St. Mark's School
Encyclopedia
St. Mark’s School is a coeducational, Episcopal, preparatory school
, situated on 250 acres (1 km²) in Southborough, Massachusetts
, 25 miles (40.2 km) from Boston. It was founded in 1865 as an all-boys' school by Joseph Burnett
, a wealthy native of Southborough who developed and marketed the world-famous Burnett Vanilla Extract http://www.southboroughhistory.org/History/Burnett%20Company/History_of_J_Burnett_Company.htm. Girls have attended since the nineteen-seventies. St. Mark's is a member of the Independent School League
, and the second-oldest of the five elite prep schools collectively termed St. Grottlesex.
The school's 65 teachers lead 340 boarding and day students through a rigorous curriculum and a full program of co-curricular activities. Class size averages 10, with a student-faculty ratio of 5:1. Each department offers honors and advanced placement sections (numbering 24 in total, more than any other school in the Independent School League).
Dr. John Warren, a 1974 St. Mark's graduate, is the current head of school.
of Concord
, New Hampshire
, who told Burnett that with six sons to educate, he would do well to found a school, instead of sending them north to St. Paul's. Episcopalian St. Mark's is thus one of the earlier New England schools founded on the British model, as opposed to New England academies such as Phillips Academy
and Phillips Exeter Academy
, both founded nearly a century earlier. St. Mark's initial board of trustees was composed of members of many prominent Boston families, as well as many eminent Episcopal churchmen, and from the first the school attracted many members of Boston Brahmin
and New York Knickerbocker families, although St. Mark's great headmaster William Greenough Thayer admitted a limited number of Jewish boys as well. There were students of color whose fathers were clergy within the Episcopal Church. The first unaffiliated African-American student did not enroll until 1964. St. Mark's continues to maintain close ties to the Episcopal Church
.
, taking a number of students and teachers with him. It wasn't until the appointment of Headmaster William Greenough Thayer
(who had taught for five years at slightly younger rival Groton School
) in 1894 that St. Mark's began to experience stability. Thayer led the school until 1930, bringing it out of its initial financial difficulties, expanding the campus infrastructure dramatically, and eventually retiring just as the school faced the challenges of the Crash of 1929 and its impact on the student body. St. Mark's – and Thayer – were national institutions by the time of his departure from the school. News of his pending retirement was reported by Time Magazine in 1929 as an event of national significance, which to the nation's social elite it then was.
The Thayer period was marked throughout by growth, notably in the acreage of the school (from the original 50 acres (202,343 m²) of Burnett's time to the 250 acres (1 km²) the school possesses today). Additionally, new dormitories, faculty housing, school fields, and a boathouse were constructed, with all school core facilities kept “under one roof” in St. Mark's unique English-inspired cloister construction. Thayer's popularity and knack for attracting socially-well-connected families proved durable. His admissions policy, modeled on that of English Public Schools, prioritized admissions on the basis of when one's parents had “put one's name down”. In practice this led over time to a school dominated by children of alumni – and not coincidentally, heavily dominated by the sons of inherited wealth. (Girls were not admitted until 1978.) St. Mark's social standing did not pass unnoticed in wider America. F. Scott Fitzgerald
, in his classic 1920 novel “This Side of Paradise
”, identified St. Mark's as a school which “..recruited from Boston and the Knickerbocker
families of New York.” This was certainly the reputation.
Thayer's academic principles were classical and conservative. Teachers – for many years almost universally bachelors, called “masters,” who lived in spartan quarters with the boys in the dorms – focused their rote instruction heavily on preparation for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, which during this period accepted almost every single St. Marker. St. Mark's students studied Latin
and Ancient Greek
to the exception of virtually everything else, and modern subjects such as science, modern history, and art were virtually unknown. Indeed, St. Mark's first art teacher, who taught from 1924 to 1960, at one point simultaneously taught at St. Mark's, St. Paul's School
, and Groton School
, devoting one day a week at each institution. Later in his career he devoted more teaching time to St. Mark's.
While the arts were largely neglected, sports were heavily emphasized. In the initial years masters played with boys on the same teams, and the traditional football rivalry with Groton was slowly expanded to include the English game of “fives
”, baseball
, and other sports. (fives
was introduced so that hockey players would have something to play when the ice wasn't good enough to support skating). St. Mark's has laid particular emphasis on ice hockey
since around 1910, and has produced a number of notable and even professional players. St. Mark's has contributed to other sports as well. School legend has it that the baseball
catcher's mask was invented at St. Mark's by a St. Mark's player who was protecting his broken nose by wearing a modified fencing helmet; Harvard University
student Fred Thayer saw the helmet and several years later took out a patent on it.
to the school as an English teacher from 1933–1941, and W. H. Auden
for a brief appointment in 1939. Auden described St. Mark's to a friend as a school that “sets out to be a sort of American Eton”; he was reportedly struck there by the “dimness of the boys and the reverence of America for the average.” Eberhart briefly memorializes Auden's time at St. Mark's with his poem: “To W. H. Auden on his Fiftieth Birthday” in which he mentions the school in passing.
Auden's catty views notwithstanding, a brief perusal of an old boy list quickly demonstrates that whatever St. Mark's shortcomings during this period, it was certainly not producing mediocrities. St. Mark's alumni around this time formed a virtual “Who's Who” of American achievement in a variety of endeavors. St. Mark's during this period produced two Senators, not to mention influential Congressmen, Episcopal Bishops, senior government officials, and other national leaders. Intriguingly, two of the most influential families in twentieth century American journalism, the Pulitzers and the Forbes, representing both ends of the political spectrum, have strong St. Mark's connections. While business, the law, and banking remained key professional arenas, literature was not neglected. Arguably the greatest American poet of the twentieth century, Robert Lowell
, attended St. Mark's in the thirties and wrote his first published prose for student journals there. Richard Eberhart
was an early mentor of Lowell, despite Lowell having never taken a class with him; their relationship continued during Lowell's time at Harvard University
. Lowell's references to St. Mark's in his mature poetry are occasionally dark, sometimes grudgingly admiring, and at other times merely atmospheric. There is little doubt, however, that his education there had a profound impact upon his development as a writer.
Headmaster Parkman left the school in 1942 – to enlist in the army – and never returned, although he remained active in independent school policy all his life, eventually rising to the presidency of the National Association of Independent Schools
in Boston, MA.
brought dramatic changes. Some 500 St. Markers served in the military during the war, and twenty “old boys” died in the war. In 1942 Parkman was replaced by William Brewster, an Episcopal clergyman who remained only until 1947. Brewster's democratizing tendencies were abetted by exigencies of the war effort. During the war years, the school was forced to cope with labor shortages that forced students to work in dormitories and the dining hall. The maids and domestic help who vanished with the war's labor shortage never returned when faced with greater post-war opportunities. Perhaps more importantly, in the long run, the post-war educational benefits in the GI Bill democratized American higher education and swelled immeasurably the ranks of American men seeking and able to afford an Ivy League
education. This changed post-war climate dramatically toughened the admissions prospects of St. Mark's graduates, as well as those of other elite prep schools, and has evolved continually up until the present day, when considerably fewer St. Markers attend Harvard, Yale, and Princeton than was once the case.
set, particularly given the persistence of many alumni who fit this mold.
In 1974, Rev. Robert R."Red" Hansel, a former chaplain at St. George's School
, was brought in by the trustees to effect radical institutional change—including a more streamlined administrative structure, complete re-organization of the student living arrangements into smaller "house" units, and other initiatives which were meant to evolve the traditional and longstanding institutional culture. Mr. Hansel's four-year tenure was controversial and brief- although modern St Mark's can be traced to many of the evolutions, like coeducation, that began then. Girls were initially admitted in 1972 to the newly established Southborough School, the vehicle that facilitated coordinate co-education. Funded largely by St. Mark's itself, the Southborough girls' school was dissolved in 1977 and many of its students and faculty absorbed into the parent school.
, the artist Ingolv Helland, and the Internet business publishing pioneer David Gardner, creator of the Motley Fool, a popular website. Nor has computer innovation in itself been neglected, with the photo software entrepreneur Lars Perkins—creator of Picasa—a relatively recent alumnus.
St. Mark's has retained its classical focus – indeed, even maintaining a “Classics Diploma” for classically-focused students – it has in recent years demonstrated initiative and agility as it seeks to modernize its curriculum. An example of this, given the heavy presence of former St. Markers in the banking professions, is what seems to have been the brilliant decision to found the St. Mark's Math Institute. Changes in banking, finance, and science have made math far more of a cornerstone of contemporary professional education than knowledge of Latin or Greek. Secret societies remain active to this day, for athletic or academic reasons. They include Thayer, Fearing, The Brotherhood, and Masterminds. For more than a century the Trustees of St. Mark's have battled between visions of the school as an elitist bastion and that of a center of elite education. In recent years the pendulum has swung from reinforcing elitism to one of education which seeks to develop future elites.
In June 2008, under the leadership of Bishop Clark Grew, the St. Mark' Board of Trustees developed a concise statement about the educational aspirations of the school. St. Mark's mission statement, as endorsed by the Board, declared that:
The scale on which this mission is carried out is considerably greater now than it was in the school’s first academic year. Initially, the school employed one faculty member and educated a dozen boys. The school now employs more than 60 faculty members and welcomes more than 330 students each fall. Students, boys and girls, come not only from New England but from around the world. Girls have been admitted since the 1970s, when the school reached an agreement for coordinated education with the nearby Southborough School, a newly founded institution for girls. In 1977 the Southborough School merged with St. Mark’s.
For the 2008 - 2009 academic year, according to Boarding School Review, St. Mark's accepted approximately one applicant in four, with a student body now evenly split between girls and boys. St. Mark's world language program is one of the nation's best, despite the school's small size, with 13 finalists in a nationwide French exam and five in German, according to St. Mark's website. For the 2007 - 2008 academic year, the school newspaper, The St. Marker won an American Scholastic Press Association award for excellence. Seventy percent of St. Mark's students taking the AP tests in 2008 earned grades of 4 or 5, according to Headmaster John Warren in a September 2008 letter to the school community. St. Mark's 2008-2009 "Fact Sheet" notes that eight students were Commended National Merit Scholars last year. St. Mark's music department is particularly strong, and the school runs a summer music program annually.
St. Mark’s remains academically focused, providing a rigorous liberal arts program stemming from a classical tradition, and prepares its students for entry to competitive colleges and universities. It is characterized by small classes, close student-teacher relationships, and a strong emphasis on the sporting life as a complement to the life of the mind. The recent completion of additional facilities for the arts and theater have greatly enhanced these possibilities on campus.
tradition. An English course required every year of students. All students take the same English class their first three years, and choose from a selection of electives their final year. Mathematics is required up and until the level of Algebra II. Two years of laboratory science is required and one year of art and religion. In addition, one year of American history is required. Students take between 5 and 6 classes each year depending on the difficulty of the classes and their personal ambition. The St. Mark's Math Institute is one of the best high school math programs in the world, and the St. Mark's math club provides interested students with world-class opportunities to expand their understanding of mathematical thinking.
by Vladimir Nabokov
, whose son Dmitri
attended the school.
Thayer's coherent architectural vision of Gothic academia has survived to this day, and St. Mark's main campus structure has remained remarkably well-preserved. The school itself touts the "school under one roof" concept as a unique strength. It is certainly unusual. With the exception of St. Paul's School, the other St. Grottlesex schools and schools in the Independent School League built their campuses in architectural styles that mimicked the architectural vernacular and English colonial references of the Harvard University campus and the early New England academies.
St. Mark's late twentieth and early twenty-first century construction of an athletic center, a dormitory and a large performing arts center have led to some of the campus structures no longer being under a single roof.
How this close, cohesive architectural environment impacts student relations has not been formally studied. Sadly, during the construction of the performing arts center, another beloved facility—the fives courts mentioned by Nabokov—were razed. This effectively ceded to Groton School, the only other school in the independent school league with fives courts, the permanent title of North American Fives Champions. The reconstruction of the courts is currently part of the school's master plan.
Some interior shots of St. Mark's can be seen in the film School Ties
(1992), which was filmed at Middlesex School
and St. Mark's. Originally, the director wanted to use St. Mark's picturesque Tudor
buildings as the primary film site; however, he was unable to get a permit from the local police station that would allow him to close off the street for filming. Thus he decided to use Middlesex School
for exterior shots.
. The school fields 48 interscholastic sports teams, with 22 team sports and 7 recreational activities. In addition to a seasonal outdoor swimming pool, an enclosed hockey rink, a cage, gymnasiums, and squash and tennis courts, St. Mark's has a nine hole golf course on campus. St. Mark's has a tradition of letting as many of its students as possible play interscholastic sports.
During the 2007-2008 academic year, St. Mark's Boys Cross Country was the New England Prep School Division IV Champions, while the Girls Cross Country were the Runner's Up in the same division. St. Mark's Boys Basketball was the New England Prep School Class "C" Champions. Three St. Mark's wrestlers qualified for the National Prep School Tournament; Boys Crew, for the third consecutive year, won the Henry B. DuPont III cup. During the 2008-2009 winter season, St. Mark's Boys Varsity Squash put together a remarkable season, going 13-3, 4 wins better than the previous best season in school history. Finishing a disappointing 9th in New England, the squash team also placed 9th at the High School Nationals tournament at Yale, placing them in an elite group of schools.
St. Mark's traditional athletic rival is the younger Groton School
. St. Mark's high school football rivalry since 1886 with Groton School
is one of the oldest athletic rivalries in the United States, following the Andover
-Exeter
rivalry. The two schools have met in regularly scheduled athletic contests for more than a century. (See the List of high school football rivalries for more information.) St. Mark's traditionally has a "Groton Day" celebrating this rivalry with athletic games against the Groton teams, and celebrates the night before the games as "Groton Night".
School legend has it that Baseball's
catcher's mask was invented in 1875 by a St. Marks School catcher. It was originally a fencing
helmet he modified so as to protect his broken nose. A Harvard baseball player Fred Thayer was playing on the opposing team that day and by 1878 Thayer had gotten a patent on it.
During the ice hockey season, St. Mark's boasts some of the best fans in the ISL. The small rink is jammed with almost the entire school body every game to cheer and root for the Lions. Visiting teams must not only face the Lions themselves on the ice, but the fans as well, as they do impact the game severely.
From the dawn of the Twentieth Century St. Mark's has hosted a number of Olympic
athletes, including Truxtun Hare in track and field, and Suzanne King, in cross country skiing.
has had numerous illustrious alumni who don't fit the mold of great wealth. The school has been particularly well represented in the arts and letters. Poet Robert Lowell
wrote for the school literary magazine while a student, as did Lost Generation
literary figure Harry Crosby
. Artist William Congdon
began painting there. Henry Demarest Lloyd
, a notable nineteenth century progressive and generally considered the father of investigative journalism, studied at St. Mark's. Journalism has historically been particularly well represented at the school, with a number of Pulitzer Prize
-winning journalists having begun their writing careers there. Tom White, designer of the "Scoop" Tostitos attended before going on to graduate from Ithaca College. Former CBS news chief and the Nation
editor Blair Clark
, Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee, and most recently Motley Fool
financial publisher David Gardner
, are alumni.
The Forbes family of the Forbes
Magazine publishing empire includes a number of St. Markers. The Pulitzer publishing family also counted generations of St. Mark's graduates, including Joseph Pulitzer III, who credited St. Mark's with awakening his appreciation of the arts. St. Markers have become senior Episcopal clergy and parish priests. The school has produced senators, representatives, governors, and senior diplomats, and of course St. Markers are heavily represented in academia, education, finance, the law, and business. Story Musgrave
is a St. Marker who is now a retired astronaut. Many former St. Mark's students and teachers have gone on to become headmasters in their own right—St. Mark's current headmaster is himself an alumnus of the school.
The Pomfret School
was founded by a disgruntled St. Mark's headmaster William E. Peck
who left Southborough after disagreement with the board of trustees of St. Mark's.
42.31°N 71.53°W
University-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
, situated on 250 acres (1 km²) in Southborough, Massachusetts
Southborough, Massachusetts
Southborough is an affluent town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. It incorporates the smaller villages of Cordaville, Fayville, and Southville. Its name is often informally shortened to Southboro, a usage seen on many area signs and maps. Its population was 9,767 at the 2010...
, 25 miles (40.2 km) from Boston. It was founded in 1865 as an all-boys' school by Joseph Burnett
Joseph Burnett (educator)
Joseph Burnett , educator, was born in Southborough, Massachusetts in November, 1820 and died there in 1894. He was an innovator in the production of premium vanilla extract in the United States. Vanilla extract was previously imported from France and made by processes which were proprietary secrets...
, a wealthy native of Southborough who developed and marketed the world-famous Burnett Vanilla Extract http://www.southboroughhistory.org/History/Burnett%20Company/History_of_J_Burnett_Company.htm. Girls have attended since the nineteen-seventies. St. Mark's is a member of the Independent School League
Independent School League (Boston Area)
The Independent School League is composed of sixteen New England preparatory schools that compete athletically and academically. Founded in 1948, the ISL's sixteen member compete in eighteen sports in the New England Prep School Athletic Conference...
, and the second-oldest of the five elite prep schools collectively termed St. Grottlesex.
The school's 65 teachers lead 340 boarding and day students through a rigorous curriculum and a full program of co-curricular activities. Class size averages 10, with a student-faculty ratio of 5:1. Each department offers honors and advanced placement sections (numbering 24 in total, more than any other school in the Independent School League).
Dr. John Warren, a 1974 St. Mark's graduate, is the current head of school.
Founding by Joseph Burnett
Joseph Burnett, a wealthy resident of Southborough, founded St. Mark's School in 1865, reportedly counseled by Dr. Henry Coit of St. Paul's SchoolSt. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire)
St. Paul's School is a highly selective college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The school is one of only six remaining 100% residential boarding schools in the U.S. The New Hampshire campus currently serves 533 students,...
of Concord
Concord, New Hampshire
The city of Concord is the capital of the state of New Hampshire in the United States. It is also the county seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2010 census, its population was 42,695....
, New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
, who told Burnett that with six sons to educate, he would do well to found a school, instead of sending them north to St. Paul's. Episcopalian St. Mark's is thus one of the earlier New England schools founded on the British model, as opposed to New England academies such as Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
and Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
, both founded nearly a century earlier. St. Mark's initial board of trustees was composed of members of many prominent Boston families, as well as many eminent Episcopal churchmen, and from the first the school attracted many members of Boston Brahmin
Boston Brahmin
Boston Brahmins are wealthy Yankee families characterized by a highly discreet and inconspicuous life style. Based in and around Boston, they form an integral part of the historic core of the East Coast establishment...
and New York Knickerbocker families, although St. Mark's great headmaster William Greenough Thayer admitted a limited number of Jewish boys as well. There were students of color whose fathers were clergy within the Episcopal Church. The first unaffiliated African-American student did not enroll until 1964. St. Mark's continues to maintain close ties to the Episcopal Church
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
.
The arrival of William Greenough Thayer
Despite the elite social standing of its early student body, the school faced initial challenges, including financial difficulties and the instability of having four different headmasters in its first seventeen years of existence, followed by the appointment of William E. Peck in 1882. Peck was a controversial headmaster, often in conflict with the trustees, until 1894, when he resigned and founded Pomfret SchoolPomfret School
Pomfret School is an independent coeducational boarding and day school in Pomfret, Connecticut, United States for grades 9 through 12 plus a post-graduate year. Pomfret School was founded in 1894, on the principles of intellectual rigor and the development of character...
, taking a number of students and teachers with him. It wasn't until the appointment of Headmaster William Greenough Thayer
William Greenough Thayer
Rev. William Greenough Thayer DD was an American educator, headmaster of St. Mark's School from 1894–1930.-Early life:...
(who had taught for five years at slightly younger rival Groton School
Groton School
Groton School is a private, Episcopal, college preparatory boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts, U.S. It enrolls approximately 375 boys and girls, from the eighth through twelfth grades...
) in 1894 that St. Mark's began to experience stability. Thayer led the school until 1930, bringing it out of its initial financial difficulties, expanding the campus infrastructure dramatically, and eventually retiring just as the school faced the challenges of the Crash of 1929 and its impact on the student body. St. Mark's – and Thayer – were national institutions by the time of his departure from the school. News of his pending retirement was reported by Time Magazine in 1929 as an event of national significance, which to the nation's social elite it then was.
The Thayer period was marked throughout by growth, notably in the acreage of the school (from the original 50 acres (202,343 m²) of Burnett's time to the 250 acres (1 km²) the school possesses today). Additionally, new dormitories, faculty housing, school fields, and a boathouse were constructed, with all school core facilities kept “under one roof” in St. Mark's unique English-inspired cloister construction. Thayer's popularity and knack for attracting socially-well-connected families proved durable. His admissions policy, modeled on that of English Public Schools, prioritized admissions on the basis of when one's parents had “put one's name down”. In practice this led over time to a school dominated by children of alumni – and not coincidentally, heavily dominated by the sons of inherited wealth. (Girls were not admitted until 1978.) St. Mark's social standing did not pass unnoticed in wider America. F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
, in his classic 1920 novel “This Side of Paradise
This Side of Paradise
This Side of Paradise is the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1920, and taking its title from a line of the Rupert Brooke poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive Princeton University...
”, identified St. Mark's as a school which “..recruited from Boston and the Knickerbocker
Knickerbocker
Knickerbocker, also spelled Knikkerbakker, Knickerbakker, Knickerbacker, is a surname that dates back to the early Dutch colonists in New York. In 1809, Washington Irving published his satirical A History of New York under the pseudonym "Diedrich Knickerbocker", and since that time "Knickerbocker"...
families of New York.” This was certainly the reputation.
Thayer's academic principles were classical and conservative. Teachers – for many years almost universally bachelors, called “masters,” who lived in spartan quarters with the boys in the dorms – focused their rote instruction heavily on preparation for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, which during this period accepted almost every single St. Marker. St. Mark's students studied Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
to the exception of virtually everything else, and modern subjects such as science, modern history, and art were virtually unknown. Indeed, St. Mark's first art teacher, who taught from 1924 to 1960, at one point simultaneously taught at St. Mark's, St. Paul's School
St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire)
St. Paul's School is a highly selective college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The school is one of only six remaining 100% residential boarding schools in the U.S. The New Hampshire campus currently serves 533 students,...
, and Groton School
Groton School
Groton School is a private, Episcopal, college preparatory boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts, U.S. It enrolls approximately 375 boys and girls, from the eighth through twelfth grades...
, devoting one day a week at each institution. Later in his career he devoted more teaching time to St. Mark's.
While the arts were largely neglected, sports were heavily emphasized. In the initial years masters played with boys on the same teams, and the traditional football rivalry with Groton was slowly expanded to include the English game of “fives
Fives
Fives is a British sport believed to derive from the same origins as many racquet sports. In fives, a ball is propelled against the walls of a special court using gloved or bare hands as though they were a racquet.-Background:...
”, baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, and other sports. (fives
Fives
Fives is a British sport believed to derive from the same origins as many racquet sports. In fives, a ball is propelled against the walls of a special court using gloved or bare hands as though they were a racquet.-Background:...
was introduced so that hockey players would have something to play when the ice wasn't good enough to support skating). St. Mark's has laid particular emphasis on ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
since around 1910, and has produced a number of notable and even professional players. St. Mark's has contributed to other sports as well. School legend has it that the baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
catcher's mask was invented at St. Mark's by a St. Mark's player who was protecting his broken nose by wearing a modified fencing helmet; Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
student Fred Thayer saw the helmet and several years later took out a patent on it.
The Parkman period
With Thayer's retirement, Headmaster Francis Parkman was chosen to lead the school, and he initiated changes which continue to resonate. Parkman faced a conservative faculty and alumni body, and found his efforts to modernize St. Mark's a challenge. Nonetheless, he made some brilliant teaching appointments that may well have had a profound impact on American letters. Parkman brought the noted poet Richard EberhartRichard Eberhart
Richard Ghormley Eberhart was an American poet who published more than a dozen books of poetry and approximately twenty works in total...
to the school as an English teacher from 1933–1941, and W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
for a brief appointment in 1939. Auden described St. Mark's to a friend as a school that “sets out to be a sort of American Eton”; he was reportedly struck there by the “dimness of the boys and the reverence of America for the average.” Eberhart briefly memorializes Auden's time at St. Mark's with his poem: “To W. H. Auden on his Fiftieth Birthday” in which he mentions the school in passing.
Auden's catty views notwithstanding, a brief perusal of an old boy list quickly demonstrates that whatever St. Mark's shortcomings during this period, it was certainly not producing mediocrities. St. Mark's alumni around this time formed a virtual “Who's Who” of American achievement in a variety of endeavors. St. Mark's during this period produced two Senators, not to mention influential Congressmen, Episcopal Bishops, senior government officials, and other national leaders. Intriguingly, two of the most influential families in twentieth century American journalism, the Pulitzers and the Forbes, representing both ends of the political spectrum, have strong St. Mark's connections. While business, the law, and banking remained key professional arenas, literature was not neglected. Arguably the greatest American poet of the twentieth century, Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
, attended St. Mark's in the thirties and wrote his first published prose for student journals there. Richard Eberhart
Richard Eberhart
Richard Ghormley Eberhart was an American poet who published more than a dozen books of poetry and approximately twenty works in total...
was an early mentor of Lowell, despite Lowell having never taken a class with him; their relationship continued during Lowell's time at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. Lowell's references to St. Mark's in his mature poetry are occasionally dark, sometimes grudgingly admiring, and at other times merely atmospheric. There is little doubt, however, that his education there had a profound impact upon his development as a writer.
Headmaster Parkman left the school in 1942 – to enlist in the army – and never returned, although he remained active in independent school policy all his life, eventually rising to the presidency of the National Association of Independent Schools
National Association of Independent Schools
The National Association of Independent Schools is a U.S.-based membership organization for private, nonprofit, K-12 schools. Founded in 1963, NAIS represents independent schools and associations in the United States, including day, boarding, and day/boarding schools; elementary and secondary...
in Boston, MA.
World War II
World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
brought dramatic changes. Some 500 St. Markers served in the military during the war, and twenty “old boys” died in the war. In 1942 Parkman was replaced by William Brewster, an Episcopal clergyman who remained only until 1947. Brewster's democratizing tendencies were abetted by exigencies of the war effort. During the war years, the school was forced to cope with labor shortages that forced students to work in dormitories and the dining hall. The maids and domestic help who vanished with the war's labor shortage never returned when faced with greater post-war opportunities. Perhaps more importantly, in the long run, the post-war educational benefits in the GI Bill democratized American higher education and swelled immeasurably the ranks of American men seeking and able to afford an Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
education. This changed post-war climate dramatically toughened the admissions prospects of St. Mark's graduates, as well as those of other elite prep schools, and has evolved continually up until the present day, when considerably fewer St. Markers attend Harvard, Yale, and Princeton than was once the case.
Twentieth Century Elitism
Despite the creeping democratization, St. Mark's remained socially exclusive, elitist, and traditional for some time, largely because of its intense institutional culture. Headmaster Brewster disliked the clubby atmosphere of the school, reforming admission policies during his brief tenure. Famously hearing one alumnus describe St. Mark's as the best club he had ever joined, Brewster subsequently fought to make admissions merit-based, and expanded financial assistance. His successors continued this battle. The school began to focus more on academic as opposed to social merits, and by the late fifties was admitting only about one student in five. Nonetheless, St. Mark's found it hard to shake its reputation as a finishing school for the social registerSocial Register
Specific to the United States, the Social Register is a directory of names and addresses of prominent American families who form the social elite, . The "Directory" automatically includes the President of the United States and the First Family, and in the past always included the U.S. Senators and...
set, particularly given the persistence of many alumni who fit this mold.
The challenge of modernization
Edward T. "Ned" Hall became Headmaster of the school in 1968. The sixties presented traditional boarding schools with many challenges—including how to be relevant in a changing world—and the administration, faculty and trustees struggled with bringing St. Mark's out of its Victorian origins and into the 20th century. Beginning in the early 1970s, many traditional, formal requirements of school life were relaxed—including a reduction in the number of required chapel services from six days per week to five, fewer sit down meals, a "December Week" of alternative course offerings, and experiments in co-education. For faculty and students alike, such changes were unsettling given how steeped in tradition St. Mark's was. Hall announced his resignation at the beginning of the 1973-74 school year.In 1974, Rev. Robert R."Red" Hansel, a former chaplain at St. George's School
St. George's School, Newport
St. George's School is a private, Episcopal, coeducational boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island, USA, just east of the city of Newport. The school was founded in 1896 by the Rev. John Byron Diman, a member of a prominent Rhode Island family. It sits on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean...
, was brought in by the trustees to effect radical institutional change—including a more streamlined administrative structure, complete re-organization of the student living arrangements into smaller "house" units, and other initiatives which were meant to evolve the traditional and longstanding institutional culture. Mr. Hansel's four-year tenure was controversial and brief- although modern St Mark's can be traced to many of the evolutions, like coeducation, that began then. Girls were initially admitted in 1972 to the newly established Southborough School, the vehicle that facilitated coordinate co-education. Funded largely by St. Mark's itself, the Southborough girls' school was dissolved in 1977 and many of its students and faculty absorbed into the parent school.
St. Mark's today
In 1946, the young John F. Kennedy said "I think the success of any school can be measured by the contribution the alumni make to our national life." By this measure, St. Mark's stands in an elite category of academic achievement. St. Mark's alumni today continue to cut a broad swathe across American society—from CEOs such as Pepsi's and Apple's John Sculley, Whole Food's Walter Robb, to the astronaut Story MusgraveStory Musgrave
Franklin Story Musgrave is an American physician and a retired NASA astronaut. He is currently a public speaker and consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California.-Personal life:...
, the artist Ingolv Helland, and the Internet business publishing pioneer David Gardner, creator of the Motley Fool, a popular website. Nor has computer innovation in itself been neglected, with the photo software entrepreneur Lars Perkins—creator of Picasa—a relatively recent alumnus.
In June 2008, under the leadership of Bishop Clark Grew, the St. Mark' Board of Trustees developed a concise statement about the educational aspirations of the school. St. Mark's mission statement, as endorsed by the Board, declared that:
Academics
Although St. Mark's has modernized its curriculum from the early days of almost total emphasis on Latin and Greek, the school still looks to its Latin motto as an inspiration for its mission of training future leaders. "Age Quod Agis" literally translates to "Do What You Do." A more contemporary translation might be: "Whatever you choose to do, do it well."For the 2008 - 2009 academic year, according to Boarding School Review, St. Mark's accepted approximately one applicant in four, with a student body now evenly split between girls and boys. St. Mark's world language program is one of the nation's best, despite the school's small size, with 13 finalists in a nationwide French exam and five in German, according to St. Mark's website. For the 2007 - 2008 academic year, the school newspaper, The St. Marker won an American Scholastic Press Association award for excellence. Seventy percent of St. Mark's students taking the AP tests in 2008 earned grades of 4 or 5, according to Headmaster John Warren in a September 2008 letter to the school community. St. Mark's 2008-2009 "Fact Sheet" notes that eight students were Commended National Merit Scholars last year. St. Mark's music department is particularly strong, and the school runs a summer music program annually.
St. Mark’s remains academically focused, providing a rigorous liberal arts program stemming from a classical tradition, and prepares its students for entry to competitive colleges and universities. It is characterized by small classes, close student-teacher relationships, and a strong emphasis on the sporting life as a complement to the life of the mind. The recent completion of additional facilities for the arts and theater have greatly enhanced these possibilities on campus.
Curriculum
The St. Mark's curriculum follows a liberal artsLiberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
tradition. An English course required every year of students. All students take the same English class their first three years, and choose from a selection of electives their final year. Mathematics is required up and until the level of Algebra II. Two years of laboratory science is required and one year of art and religion. In addition, one year of American history is required. Students take between 5 and 6 classes each year depending on the difficulty of the classes and their personal ambition. The St. Mark's Math Institute is one of the best high school math programs in the world, and the St. Mark's math club provides interested students with world-class opportunities to expand their understanding of mathematical thinking.
Programs
St. Mark's offers several unique programs to its students and others affiliated with the school. The programs are as follow:- The St. Mark's Math Insititute
- The Summer Music Institute
- Electric Vehicle Engineering
- Visiting Poet Program
Facilities
St. Mark’s has changed much in appearance since its founding. In school founder Joseph Burnett's time the school in its entirety was made up of one structure—a square, two-story house painted yellow with green blinds. That building and others from those early days, including a large schoolroom and dormitory wing built in 1866–1867, were gradually demolished during the Thayer period in the 1890s, to make way for the brick and Tudor-styled structures that now comprise the school’s 250 acres (1 km²) campus. Notable in the Thayer vision was the cloister-style construction of the school, with interconnected buildings forming an architectural ensemble in which the entire school, alone among elite American boarding schools, was essentially under one roof, in many cases with dorms on the upper floors of the buildings and classrooms and other academic halls in the lower floors. The school as it appeared in the early 1950s is portrayed under the name "St. Bart's" in the novel PninPnin
Pnin is Vladimir Nabokov's 13th novel and his fourth written in English; it was published in 1957.-Plot summary:The book's eponymous protagonist, Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, is a Russian-born professor living in the United States...
by Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
, whose son Dmitri
Dmitri Nabokov
Dmitri Vladimirovich Nabokov is an American opera singer and translator. He is the only child of writer Vladimir Nabokov and his wife Vera Nabokov, and is currently executor of his father's literary estate.-Background:...
attended the school.
St. Mark's late twentieth and early twenty-first century construction of an athletic center, a dormitory and a large performing arts center have led to some of the campus structures no longer being under a single roof.
How this close, cohesive architectural environment impacts student relations has not been formally studied. Sadly, during the construction of the performing arts center, another beloved facility—the fives courts mentioned by Nabokov—were razed. This effectively ceded to Groton School, the only other school in the independent school league with fives courts, the permanent title of North American Fives Champions. The reconstruction of the courts is currently part of the school's master plan.
Some interior shots of St. Mark's can be seen in the film School Ties
School Ties
School Ties is a 1992 film directed by Robert Mandel starring Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Chris O'Donnell, Cole Hauser, Randall Batinkoff, and Anthony Rapp....
(1992), which was filmed at Middlesex School
Middlesex School
Middlesex School is an independent secondary school for grades 9 - 12 located in Concord, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1901 by a Roxbury Latin School alumnus, Frederick Winsor, who headed the school until 1937. Winsor set up a National Scholarship Program for the school, the first of its kind...
and St. Mark's. Originally, the director wanted to use St. Mark's picturesque Tudor
Tudor style architecture
The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...
buildings as the primary film site; however, he was unable to get a permit from the local police station that would allow him to close off the street for filming. Thus he decided to use Middlesex School
Middlesex School
Middlesex School is an independent secondary school for grades 9 - 12 located in Concord, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1901 by a Roxbury Latin School alumnus, Frederick Winsor, who headed the school until 1937. Winsor set up a National Scholarship Program for the school, the first of its kind...
for exterior shots.
Athletics
St. Mark's has historically been strong at ice hockey, and a number of its alumni have gone on to careers in the National Hockey LeagueNational Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
. The school fields 48 interscholastic sports teams, with 22 team sports and 7 recreational activities. In addition to a seasonal outdoor swimming pool, an enclosed hockey rink, a cage, gymnasiums, and squash and tennis courts, St. Mark's has a nine hole golf course on campus. St. Mark's has a tradition of letting as many of its students as possible play interscholastic sports.
During the 2007-2008 academic year, St. Mark's Boys Cross Country was the New England Prep School Division IV Champions, while the Girls Cross Country were the Runner's Up in the same division. St. Mark's Boys Basketball was the New England Prep School Class "C" Champions. Three St. Mark's wrestlers qualified for the National Prep School Tournament; Boys Crew, for the third consecutive year, won the Henry B. DuPont III cup. During the 2008-2009 winter season, St. Mark's Boys Varsity Squash put together a remarkable season, going 13-3, 4 wins better than the previous best season in school history. Finishing a disappointing 9th in New England, the squash team also placed 9th at the High School Nationals tournament at Yale, placing them in an elite group of schools.
St. Mark's traditional athletic rival is the younger Groton School
Groton School
Groton School is a private, Episcopal, college preparatory boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts, U.S. It enrolls approximately 375 boys and girls, from the eighth through twelfth grades...
. St. Mark's high school football rivalry since 1886 with Groton School
Groton School
Groton School is a private, Episcopal, college preparatory boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts, U.S. It enrolls approximately 375 boys and girls, from the eighth through twelfth grades...
is one of the oldest athletic rivalries in the United States, following the Andover
Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
-Exeter
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
rivalry. The two schools have met in regularly scheduled athletic contests for more than a century. (See the List of high school football rivalries for more information.) St. Mark's traditionally has a "Groton Day" celebrating this rivalry with athletic games against the Groton teams, and celebrates the night before the games as "Groton Night".
School legend has it that Baseball's
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
catcher's mask was invented in 1875 by a St. Marks School catcher. It was originally a fencing
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
helmet he modified so as to protect his broken nose. A Harvard baseball player Fred Thayer was playing on the opposing team that day and by 1878 Thayer had gotten a patent on it.
During the ice hockey season, St. Mark's boasts some of the best fans in the ISL. The small rink is jammed with almost the entire school body every game to cheer and root for the Lions. Visiting teams must not only face the Lions themselves on the ice, but the fans as well, as they do impact the game severely.
From the dawn of the Twentieth Century St. Mark's has hosted a number of Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
athletes, including Truxtun Hare in track and field, and Suzanne King, in cross country skiing.
Notable and famous alumni
Although perhaps best known for educating generations of business titans and chief executive officers of major corporations, St. Mark's SchoolSt. Mark's School
St. Mark’s School is a coeducational, Episcopal, preparatory school, situated on in Southborough, Massachusetts, from Boston. It was founded in 1865 as an all-boys' school by Joseph Burnett, a wealthy native of Southborough who developed and marketed the world-famous Burnett Vanilla Extract . ...
has had numerous illustrious alumni who don't fit the mold of great wealth. The school has been particularly well represented in the arts and letters. Poet Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
wrote for the school literary magazine while a student, as did Lost Generation
Lost Generation
The "Lost Generation" is a term used to refer to the generation, actually a cohort, that came of age during World War I. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises. In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to...
literary figure Harry Crosby
Harry Crosby
Harry Crosby was an American heir, a bon vivant, poet, publisher, and for some, epitomized the Lost Generation in American literature. He was the son of one of the richest banking families in New England, a member of the Boston Brahmin, and the nephew of Jane Norton Grew, the wife of financier J....
. Artist William Congdon
William Congdon
William Grosvenor Congdon gained notoriety as an artist in New York City in the 1940s, but lived most of his life in Europe....
began painting there. Henry Demarest Lloyd
Henry Demarest Lloyd
Henry Demarest Lloyd was a 19th-century American progressive political activist and a forerunner to the later muckraking journalist. He is best remembered for his exposés of the Standard Oil Company, which was written before Ida M...
, a notable nineteenth century progressive and generally considered the father of investigative journalism, studied at St. Mark's. Journalism has historically been particularly well represented at the school, with a number of Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning journalists having begun their writing careers there. Tom White, designer of the "Scoop" Tostitos attended before going on to graduate from Ithaca College. Former CBS news chief and the Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
editor Blair Clark
Blair Clark
Ledyard Blair Clark was a liberal journalist and political activist who played key roles both as a journalist and a political operator. He was general manager and vice president of CBS News from 1961 to 1964, and later became editor of The Nation magazine...
, Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee, and most recently Motley Fool
Motley Fool
The Motley Fool is a multimedia financial-services company that provides financial solutions for investors through various stock, investing, and personal finance products. The Alexandria, Virginia-based private company was founded in July 1993 by co-chairmen and brothers David and Tom Gardner, and...
financial publisher David Gardner
David Gardner
David Gardner is one of the three founders of The Motley Fool, established in 1993.He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a Morehead-Cain Scholarship, graduating in 1988. He was a writer for Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street newsletter before joining the Motley Fool...
, are alumni.
The Forbes family of the Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
Magazine publishing empire includes a number of St. Markers. The Pulitzer publishing family also counted generations of St. Mark's graduates, including Joseph Pulitzer III, who credited St. Mark's with awakening his appreciation of the arts. St. Markers have become senior Episcopal clergy and parish priests. The school has produced senators, representatives, governors, and senior diplomats, and of course St. Markers are heavily represented in academia, education, finance, the law, and business. Story Musgrave
Story Musgrave
Franklin Story Musgrave is an American physician and a retired NASA astronaut. He is currently a public speaker and consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California.-Personal life:...
is a St. Marker who is now a retired astronaut. Many former St. Mark's students and teachers have gone on to become headmasters in their own right—St. Mark's current headmaster is himself an alumnus of the school.
The Pomfret School
Pomfret School
Pomfret School is an independent coeducational boarding and day school in Pomfret, Connecticut, United States for grades 9 through 12 plus a post-graduate year. Pomfret School was founded in 1894, on the principles of intellectual rigor and the development of character...
was founded by a disgruntled St. Mark's headmaster William E. Peck
William E. Peck
William E. Peck is the founder of Pomfret School in Pomfret, Connecticut, a small boarding school. Peck founded the school in 1894; prior to that, he served as head of St. Mark's School in Southborough, Massachusetts....
who left Southborough after disagreement with the board of trustees of St. Mark's.
External links
42.31°N 71.53°W