Saint Grottlesex

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The St. George's chapel opened in 1928 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.[1]

Saint Grottlesex refers to several American college-preparatory boarding schools in New England that historically educated the social and economic elite of the Northeastern United States. The schools are traditionally given as St. Mark's School, St. Paul's School, St. George's School, Groton School and Middlesex School, although some scholars also include Kent School.

History[edit]

The St. Grottlesex schools are part of a much larger set of boarding schools, which are primarily concentrated in the Northeastern United States. St. Paul's and St. Mark's were founded in the middle of the nineteenth century, but the other three St. Grottlesex schools were established at the turn of the twentieth century during a large boom in the boarding school industry[2] that also included Lawrenceville (refounded 1883), Milton (refounded 1884), Taft (founded 1890), Hotchkiss (1891), Choate (1896), Kent (1906), and Loomis (1914). St. Paul's and St. Mark's also more than tripled in enrollment during this period.[3]

Although the St. Grottlesex schools were not the only college-preparatory boarding schools founded during the Gilded Age, they stood out for their aristocratic reputation and their college placement record.

Historical composition of student bodies[edit]

The St. Grottlesex schools are broadly associated with upper-class Protestantism in the United States and preppy culture.[4][5] St. Mark's, St. Paul's, St. George's, and Groton are all affiliated with the Episcopal Church,[6] the wealthiest Protestant denomination.[7] Middlesex, though ostensibly nonsectarian, was established by similarly upper-class Unitarian Boston Brahmins.[8] They soon attracted an aristocratic clientele. In 1906, four-fifths of Groton and St. Mark's parents were listed in the Social Register.[9]

The St. Grottlesex schools often favored anachronistic English architectural styles. At St. Mark's, many of the buildings are mock Tudor.[10]

The St. Grottlesex schools (as well as some other institutions, like Lawrenceville[11]) were consciously styled as the American equivalent of the English public schools,[12] in contrast to the eighteenth-century "academies" like Andover, Exeter, Lawrence, and Deerfield, which were typically set up when a rural town lacked the tax revenue to support a public school, and principally educated students from the surrounding area.[13][14] Moreover, unlike their academy forebears, the Gilded Age schools were explicitly founded to prepare their students for college. For example, while Exeter (founded 1781) and Middlesex (founded 1901) were both strongholds of Unitarianism and prepared students for Unitarian Harvard, as late as the 1880s only 18% of Exeter graduates went to college.[15]

Wealthy boarding schools could afford to sponsor a variety of extracurricular activities. The first organized ice hockey game in the United States was played at St. Paul's in 1883.[16]

The St. Grottlesex schools entrenched their social distinctiveness by charging much higher tuition than the academies. When Groton was founded in 1884, it charged $500 a year for tuition, room, and board.[17] By contrast, Lawrence charged $200 a year; Andover charged $69 a year for tuition and room (board not included); and Exeter charged $45 a year (room and board not included).[18][19][20] As late as 1940, tuition at Groton, St. Paul's, and St. Mark's was still nearly 30% higher than at Andover and Exeter (albeit less expensive than Deerfield); at Middlesex and St. George's it was closer to 50% higher.[21]

Trends in college placement[edit]

The St. Grottlesex schools' aristocratic culture strengthened their reputations with leading universities. The schools found a helpful ally in Harvard president Charles Eliot, who distrusted public high schools. Although he complimented Exeter for its "national" reach and "democratic" character,[22] he encouraged boarding schools to temper America's "habitual regard for masses and majorities" with "aristocratic institutions" and "noble family stock[]."[23] In fact, Eliot personally sponsored the establishment of Groton and Middlesex.[24][25]

Middlesex named its main administrative building after Harvard president Charles William Eliot, an early supporter of the school.[26]

Harvard's admissions office continued favoring St. Grottlesex alumni after Eliot's retirement. Even at mid-century, St. Mark's, St. Paul's, Groton, and Middlesex were still sending a larger percentage of their graduates to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton than their peer boarding schools.[27] (Two notable exceptions were Andover and Exeter, which successfully reinvented themselves as college-preparatory schools.[28][29]) In 1959, the university conducted an internal study to see which of its top 79 feeder schools produced the most honors graduates per capita. It found that "not one of the 30 top institutions was an eastern boarding school" and that "[s]ome of the St. Grottlesex schools, in particular, had especially poor records."[30]

Once Ivy League schools raised academic standards for undergraduate admissions in the 1950s and 1960s, St. Grottlesex's advantage partially dissipated, as nearly all the traditional feeder boarding schools lost significant market share during this period.[27] Reinforcing this trend, the middle schools that traditionally fed students to St. Grottlesex began sending most of their students to private day schools instead, leading Groton's admissions director to comment that "the competition [for spots] isn't as stiff as it used to be, and the classics scholars are getting worried about a decline in intellectual quality."[31]

This process continued beyond the 1960s and eventually forced reforms. The schools broadened their applicant pools by belatedly admitting girls and ethnic minorities. Groton's first black student graduated in 1956, followed by St. Paul's (1964), St. George's (1968), St. Mark's (1969), and Middlesex (1970).[32][33] Gender integration took longer. St. Paul's welcomed its first female students in 1971, followed by St. George's (1972), Middlesex (1974), Groton (1975), and St. Mark's (1977).[34][35][36][37][38] Even so, this expansion of the applicant pool was not enough to fully arrest the decline in college outcomes. In 1992, St. Paul's appointed a new rector with a "mandate ... to improve the quality of the school academically," as "[n]obody had gone to Harvard in five years, except for legacies."[39][40]

Member schools[edit]

The St. Grottlesex schools are traditionally given as:[41][27][42][43]

School Location Year Founded Religious Affiliation
St. Mark's School Southborough, MA 1865 Episcopal Church (United States)
St. Paul's School Concord, NH 1856 Episcopal
St. George's School Middletown, RI 1896 Episcopal
Groton School Groton, MA 1884 Episcopal
Middlesex School Concord, MA 1901 Nonsectarian (unofficially Unitarian)

In addition, Kent School, another Episcopalian boarding school, is occasionally categorized within St. Grottlesex.[44][45][46]

Origin and usage of the term[edit]

According to Harvard, Eliot House once had a "reputation as the bastion of ... champion rowers[] and Yankee aristocrats."[47] The student newspaper dryly remarked that while recommendation letters were helpful, "it is not by any means necessary to ... be a Groton graduate" to live in Eliot.[48]

The term is a portmanteau of the St. part of St. Mark's, St. Paul's, and St. George's, then part of Groton, an extra t, and then ending with Middlesex.

There is no clear consensus on the source of the term; however, most sources link it to admissions practices and undergraduate student life at Harvard College, where St. Grottlesex alumni traditionally sat "[a]t the top of the social hierarchy."[49] The Harvard sociologist George C. Homans claimed that Harvard's admissions office coined the term to help categorize and sort through Harvard applicants.[12] Until the 1970s, Harvard's undergraduate dormitories clustered boarding school alumni within certain dormitories. Eliot House and Lowell House were reportedly "exclusively St. Grottlesex,"[50] and John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that when he was a tutor at Winthrop House, his housemaster's policy was to "automatically" accept alumni of St. Grottlesex and to "generally" accept alumni of Andover and Exeter.[51] St. Grottlesex alumni also historically dominated admission to Harvard's exclusive undergraduate final clubs.[52][53]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form". National Park Service. 2004-11-12. Retrieved 2024-04-16.
  2. ^ Baltzell, E. Digby (1987). The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America (Paperback ed.). New Haven, NH: Yale University Press. pp. 127–29.
  3. ^ Levine, Steven B. (October 1980). "The Rise of American Boarding Schools and the Development of a National Upper Class". Social Problems. 28 (1): 65. doi:10.2307/800381. JSTOR 800381 – via JSTOR.
  4. ^ Williams, Peter W. (2016). Religion, Art, and Money: Episcopalians and American Culture from the Civil War to the Great Depression. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 194–95.
  5. ^ Lisa Birnbach (October 1980), "Chapter VI: You're All Grown Up Now (The Country Club Years)", The Official Preppy Handbook, New York: Workman Publishing Company, pp. 194–195, OCLC 681897418, OL 15163107W, Wikidata Q7754751
  6. ^ Williams, p. 218.
  7. ^ Ayres Jr., B. Drummond (1981-04-28). "The Episcopalians: An American Elite with Roots Going Back to Jamestown". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-11-10.
  8. ^ Fortmiller, Jr., Hubert C. (2003). Find the Promise: Middlesex School, 1901-2001. Concord, MA: Middlesex School. p. 26.
  9. ^ Levine, p. 68.
  10. ^ "History - St. Mark's School". www.stmarksschool.org. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  11. ^ Pitts, Carolyn (July 1985). "Lawrenceville School" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Inventory Nomination Form. National Park Service. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
  12. ^ a b Homans, George Caspar (2013). Coming to My Senses: The Autobiography of a Sociologist (Paperback ed.). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. p. 51.
  13. ^ Allis, Jr., Frederick S. (1979). Youth from Every Quarter: A Bicentennial History of Phillips Academy, Andover. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. pp. 38–41, 278–81.
  14. ^ Howe, Daniel Walker (September 1973). "Review of "American Boarding Schools: A Historical Study"". The New England Quarterly. 46 (3): 493–94. JSTOR 364217.
  15. ^ Fortmiller, pp. 32-34.
  16. ^ O’Connor, Brion (2011-01-25). "On Frozen Pond: Playing Up a Hockey Legacy". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  17. ^ Ashburn, Frank D. (1934). Fifty Years On: Groton School 1884-1934. New York: Sign of the Gosden Head. p. 17.
  18. ^ Frank, Douglas Alan (1992). The History of Lawrence Academy at Groton: 1792 to 1992. Groton, MA: Trustees of Lawrence Academy. p. 169.
  19. ^ Allis, p. 295 (1883 figures); but cf. id. at p. 285 (noting that in the 1890s, Andover built new dormitories where the rent ranged from $35-100)
  20. ^ "Academy Chronology". Phillips Exeter Academy. Retrieved 2024-05-01.
  21. ^ Baltzell, E. Digby (2017). Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class (Revised ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. p. 306.
  22. ^ Williams, Myron R. (1957). The Story of Phillips Exeter. Exeter, NH: Phillips Exeter Academy. p. 50.
  23. ^ Allis, p. 271 (Eliot's speech at Andover's 1878 centennial).
  24. ^ Ashburn, p. 17.
  25. ^ Fortmiller, pp. 58-63
  26. ^ Fortmiller, p. 63.
  27. ^ a b c Gordon, Michael (1969). "Changing Patterns of Upper-Class Prep School College Placements". The Pacific Sociological Review. 12 (1): 22–25. doi:10.2307/1388210. ISSN 0030-8919.
  28. ^ Fortmiller, p. 32.
  29. ^ Allis, pp. 223, 230-31, 239-40.
  30. ^ Karabel, Jerome (2006). The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (Revised ed.). New York: Mariner Books. p. 270.
  31. ^ Thomas, Evan W. (1971-02-16). "Prep School Blues". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  32. ^ "Young Blacks at the Nation's Highest-Ranked Private Boarding Schools and Public High Schools". The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. 23 (Spring): 65. 1999. doi:10.2307/2999315.
  33. ^ "Alumni Who Contributed to Racial Integration at St. Mark's". The St. Marker. 2020-03-04. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  34. ^ Heckscher, August (1980). St. Paul's: The Life of a New England School (1st ed.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 353.
  35. ^ English, Bella. "'Profoundly disturbing' abuse documented at elite R.I. school". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  36. ^ "Forty Years of Coeducation at Middlesex: Nominate Women Who Live the Promise". Middlesex School. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  37. ^ Pollock, Naomi (Spring 2017). "The Girls of '77". Groton School Quarterly. LXXVIII (2): 18–31 – via Issuu.
  38. ^ "Southborough School". St. Mark's School. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  39. ^ Shoumatoff, Alex (January 2006). "A Private-School Affair". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on 2016-07-13. Retrieved 2024-02-17.
  40. ^ "David Vern Hicks, Tenth Rector: 1992-96". Ohrstrom Library at St. Paul's School. Retrieved 2024-02-17.
  41. ^ Williams, p. 218.
  42. ^ Wallace, Benjamin (2016-07-08). "How St. George's Atonement for Its Sex-Abuse Scandals Turned Ugly". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2024-01-25.
  43. ^ Birmingham, Stephen (2016). The Right People: The Social Establishment in America (Revised ed.). Guilford, CT: Lyons Press. p. 60.
  44. ^ Karabel, pp. 562 n.6.
  45. ^ "Education: GOAL: A DECENT GUY WHEN YOU'RE DONE". Time. 1962-10-26. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2023-11-10.
  46. ^ Davidson, James D.; Pyle, Ralph E. (2011). Ranking Faiths: Religious Stratification in America. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 100.
  47. ^ "History of Eliot House". eliot.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  48. ^ "Eliot To Continue Merriman Tradition; Leverett Balanced, Leans Toward Music". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  49. ^ Synnott, Marcia G. (1979). "The Admission and Assimilation of Minority Students at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900-1970". History of Education Quarterly. 19 (3): 291.
  50. ^ Tilney, Frances G. (March 11, 1999). "The GOLD Coast". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2024-01-24.
  51. ^ Galbraith, John Kenneth (1981). A Life in Our Times. New York: Ballantine Books. p. 51.
  52. ^ Levine, p. 86
  53. ^ Synnott, Marcia (2007). The Half-Opened Door: Discrimination and Admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900-1970 (Revised ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 16.
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