when you don’t really believe your letter will reach its intended receiver. For this reason, too, I am enclosing only a modest money order, but good enough I hope for a few square meals. If you ever let us know where you are, I’ll be glad to send along a more substantial one. It’s not that I’m getting soft or generous in my old age, only that it’s hard for me to shake the habit of thinking I have an expensive dependent.
As you can imagine, school has begun, Wells’ one hundred and sixth year, and now we are in motion, powerfully, irrevocably, haphazardly toward June. Hugh has taken a teaching spot at St. Edward’s, a struggling sort of school, but with a good young head named Ted Phillips. Perhaps you are in touch with Hugh and know this already.
Your mother has been feeling achey and run-down since the end of the summer and is still on the Cape at Little House. She went into the hospital yesterday for tests, which should drive any flu away. When she gets the results this week, she’s coming home. Needless to say, Champ, she’d kill for a word from you. I’d be a liar to deny we worry and wonder about you a great deal. Not that we resent your freedom, but invisibility?
Please write.
Much love from both of us,
Pop
10 September
Mr. Frederick Maitland
Headmaster, St. Ives Academy
Derby, Connecticut
Dear Fred,
I am frankly embarrassed to be writing this letter, but too many good people here are upset and too many issues are at stake which would be inappropriate to kick under the Seven Schools rug.
I speak of course about last Saturday’s game. I always feel better complaining about games when we have won—when my objections can appear unstained by sour grapes—but this time we were not only beaten but decidedly thrashed. However, that is not the issue.
This is the issue. As I know you were aware, there was really rotten sportsmanship visible in that game, almost from the start. What the kids say went on in the line and in pile-ups is perhaps not to be credited, but what we all saw and heard on the field cannot be ignored. Punches and elbows were thrown periodically by both sides throughout the game. Of course that is the officials’ business and the officials’ fault, but only within their limited sphere. It is also the boys’ fault and our fault for letting it go on. I think Jack Kreble did the right thing, although probably not soon enough, in taking out each of our boys he saw fighting, regardless of alleged or observed provocation. I believe he benched four starters on his own. I honestly believe that if you folks had followed suit, we would have gone a long way toward teaching an important principle by example. As it stands, I’m afraid our kids, and maybe some of yours, too, have got the idea that cheap shots work, the way they so often work in big-time televised sports.
The situation wasn’t helped, either, by that fellow you had on the P.A. He seemed to confuse the loudspeaker system with a radio broadcast. There was much commentary, hardly disinterested. I bring up this irritating point because amplified praise of one side and derision of the other becomes a factor in play. It was most clearly a factor when your announcer was talking over our signals and over our quarterback’s backfield maneuvers. That is simply unacceptable. I have never heard of it in competitive football at any level.
Again, it is embarrassing to have to bring such things up. But doing so might be an occasion for some good teaching. I think it has been here. It’s a shame that such a stimulating, gorgeous afternoon became such an ill-tempered and ugly experience for kids, parents, and the rest of us.
Sorry if I’m coming across too righteous or pristine, but I’d feel awfully irresponsible if I didn’t share with you what has raised so much passion and concern here since Saturday.
For what my egghead opinion is worth, your football team is three times stronger than ours.
My good wishes,
John
11 September
Mr. and Mrs. Loren Engle
125 Sturbridge Road
Chatham, New Jersey
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Engle,
As Roger has already told you, he appeared yesterday before Student Court on a major infraction, his first, and was found guilty. The recommended punishment was return of the records, a written apology to their owner, and that Roger be placed on disciplinary probation for the remainder of the school year.
After meeting with the Faculty Disciplinary Committee this morning, I have decided to accept the court’s recommendation, with these reservations and observations. First, I am more concerned with Roger’s lack of straightforwardness than with his borrowing—or even pinching—another student’s records. Our boys interchange their possessions ceaselessly, usually open-handedly and open-heartedly. That Roger had taken the records without permission and was late returning them would have been routine. What concerns me is that when first asked about the records by their owner, Roger denied having them. When the boy got mad and searched Roger’s room, he found them concealed under clothes in a bureau drawer. There were other hesitant and inconsistent admissions in the court sessions as well. As I told Roger just an hour ago, if he had lied to me to my face when I asked him about the records, my decision would have been to dismiss him from the school.
&nbs
p; Although it could not have been a more cardinal one, this is Roger’s first major infraction, and we have no reason to think it won’t be his last. By the terms of the probation, however, should he be caught out in another purposeful deception during this school year, we will ask you to withdraw him.
I am sorry to have to convey such unpleasant news so early in this school year. Roger has shown us exceptional aptitude and good personal promise to date, and we have every expectation that this episode represents only a lapse. Please write or call if I can clarify his position further or if you have any other observations or concerns.
My good wishes,
John O. Greeve
12 September
MEMO To Arnold Lieber
Maintenance
Arnold,
The Headmasters Papers Page 2