Page 2 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 94, No. 1 Fall 2013

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A Question of Honor
What does it mean
to live honorably
in the St. Paul’s
School community?
In asking this
question at our
Fall Convocation,
I insisted that it is
not rhetorical. In many ways the answers are
deeply fundamental in the nature and to the
purpose of this school, and they need to be
sought earnestly and frequently.
We strive to live by a written standard here
– our Honor Code, which students developed
and adopted, and which reflects the grounding
virtues of honesty and respect. It is important,
I stressed that morning, to understand how those
virtues should extend throughout our lives here
together. To live honorably, as I wrote to parents
as the school year was beginning, means much
more than refusing to cheat or steal – the themes
of many school honor codes. To truly value each
other, to honor one another, despite differences,
despite disagreements, is to live fully into our
ideal of community at St. Paul’s School.
To honor one another. And to honor all others.
In an environment of the most intense academic
rigor and concentration on excellence in every
area, that kind of honor is not always a natural
inclination. But to remind ourselves of its
absolute centrality in our lives together is the
reason we gather in Chapel during the week
and pray that we may “be thoughtful of those
less happy than ourselves.” It is the purpose of
Seated Meal, of advisee dinners, of collabora-
tion in the classroom, on the stage and in the
laboratory, of membership on an athletic team.
I suggested that morning that we could move
noticeably closer to realizing our vast potential
as a community if we not only continually
examined what it means to live honorably, but
more importantly, if we recommitted to practic-
ing, actively practicing, living honorably on the
smallest scale in our daily lives.
A friend of mine told me recently, “To honor
a person is to bear witness to that person’s
story.” To look someone in the eye as you pass
each other on the grounds, to sit beside some-
one you’ve never spoken with before and
introduce yourself, to pay attention to some-
one else’s unhappiness, to someone else’s story.
To listen.
This is the source of our strength and of our
deepest learning.
Michael G. Hirschfeld ’85
PETER FINGER
RECTOR