USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > On Andover Hill; life today in an old New England school : Prepared for Phillips Academy, Andover > Part 2
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THE VISTA FROM THE DOOR OF SAMUEL PHILLIPS HALL
LIFE IN AN OLD NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL
and yet apart from it, its seclusion being protected by the school's holdings of 382 acres; and the bounds to which the boys are confined are so generous that it is possible for them to tramp for miles in almost any direction. Canoeing may be enjoyed upon the Shawsheen River and swimming on warm spring days in Pomp's Pond. Near though it is to cities, Andover is visibly rural.
A unique feature of the school is the Moncrieff Coch- ran Sanctuary, a fenced in tract of about 150 acres, a place of safety for birds and other small animals. Parts of the enclosure are left in their natural state; others are planted with rare shrubs and trees. In the center are two ponds frequented by hundreds of ducks and geese of all varieties, some of them permanent residents and some merely resting during their migrations. In the underbrush live numbers of quail and gorgeously colored pheasants which are bred and turned loose there. On a hilltop in a remote corner stands a log cabin, called by the boys "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in affectionate gratitude to Mr. Thomas Cochran, the generous benefactor of the Academy, and near it are two putting greens, which experts declare to be com- parable in turf and contour with the best that Myopia or Ekwanok have to offer. Inside the cabin boys may gather before a huge fireplace and enjoy sandwiches, doughnuts, pie, and waffles served by an attendant. The Sanctuary is merely a simple and beautiful spot which does not attempt to demonstrate any ideas or to test any theories, a place where boys and their friends may find quiet and recreation.
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ON ANDOVER HILL
ON THE CAMPUS
Look around you on Andover Hill. Almost as far as vou can see stretch the lawns and the playing fields of Phillips Academy, with towers rising here and there to attract the eye. Many competent critics have called this the most beautiful school campus in the United States. The older buildings, most of them of brick with stone trimmings in the Georgian Colonial style, have been used in some degree as models; but the genius of the modern architects. Guy Lowell and Charles A. Platt, has modified the original type and secured variety in unity.
The campus has three focal points,-the Memorial Bell Tower, erected by the Fuller family to honor the eighty- nine Andover men who lost their lives in the World War: Samuel Phillips Hall. the main recitation building. the gift of more than 2600 alumni and friends; and the Acade- my Chapel, the most recent acquisition, one of the noblest churches in New England. To accentuate this basic plan. the Elm Arch, running north and south. an avenue of trees planted early in the last century and now resembling the aisle of a cathedral, is bisected by a broad vista sloping gradually from Samuel Phillips Hall at the eastern end to the west and the New Hampshire hills beyond. A glance at the panoramic view of the school will show the plan of the campus, with Samuel Phillips Hall directly in the background in the middle of the photograph.
Space is lacking to describe the ninety or more buildings owned by the trustees. George Washington Hall is the administrative center, containing also the Meeting Room.
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where morning chapel exercises, lectures, and concerts are held and motion pictures shown on Saturday evenings; the Commons comprises four large dining rooms, one for each class, as well as a separate room for the faculty; the Samuel F. B. Morse Hall houses the thoroughly modern laboratories for Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. The dormitories range from the oldest, Foxcroft,-built in 1809, to the two latest,-Paul Revere,-opened in 1929 and Rockwell to be opened in September 1935. Nor must we forget the Borden Gymnasium, the Case Memorial Building,-a huge "cage" devoted to indoor sports,- the Swimming Pool, and the Infirmary,-all designed to promote the physical health of the students. The Phil- lips Inn, the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, and the Addison Gallery of American Art are treated fully else- where in this pamphlet.
Most of these changes have been due to the extraordinary generosity of a few men. We who have watched the renaissance which they, through their vision, have ac- complished have marvelled at the speed with which the old school, with its ugliness and discomfort, has vanished. Because of them, Phillips Academy has become both more efficient and more beautiful.
THE ADDISON GALLERY OF AMERICAN ART
One of the finest of the Academy's recent acquisitions is the Addison Gallery of American Art, opened in the spring of 1931. This gallery contains one of the best collections of American painting in the country, including excellent
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THE ADDISON GALLERY OF AMERICAN ART
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LIFE IN AN OLD NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL
specimens of the work of Sargent, Whistler, Ryder, Win- slow Homer, Duveneck, Inness, Davies, Bellows, Brush, Lie, Twachtman, Abbot Thayer, and many others; some rare examples of early American silver and furniture, inter- esting sculpture and prints; and a remarkable group of models of famous American ships, all built to a uniform scale. It is housed in a building of Georgian architecture of great dignity and beauty, which balances the Oliver Wen- dell Holmes Library across the Lawn.
To supplement this permanent collection and make ap- parent that art is a living force as well as a glory of the past the Gallery provides a series of loan exhibits also which display various phases of contemporary painting and the decorative arts, foreign and American.
Even more important, however, than these exhibits is the pioneering work which the Gallery is doing in making art a vital factor in the life of the school. A sketch class works in the Gallery under the guidance of an Art In- structor and at the end of the school year hangs an exhibit of its work. An elective course also in art appreciation is included in the school curriculum. Constantly endeavoring to lend its resources to the whole educational experience of the boy, the Gallery is now preparing slides and exhibits for the various classrooms through which the specific materials of each course offered at Andover may be related to its larger cultural backgrounds. The Academy's effort through the Gallery to bring art and beauty to the student, teaching him to use his eyes to see as well as to read, is being watched with interest by schools and colleges throughout the country.
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Public schools both of Andover and of nearby towns and cities are allowed to bring their pupils to the Art Museum, where the Curator and Staff are generous of time and in- formation; social workers too find here assistance in their task, for the resources of the museum are not limited to the fortunate few of Phillips Academy.
THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES LIBRARY
No mere adjunct to the intellectual life of Phillips Academy, the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library is its heart and focal center. Its attractive Georgian Colonial exterior, with stately pillared portico resting under the shadow of the Elm Arch, invites all who pass it to enter. And its lovely interior and friendly atmosphere allure its visitor to remain, either to wander among the open stacks or read at ease in a comfortable chair.
Open from eight in the morning until ten at night, the Library is admirably adapted for solid work or for leisurely browsing. On one side of the delivery room is a spacious reference room, whose walls are lined with the standard tools for scholarly work. Here every day several hundred students voluntarily study between classes and in the evening. On the other side is the beautiful Freeman Read- ing Room, every feature of which lends itself to the un- hampered enjoyment of books. Its two thousand volumes, chosen with a regard for the taste of a boy, are among the most beautiful in the library in binding, print, and illustra- tion. Furnished with comfortable chairs and sofas, fire place, and tables containing the latest periodicals, it has
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THE REFERENCE ROOM OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES LIBRARY
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become the most pleasant room on the Hill. Thechieffeature of this room is its large decorative map, by Stuart Travis, which, covering the east wall, depicts various scenes of historical Andover. On the second floor are attractive con- ference rooms, which are adapted for seminar and round table discussion groups.
The resources of the Library, built up by donations of friends of the Academy and gifts from private libraries, are unusual for a preparatory school. Over thirty-four thousand volumes are now on its shelves. In addition to books, the Library receives the current issues of one hundred magazines, three being in foreign languages, and four daily newspapers. Furthermore, it possesses several outstanding collections which give it individuality and distinction. Among the most notable of these are the Charles H. Forbes Collection of Vergiliana, consisting of more than a thousand volumes and 435 pamphlets of the poet's works and material relating to them, including six rare incunab- ula; Oliver Wendell Holmes's first editions and an Author's Edition of his works, the latter presented by his son, former Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes; and the Mercer Sports Library, one of the finest collections of its kind in the country.
To make the Library effective as an educational force of the first importance, the Library staff trains students thoroughly in its use. The Juniors are given instruction in the location and arrangement of the Library's working material and treasures. The Upper Middlers are trained in the use of the catalogue and the reference room, and the Seniors are required to carry through a project in biblio-
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graphy which familiarizes them with the methods of inde- pendent scholarly research.
In a very real way the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library epitomizes the spirit and the educational opportunities of Andover. As does Andover as a whole, it fosters both the leisurely cultural reading and the serious intellectual work which enables students and faculty alike to increase their knowledge of the "best that has been said and thought in the world." And, by training students to seek out for themselves the reading that they want and need, the Library adds its influence to the Andover ideal of self edu- cation, the only type of education which has enduring results.
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM
One of the earliest of the modern gifts from her alumni was the Museum of American Archaeology, presented by Mr. R. Singleton Peabody. Under the direction of its Curator and his staff explorations throughout the United States have enlarged the original exhibit, added to our knowledge of primitive America, and furnished a labora- tory in which many lads have developed a life interest in Archaeology; and some have widened the intellectual horizon of their lives by visits and study in the museum and by attending the lectures and courses given by the staff.
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MUSIC, LECTURES, AND ENTERTAINMENTS
A great school, like a university, should be a center of culture and civilization, and much has been done in Ando- ver, in recent years, to live up to this ideal. Rare oppor- tunities have been offered the boys, faculty, and towns- people to hear great music, to listen to famous men, and to see good plays. A present Senior who had taken advantage of his opportunities at Andover would have heard among other musicians Fritz Kreisler, Rachmaninoff, Pablo Casals, Jascha Heifetz, José Iturbi, Fernando Germani, Albert Spalding, Roland Hayes, Harold Bauer, the Cleve- land Symphony Orchestra, the Russian Symphonic Choir, and the Flonzaley Quartette. He would have listened free of charge to Rear Admiral Byrd, William Beebe, Roy Chap- man Andrews, Alexander Powell, Count von Luckner, Maurice Hindus, the Grand Duchess Marie, Oliver Bald- win, Rennie Smith, Bruce Bairnsfather, and many others. He would have seen the Abbey Players present The White Headed Boy, the Ben Greet Players and the Drama Guild present Shakespeare, the Rice Players present The Passing of the Third Floor Back, and the undergraduate Dramatic Club in The Green Goddess, The Queen's Husband, The Perfect Alibi, The High Road, Dulcy, and Tons of Money.
An education confined to books and the small interests of the school is obviously defective. There is a great world outside where music, literature, art, adventure, science, and politics are occupying men's minds. The boy should know of what his elders are thinking so that his outlook on life may be broad and so that he may be
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familiar with the interests of cultivated people. Andover is attempting, as the last few years have shown, to present to the boys the leaders in every form of human interest.
MUSIC AMONG THE BOYS
Something has been said of the unusual opportunities at Phillips Academy to hear good music. The school also en- deavors to develop a love and understanding of such music by having the boys themselves perform it as well as hear it. The boys may study piano, organ, violin, and voice under competent instructors, a course in harmony is offered, and two prizes of fifty dollars each are awarded, one for playing the piano or organ, and one for playing orchestral instru- ments.
A well trained choir of seventy or eighty boys leads the singing in Chapel and undertakes some of the great musical compositions. They have recently sung in conjunction with the choir of Christ Church, Andover, Stainer's Lenten Cantata, The Crucifixion; with the Bradford Academy Choir Mendelssohn's Walpurgis Nacht and Bach's Sleepers Awake! for Night is Flying; and have appeared with the choir of Lasell Seminary at Jordan Hall in Boston. The Glee Club is not quite so ambitious, but still sings a program ranging from Gilbert and Sullivan to Bach, while the orchestra rehearses weekly and studies both classical and modern compositions.
The Academy supports also a well trained student band of forty pieces which gives occasional concerts and marches
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GEORGE WASHINGTON HALL The Administration Building
LIFE IN AN OLD NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL
and plays at the Exeter games with all the precision of its older brothers in the similar college organizations.
The Martha Cochran Memorial Organ in the Chapel is one of the finest instruments in the country, and the Me- morial Tower contains a carillon of thirty-seven bells upon which frequent recitals are played.
THE COMMONS
Among the recent notable additions to Andover's modern equipment is the new Commons, a dining hall as efficient and beautiful as science and architecture can make it. In this building the undergraduates take their meals. Nothing is more important in the life of a school boy than good food, scientifically planned, attractively prepared, and eaten in the midst of congenial surroundings. The Commons of Andover is bending every effort to realize this ideal. In order to keep the physical and intellectual fires burning at that low moment in the middle of the morning when lunch seems unbearably remote, the Com- mons also serves biscuits and milk daily at eleven o'clock.
The Commons contains four main dining rooms, one for each of the four classes. Each is a spacious, well lighted room of paneled oak or walnut, with walls decorated by portraits. The boys sit at tables in groups of twelve and are served by student waiters, scholarship boys earning their board in this way. In keeping with the theory that the best education is that which develops a boy's sense of re- sponsibility and independence, the faculty dine apart from the boys in a room of their own, which is distinguished by
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the Barry Faulkner murals of New England life adorning its walls.
HEALTH AND THE ISHAM INFIRMARY
Andover takes every precaution to safeguard and im- prove the health of its students. Soon after they arrive, students are given instruction in health hygiene, including advice on proper habits of diet, sleep, rest, and the avoid- ance of exposure and extreme fatigue. When a student falls ill, he reports at once to the Medical Adviser, who sends him to the Isham Infirmary for diagnosis and treatment. While convalescing, he must report to the doctor daily and not return to classes or athletics without his consent.
Two good doctors from the town of Andover take care of the usual infirmary cases. But, so near is Andover to Boston that within a little over an hour after a boy falls ill in Andover he may be in the hands of a Boston specialist, if necessary, at the best hospital in Boston. In cases of serious illness specialists are always consulted.
Parents are kept closely informed of the illnesses of their boy. When the disorder is trivial in nature, a letter is written to parents when the boy enters the infirmary and again when he is discharged. In more serious cases, parents are informed immediately by telephone or telegraph. As a consequence of these policies the health record of the school is excellent.
The Isham Infirmary is now in process of enlargement. A new wing of two stories extends south from the original building. In the basement of the addition are the kitchen,
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an emergency operating room, a laboratory, and an X-ray room. On the first floor are dining room for nurses, a kitchen- ette, eight bedrooms, and a sunparlor. The second floor has nine bedrooms and sunparlor. Bed rooms containing two beds each, are arranged en suite with bath, toilet, and lava- tory between each two rooms. Each bedroom is large enough to hold, in case of epidemic, three beds and each sun porch six. Changes in the original building to be made during the coming summer will provide quarters for the nurses, a contagious ward, and a convalescent ward. The Infirmary can give proper care to no fewer than one hun- dred boys.
PHYSICAL EXAMINATION AND TRAINING
The physical foundations for a vigorous life are care- fully laid at Andover. Upon entering the school all students are given a thorough examination, which serves as a guide to the type of physical development which each individual boy needs. Furthermore, in the fall each boy who is organically sound is asked to pass certain basic tests to insure a reasonable control of his body. These tests include the pole climb, the high jump, the half mile run, and the thigh flexion. Also, every Andover boy must be able to dive and to swim one hundred yards.
ORGANIZED ATHLETICS
After these tests have been passed, in order to stimulate athletic interest through friendly competition, all boys
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who are not on the squads of school teams are divided into four clubs, called the Greeks, the Romans, the Saxons, and the Gauls. These club teams compete against each other in each sport throughout the year. To realize the import- ance to the student of this inter-club competition one has only to see the spirit which animates these players in a keenly fought club football game on a crisp October afternoon or in a club track meet or baseball game in the spring.
Andover has, of course, the full quota of school sports and teams also, including as major sports football, base- ball, and track, and as minor sports hockey, basketball, swimming, soccer, tennis, golf, lacrosse, polo, fencing, and wrestling. Competition is provided by neighboring preparatory, high school, and college Freshmen teams. Andover's ancient and honorable rival for more than half a century on field and track is the Phillips Exeter Academy.
The athletic facilities at Andover are modern and com- plete. In addition to a gymnasium which contains a basket- ball floor, a fine swimming pool, and wrestling rooms, the school has a cage with dirt floor and glass roof for win- ter track and spring baseball, six football fields, six soccer fields, a quarter mile track, eight baseball fields, thirteen tennis courts, and a polo field. Full of beauty, too, is the natural setting of the playing fields, which are connected by luxuriant stretches of grass and banked by wooded hills.
To the activities of the Physical Department five men give almost their full time. Also, in order to relate closely the athletic life of the students to the whole educational program of the Academy, more than two score of the facul-
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ty participate in student athletics, either as coaches or referees or as members of faculty teams competing against the boys. From this sort of athletic comradeship springs the finest sort of relationship between teachers and boys.
Upon graduation few Andover boys are weaklings. And in addition to acquiring the physical basis for a vigorous mental life, they have gained, through competitive games, all that athletics have to teach of courage, fair play, co- operation, and sportsmanship.
THE PHILLIPS INN
In architecture and spirit the new Phillips Inn harmon- izes admirably with the general plan. Furnished in rare taste with fine colonial pieces and adorned with old en- gravings and Currier and Ives prints, it is one of the most beautiful inns in New England, a home in which guests of the school enjoy the spirit of the American past and present, the spirit which animates the Academy as a whole. Modern in equipment and in management, removed from noisy streets and yet intimately connected with the school, the Inn offers everything which a discriminating guest may desire. Recent reductions in prices place its comforts and luxuries within the reach of most visitors to Andover.
THE ALUMNI
The walls of the Meeting Room, the dining rooms in the Commons, and the Headmaster's office are covered with
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THE PHILLIPS INN
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portraits of distinguished Andoverians, the often austere countenances of the founders blending with the less ascetic faces of a later time,-a long array of the great and the near-great,-teachers, trustees, benefactors, and graduates. A school which has had nearly thirty thousand students could hardly help turning out some notabilities. Who's Who in America for 1920-21, according to a study made by Lawrence V. Roth, contained the names of 231 Andover alumni then living, including leaders in virtually every occupation or profession. Among the very earliest students were John Phillips, the first mayor of Boston, and Josiah Quincy, his successor in that office. Among the most eminent graduates were Samuel F. B. Morse and Oliver Wendell Holmes, one famous in science, the other in liter- ature, whose names have lately been attached to appropri- ate buildings on Andover Hill. Fuess's Men of Andover includes short biographies of other well-known alumni of the first part of the nineteenth century, including Nathan- iel P. Willis, President John T. Kirkland, of Harvard, President William A. Stearns, of Amherst, Joseph E. Worcester, the lexicographer, Robert Rantoul, Jr., the statesman, and Gustavus V. Fox. A second series of these Andover biographies is under preparation by Scott H. Paradise. A complete list of distinguished graduates would fill many pages.
In bygone times, a considerable proportion of the gradu- ates went into the ministry or into education. More recent- ly the percentage of business men and bankers has greatly increased. The roll of donors to the school includes many of the country's foremost financiers. But it also contains the
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THE MEMORIAL TOWER
LIFE IN AN OLD NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL
names of great soldiers and sailors, of artists and authors and musicians. Alumni associations have been formed in many of the large cities, and gatherings are frequently held. While the alumni do not interfere with the internal affairs of the school, they are always ready to support any forward movement and their aid has been mainly responsi- ble for the unprecedented advances of the twentieth century.
THE SPIRIT OF A GREAT SCHOOL
It is singularly difficult to find words which will des- cribe the spirit of Andover. Nearly everybody feels it as he strolls about the paths or comes to watch a football contest. Foreign headmasters have commented on the virile mas- culinity of the students, who seem more mature both physically and mentally than the average lad of school boy age. Somehow the place in term time is vibrant with vitali- ty. In every direction boys are to be seen either dashing from one appointment to another or walking and talking together in little groups. On winter evenings thousands of lights shine out from the dormitory windows across the snow, producing the effect of a small city. When the under- graduates depart for their vacations, the brick walls are devitalized. Only the sound of human voices and the tramp of human feet can make them revive.
The spirit of Andover is also associated with beauty,- the spread of gnarled and ancient oaks, the glimpse of water through the leaves, the lure of some far-stretching vista, the mystery concealed in some lilac planted corner, the
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gorgeousness of an October sunset. The charm of the Hill lies in the effective use of nature as a setting for man's art. The buildings are in themselves beautiful, but they are more beautiful because of their adjustment to their back- ground.
Perhaps in these progressive days the past ought not to be emphasized too much. On Andover Hill, however, romance is everywhere, mainly because of the past. To those who know where Washington and Roosevelt once stood, who are familiar with the legends and the traditions in which the place is steeped, its attractiveness is unmistakable. The essential spirit of a great school, while not always ex- plicable, has usually been derived from the deeds and words of the people who have been a part of it. We turn our eyes, as we ought to, in the direction of the future, but it must be a future evoked by what has preceded it. A new and nobler institution may be created at Andover, but only on sure and safe foundations. What Andover has done is a good guarantee of what it will do.
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PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE ANDOVER PRESS ANDOVER, MASS.
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