Golden Sextant

Lost: Grace under Pressure

by | Jan 24, 2023 | Belmont Hill, homepage

Textual analysis of the “Per Aspera ad Astra” (through adversity to the stars) letter does not give the full story concerning the bell’s removal, which was precipitated in haste in response to new student demands presented in the wake of the George Floyd incident and while the School’s campus was rather isolated from its larger community by the pandemic…

For Whom the Bell Tolled

by | Jan 20, 2023 | Belmont Hill, homepage

By a letter dated August 11, 2020, to the Belmont Hill Community under the heading “Per Aspera ad Astra” (through adversity to the stars), Jon Biotti, President of the Board of Trustees, and Greg Schneider, Head of School, announced the removal of the Belmont Hill bell from the campus…

The Belmont Hill Bell

by | Jan 19, 2023 | Belmont Hill, homepage

My father recorded the arrival of the Belmont Hill bell (Memories, p. 17):
“It was also in either the second or third year of the school that the big bell near Bolles arrived. Mrs. Atkins arranged to have it shipped…

The Original Bell: Class D, Mr. D and Me

by | Oct 30, 2022 | Belmont Hill, homepage

During the era of the Lower School, the seventh grade (now the First Form) was called Class D. Befitting the most senior class in the Lower School, its members were the only students permitted to use the main steps to the new building, which opened in February 1946,...