Page 21 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 3 Spring 2013

Near the end of his life, Shattuck reflected that in his
blueprint for St. Paul’s, he hoped in part to replicate the
short-lived Round Hill School in Northampton, Mass.,
where he had received his early education. There were
significant differences between the two schools, however.
Round Hill had been founded by two young Harvard
graduates who hoped to create a school imbued with the
spirit of German romanticism. Round Hill shared with
St. Paul’s a “wild” setting, dominated by the beauty and
power of nature. But at Round Hill, moral development
was a parenthesis in an academic curriculum which in
its rigor far surpassed anything that St. Paul’s would
offer in the 19th century. When Coit was granted a well-
deserved sabbatical in 1868, Shattuck arranged for him
to visit English public schools. It was there that he would
find his models, as the early appearance of cricket and
crew as “acceptable” sports at St. Paul’s suggests.
Round Hill and St. Paul’s shared another common attri-
bute: exclusivity. Established in the fourth decade of the
American republic, Round Hill sought to educate the
sons of wealthy Americans from north and south who
would inevitably assume positions of leadership in the
young nation. The earliest students at St. Paul’s tended
to be the sons of Episcopalians sympathetic to the Cath-
olic movement. The degree to which St. Paul’s was identi-
fied in the public imagination with the “high church” can
be seen by the foundation of Groton in 1884 as a “low-
church” alternative. At St. Paul’s, there was the occasional
“poor boy” (John Hargate is an example) or the needy
clergyman’s son. But these special cases were paid for
by the generosity of individuals, not infrequently George
Shattuck. The overwhelming majority of St. Paul’s students
were the products of wealthy families and, as new for-
tunes were made through the post-Civil War industrial-
ization of America, extremely wealthy families. This was
the reality that Coit faced as he built his Episcopal school.
The chapel that was built two years after the School’s
founding was a central component in its Episcopal identity.
It was to the Chapel that the School repaired twice daily
and three times on Sunday. At intervals, every boy in
the School was required to publicly answer questions
from the catechism. At the appropriate age, all were con-
firmed. In the early years of St. Paul’s, all of the masters
were unmarried clergy.
Within this ecclesiastical framework, Coit and his col-
leagues conducted their ministry, an essential component
of which was inducing the sons of wealth to lead respon-
sible, charitable lives. The accommodations of the stu-
dents were simple, absent of the luxuries they might have
enjoyed at home. Charity and the promotion of charitable
institutions were essential elements of the Catholic move-
ment. In turning to medieval models, Newman and his
colleagues had seen the church and especially its religious
houses as the primary vehicles for charity. In an industrial
age in which government had not yet assumed the role
of provider, the medieval model assumed new relevance.
The Missionary Society was the School’s first “extracur-
ricular activity,” and its motto, non nobis sed aliis (“not
for ourselves but for others”), encapsulates the challenge
Coit confronted: How could boys who were complacent
with their lot be persuaded to use their resources to
better the lot of others?
Coit’s ambitions for his school resonate in the familiar
words of the School Prayer, which urges kindness, un-
selfishness, and an eagerness to “bear the burdens of
others.” The prayer invites us to imagine its opposite: a
world of sadness, cruelty, opportunistic and self-serving
friendship, a world uncaring about the misery of others.
This world bears an uncanny resemblance to those por-
trayed by Charles Dickens, Theodore Dreiser, and Frank
Norris, places of economic exploitation and inequality of
opportunity. These were the worlds in which Coit asked
St. Paul’s students to make a difference.
The 19th-century St. Paul’s did not insulate itself
from “those less happy than ourselves.” In the Civil
War, many young New Hampshire fathers had died.
Immediately after the war, an orphanage was built near
Dunbarton Road. Every Sunday, the orphans trooped
into Chapel, a tangible reminder of the needs of the
world beyond Millville. In addition to their duties at
St. Paul’s, Coit and his colleagues served in the Episco-
pal parishes of the neighboring towns, Hopkinton and
Dunbarton, which were then rural New Hampshire
farming communities. Millville was less inward looking
than might be supposed.
In 1888, the “new” Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul was
dedicated. It was, in today’s parlance, a “signature” build-
ing, the acknowledged masterpiece of its architect, Henry
Vaughan. The new Chapel furnished a majestic space
suited to pomp and ceremony. But it lacked the sacramen-
tal intimacy that had characterized the School’s religious
life. In numbers, the student body had outgrown the
Old Chapel. Had it also outgrown the spirituality that
Henry Augustus Coit sought to instill? Had a St. Paul’s
diploma become just another claim to membership in a
self-constructed social hierarchy? The flame that had
burned brightly in 1856 was beginning to flicker. Within
seven years of the new Chapel’s dedication, both
Shattuck the architect and Coit the builder were dead.
George Shattuck once famously wrote about the
natural setting of St. Paul’s: “Green fields and trees,
streams and ponds, beautiful scenery, flowers and
minerals are educators.” His words have been inter-
preted by some as exhortation from a man of science
about the importance of studying nature. But Shattuck
adds more: “The things that are seen are very valuable,
and may be used to teach of Him who made them, and
thus of the things unseen.” John Henry Newman once
wrote: “In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below
to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed
often.” As the 19th century drew to a close, the identity
of St. Paul’s as an Episcopal school was changing. The
green fields and trees, streams and ponds remained,
their message awaiting new voices. 19