8
MEMORIES
Former faculty member Richard Lederer wrote about Bill
Oates upon the Rector’s retirement in 1982, paying homage
to 40 years of dutiful service on the SPS faculty and lead-
ing vision in his 12 years as Rector. Mr. Lederer’s words
remain true today, as we remember Bill Oates, who died
on January 10, 2015, at the age of 98.
[Excerpted from
Alumni Horae
, Summer 1982.]
Bill Oates has always been lavish in praising others and
a bit shy and embarrassed when others praise him. There-
fore, in expressing the appreciation of a grateful School
for Bill’s 40 years of service and 12 years as Rector, I shall
begin by talking about another educator and, perhaps,
through indirection find direction out.
Once there was a fellow who decided that he wanted
to become a headmaster by starting his own school.
He published an impressively appointed catalogue that
proclaimed how deeply he loved children and how much
individual attention each student in his school would
receive. Then he set about supervising the building of
the school.
Every day he would go to the campus to watch the con-
struction of the buildings and the landscaping of the
grounds. Finally, all was completed
except for the laying of a long ce-
ment path that ran through the
center of the plant.
The masons applied the
cement, and the path
lay glistening in the
sunshine. Just as it
was beginning to dry,
a car pulled up to the
curb, and out jumped an
Remembering Bill Oates
(1916–2015)
excited little boy, apparently a prospective student, who
squealed with delight and scampered down the path,
splattering cement all over the lawn.
The headmaster started to quiver, grabbed hold of the
boy, and began beating him over the head. At this point,
the boy’s mother stormed out of the car, huffed up to the
headmaster, and complained, “My dear sir, your catalogue
boasts about how much you love children, yet here you
are beating up my son! How do you explain that?”
Replied the headmaster: “My dear madam, I may love
children in the abstract, but not in the concrete.”
Bill Oates loved children not only in the abstract, but
also in the concrete, even if that love meant that they
would often splatter cement or music or paint or dance
on the lawns. Bill Oates knew that during his rectorship
St. Paul’s School would educate the first generation of
students in history who would live the majority of their
lives in the 21st century. He knew that such a prospect
required the richest of curricula, at the center of which
was man, the creator of religious myths and symbols;
mathematical, scientific, and linguistic concepts; histor-
ical, social, and psychological systems; and visual and
aural beauty and order from the swirl of life.
Bill also knew that an education from the neck up was
but half an education. He realized that if you close down
your heart, your mind cannot stay open for very long.
From the center of his rectorship shone the light of Paul’s
statement in his First Letter to the Corinthians, which
Bill quoted in Chapel on several occasions:
In his January 8, 1978, Chapel
talk, Bill clarified Paul’s mes-
sage by saying, “Paul is stating
that love must be present
