Dear Prospective Parents,
On behalf of the students, faculty, and entire community of St. Bartholomew’s school, welcome! We are very pleased and flattered by your interest in our historic institution.
For more than 200 years, St. Bart’s, as it is affectionately known, has nurtured generations of American leaders in business, religion, finance, government, business finance, and the arts.
Since the founding of the school by Christian missionaries seeking to civilize the untamed Connecticut frontier, our motto has been “Prepario ad vivum” which we believe means something like “Prepare for Life” or “Preparation for Life.” And we have never wavered from that lofty goal (except during the Civil War when the high mortality rate among our graduates caused the school to briefly adopt the motto “Carpe Diem.”)
In order to prepare our boys (and, since 1987, girls) for life, we begin by acknowledging that life itself is a struggle. Neither material wealth, privileged social station, nor all the advances of modern technology can ever fully insulate one from the random cruelties of fate. Either Winston Churchill or the Duke of Wellington once said something along the lines of “all battles are won on the playing fields of some English school.” In that spirit, if our graduates learn nothing else (and many don’t) we hope they will learn that good sportsmanship is the key to overcoming any obstacle in later life, be it a drunk driving arrest, an unwarranted firing for violating your company’s preposterous sexual harassment policy, or something embarrassing involving the Internet.
Numbered among our distinguished alumni are no less than an American president, Warren Harding Class of 1880*, who briefly attended the school after an outbreak of infectious diphtheria at nearby Groton. In the Twentieth Century, St. Bart’s graduates have included a Thai military strongman, the leader of a Zimbabwean death squad, a prince from a cadet branch of the Royal Family of Liechtenstein, and any number of Third World dictators and tyrants and their offspring.
Very little needs to be said about the outsized role played by the “Old Boys” of St. Bart’s in the markets for capital. As several recent incidents have shown, if you cast a stone at any crowd on Wall Street, you are almost certain to strike a graduate of St. Bart’s. In good times and not-so-good times, you will find our alumni leading the pack by creating innovative new uses for idle collateral. It has been a rare morning lately when a prestigious publication such as the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal did not feature a familiar name and sometimes even familiar face peeking out from under a raincoat thrown hastily over the head.
Beyond the political and financial spheres, countless St. Bart’s alumni have distinguished themselves in the sciences and the arts. To name but two, Col. Burton Holloway ’72 (USAF Ret.) would have been the 26th man to walk on the moon if the Apollo program had not been curtailed at an inopportune moment and Allan Dunlap ’46 received the Pulitzer Prize for his debut novel about his years at St. Bartholomew’s entitled “For Fear of the Showers.” The prize was awarded posthumously after Dunlap’s suicide.
Preparation for life, indeed!
The question I am most often asked by prospective parents is “what does it take to succeed at St. Bart’s?” Although we hope our students will be well-rounded, I believe that the key to success here is wiliness. It is not enough to be merely clever. The ideal St. Bart’s boy or girl must possess the sort of creative intelligence that allows them not simply to evade an unwanted sexual overture from a faculty member when it occurs but to actually anticipate it before it occurs. Our faculty prides itself on being one-step ahead of the student body. The student body, in turn, must be ever-vigilant. Something which on the surface seems entirely innocent such as an invitation to tea with Mr. Pierce, the beloved head of our Classics Department or an Sunday evening charades party at the home of Danielle and Charles McLean, the popular young couple who teach drama and coach swimming, respectively, can quickly take an unexpected turn, as many recent graduates can attest. By some estimates, our more attractive students will have received as many as a hundred unwholesome advances in their four years here. We firmly believe that this experience will prepare them for almost anything that might encounter in later life, at least if it is of a sexual nature.
There are schools, we are told, that seek to insulate their students in a sort of Ivory Tower; we are proud to say that St. Bart’s is not one of those. Our relations with the nearby town of Lansburgh are famously strained by, among many other things, a legacy of lawsuits and countersuits stretching back to our earliest days. I can say without fear of contradiction that the citizenry of Lansburgh (and, indeed, the entire Greater Lansburgh Area) is almost uniformly hostile to St. Bart’s and those who teach and learn here. For our part, I must admit that the feeling is entirely mutual! It is worth mentioning that the century-long decline in the watch-case making industry which employed so many in the town has only exacerbated matters along with the usual collateral problems like alcoholism and bastardy. While some might regard the situation as a negative, we view it is a plus. As part of our commitment to community outreach, each class of sophomores spends considerable time in Lansburgh doing field study on the question of “Who is to blame for Lansburgh’s many problems?” You’d be amazed at the stories they come back with.
After more than a century of single-sex education, girls were admitted to St. Bart’s for the first time in 1987 as a result of the landmark decision by the Supreme Court, United States v. St. Bartholomew’s School (St. Bart’s makes history yet again!) Since then we have been all but deluged with comely representatives of the fairer sex. There were two girls in that first coeducational class, there was another one in the 1993 class, and two more (the twin daughters of our esteemed chaplain, Rev. David Gray) in 2003. Perhaps your daughter will be the next girl to carry on this burgeoning tradition.
It’s no secret that St. Bart’s has something of a reputation for bullying, hazing, and other forms of physical intimidation. In an effort to address this issue, the Joint Faculty-Student Task Force on Bullying was formed five years ago. Since then, all on-campus bullying has been conducted by members of the Task Force with the result that “rogue bullying” has been sharply curtailed. I am immensely grateful to Deputy Headmaster Roy T. Wickershaft who leads the Task Force and who was a world class bully himself during his school days at Dunwich Abbey in Great Britain. Whichever path our boys and girls choose in years to come, be it bully or victim, their days at St. Bart’s will always stand them in good stead.
Though we revere our traditions, we would not have you think that St. Bart’s has not kept pace with the times. We are currently in the midst of a phased mascot transition from the beloved but sadly out-of-date Mongo the Mongoose to a cyber-friendly symbol appropriate to our information age: Mike the Microchip. (The interim transitional mascot, Terry the Toadstool, will also be phased out once Mike the Microchip becomes fully operational in 2011.) We have been assisted throughout our challenging 7-year mascot search by the nationally known educational branding firm of Dillard and Fleishman. Though this change has proved controversial among the senior alumni, we feel very confident in saying that, with Mike the Microchip to lead us, a solid finish in the Southwestern New England Prep Athletic Conference seems well within our grasp.
In closing, allow me to offer a brief word about our application process, which many consider the most streamlined in the entire world of secondary education. Because we believe that any young person can succeed here, we do not prejudge applicants. There is no interview or application per se. We are not interested in your child’s transcripts or letters of recommendation or disrecommendation from his previous teachers. Your son or daughter will enter our portals with not just a clean slate but an entirely blank one. They are, to borrow a phrase from the credit card industry, pre-approved for admission here. A certified check, valid Visa or MasterCard, and a copy of your latest Equifax credit score is all that is necessary to secure a place for your child in our hallowed halls and, because we guarantee a 100% graduation rate, in time among the serried ranks of the alumni of St. Bartholomew’s School.
With warmest wishes,
Dr. Albert G. Caldecott, PhD
Headmaster
