Lost: Grace under Pressure
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 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
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
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,...
Noblesse Oblige: the Minister and the Rainmaker
The Very Rev. Francis B. Sayre, Jr. ‘32, longtime Dean of the National Cathedral (1951-1978) and one of the first recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Award (1962), entered the School in 1925.
Mrs. Atkins, Beloved Benefactor and Citizen Extraordinaire
On the occasion of her 80th birthday in 1940, Mrs. Atkins received from the citizens of Belmont the following tribute (H.A. Claflin, A New England Family.
Spike Downes, faculty original
In the fall of 1950, the first alumni sons entered the School: Bill Elwell ‘54, son of William P. Elwell ‘27, in Form II and yours truly in grade 5. By then, there remained only three teachers who had served under Dr. Howe: Finch Keller, Charlie Jenney and Angelo...
Dr. Howe, on faculty
In 1930 an article by Dr. Howe entitled “Will vs. Brains as Assets to Education” appeared in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin (Dec. 18, 1930). The main focus of the article, as the title suggests, was on students, but its key message addressed how to develop in them good character and common sense.
Bill Barker, first Director of the Lower School
Dr. and Mrs. Howe were married in the fall of 1904. Mrs. Howe’s father had died the previous year, and the youngest of her six siblings, William Torrey Barker, Jr., was not yet ten.
Naming of Howe House
The Melvoin Building that now houses the Middle School replaced the Howe Building, which opened in the fall of 1957 but after a half century of service proved of a design and construction type that no longer permitted rehabilitation in a manner consistent with the...