From the Rector: Inspired by this Energetic, Committed Community
Dear Alumni/ae,
Life in a high school is never the same two days in a row. As I write today, students are heading off to games around New England or to community engagement commitments in Concord and surrounding towns. They are excited about the upcoming Fall Ball (“Heels or no heels?”) on Saturday night and next week’s “costume-in-my-closet” Halloween celebration. The Chess Club and the Debate Team and the Dairy Appreciation Society, among other groups, have all met this week, encouraging students to find their way to clubs, connection, and good fun. There is a Town Hall slated for Monday night so students can meet with the Administrative Team (including me), ask questions, and communicate. The pace and variety of life on the grounds keeps us on our toes and, more often than not, smiling.
There have been two events this week that stand out in the life of this energetic, committed community. The first happened on Monday, when we welcomed visitors from Seikei Gakuen, a private school near Tokyo with which we have enjoyed an exchange program. This program is celebrating its 70th year and, as part of that milestone, Director of Chapel Music Nicholas White composed a choral and instrumental anthem fusing “Love Divine” with Seikei’s school song. Roughly 60 student musicians participated in what was a joyful performance as we celebrated this longstanding relationship, begun literally in the ashes of the second World War, because as first-year Rector Henry Crocker Kittredge wrote to his board in 1948 (as recounted in David Dana’s A Generous Idea: St. Paul’s School and Seikei Gakuen):
It is hard enough for adults to keep abreast of national and foreign affairs or to interpret them accurately in times which, like our own, are bewilderingly unstable and infinitely complex. It is harder yet for our [students]. Yet because our country has become a mighty factor in international relations, and will inevitably continue to be one, it is increasingly important for [students] to be given some idea of the principle elements in the picture and some notion of the new responsibility that rests on every American.
Rector Kittredge went on to write (also in Dana’s book): If the School is to do its duty in preparing American [students] for the kind of life into which they will emerge, we must give them every opportunity to associate at close range and for considerable periods of time with [students] of other nationalities. If our school is to live, it cannot remain in a sort of rarified isolation any more than our Nation can.
While these thoughts remain powerfully relevant 70 years later, the last sentence is particularly mighty today, as is the well-known line from the first Seikei scholar’s Hugh Camp Cup-winning speech in 1950: “All men are created equal, but they are not the same.”
The very next morning in Chapel, we celebrated our gay, straight, lesbian, trans, queer, plus community members. Students spoke from personal experience; they read from other students’ experiences; they required us as a community to acknowledge those among us who are “equal but not the same.” There is no irony, only truth and wisdom, in the relevance of this statement 70 years after first Seikei scholar Minoru “Ben” Makihara ’50 offered it to SPS and was met with his school’s respect and celebration. Even as we and the world grapple with issues for the humanity of all people, the fundamental truths of diversity continue to stretch and engage and enlighten this school in many different ways. As I head out to watch students play this afternoon, I am again inspired by the energy with which these next generations on the grounds continue to celebrate our purpose and build our school.
Sincerely,
Kathy Giles
Rector, St. Paul’s School