St. Mark's School

Infobox Secondary school
name = St Mark's School
motto = Age Quod Agis (Do What You Do)
established = 1865
type = Private High School, boarding
Headmaster = John Warren '74
students = 325 (2004–05)
city = Southborough
state = Massachusetts,
country = USA
campus = Suburban
colors = Blue and White
mascot = Winged Lion
newspaper = "The St. Marker"
literary magazine = "Vindex"
musical groups = "Jazz Band"
website = [http://www.stmarksschool.org/]

St. Mark’s School is a coeducational, Episcopal, preparatory school, situated on convert|250|acre|km2 in Southborough, Massachusetts, convert|25|mi|km from Boston. It was founded in 1865 as an all-boys' school by [http://www.southboroughhistory.org/joseph_burnett_life_and_legacy.htm Joseph Burnett] , a wealthy native of Southborough who developed and marketed the world-famous Burnett Vanilla Extract [http://www.southboroughhistory.org/History/Burnett%20Company/History_of_J_Burnett_Company.htm] . Girls have attended since the nineteen-seventies. St. Mark's is a member of the Independent School League, and the second-oldest of the five elite prep schools collectively termed "St. Grottlesex".

The school's 65 teachers lead 350 boarding and day students through a rigorous curriculum and a full program of co-curricular activities. Class size averages 10, with a student-faculty ratio of 5:1. Each department offers honors and advanced placement sections (numbering 24 in total, more than any other school in the Independent School League).

John Warren ’74, is currently headmaster.

History

Joseph Burnett, a wealthy resident of Southborough, founded St. Mark's in 1865, after Henry Coit of St. Paul's School of Concord, New Hampshire, told him that with six sons to educate, he would do well to found his own school, instead of sending them to St. Paul's.

Episcopalian St. Mark's is thus one of the earlier New England schools founded on the British model, as opposed to New England academies such as Phillips Andover Academy and Phillips Exeter Academy, both with roots nearly a century earlier. St. Mark's initial board of trustees was composed of members of many prominent Boston families, as well as many eminent Episcopal churchmen, and from the beginning the school attracted many members of Boston Brahmin and New York Knickerbocker families, as pointed out in a mention of the school in F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic first novel, "This Side of Paradise".

From the start, St. Mark's developed a reputation for rigorous academics and social exclusivity, a reputation that persists to this day, although the school has made enormous efforts to expand its diversity since World War II, and particularly since the 1960s.

Girls were first admitted in the 1970s.

Academics

Although St. Mark's has modernized its curriculum from the early days of almost total emphasis on Latin and Greek, the school still looks to its Latin motto as an inspiration for its mission of training future leaders. "Age Quod Agis" literally translates to "Do What You Do." A more contemporary translation might be: "Whatever you choose to do, do it well."

The scale on which this mission is carried out is considerably greater now than it was in the school’s first academic year. Initially, the school employed one faculty member and educated a dozen boys. The school now employs more than 60 faculty members and welcomes more than 330 students each fall. Students, boys and girls, come not only from New England but from around the world. Girls have been admitted since the 1970s, when the school reached an agreement for coordinated education with the nearby Southborough School, a newly founded institution for girls. In 1977 the Southborough School merged with St. Mark’s.

For the 2008 - 2009 academic year, according to Boarding School Review, St. Mark's accepted approximately one applicant in four, with a student body now evenly split between girls and boys. St. Mark's world language program is one of the nation's best, despite the school's small size, with 13 finalists in a nationwide French exam and five in German, according to St. Mark's website. The school plans to introduce Mandarin language classes during the 2009 - 2010 academic year. For the 2007 - 2008 academic year, the school newspaper, "The St. Marker" won an American Scholastic Press Association award for excellence. Seventy percent of St. Mark's students taking the AP tests in 2008 earned grades of 4 or 5, according to Headmaster John Warren in a September 2008 letter to the school community.

St. Mark’s remains academically focused, providing a rigorous liberal arts program stemming from a classical tradition, and prepares its students for entry to competitive colleges and universities. It is characterized by small classes, close student-teacher relationships, and a strong emphasis on the sporting life as a complement to the life of the mind. The recent completion of additional facilities for the arts and theater have greatly enhanced these possibilities on campus.

Curriculum

The St. Mark's curriculum follows a liberal arts tradition. An English course required every year of students. All students take the same English class their first three years, and choose from a selection of electives their final year. Mathematics is required up and until the level of Algebra II. Two years of laboratory science is required and one year of art and religion. In addition, one year of American history is required. Students take between 5 and 6 classes each year depending on the difficulty of the classes and their personal ambition. The St. Mark's Math Institute is one of the best high school math programs in the world, and the St. Mark's math club provides interested students with world-class opportunities to expand their understanding of mathematical thinking.

Programs

St. Mark's offers several unique programs to its students and others affiliated with the school. The programs are as follow:

* The Math Insititute
* The Summer Music Institute
* Electric Vehicle Engineering
* Visiting Poet Program

Facilities

for the title of Independent School League fives champions.

Thayer's coherent architectural vision of Gothic academia has survived to this day, and St. Mark's main campus structure has remained remarkably well-preserved. The school itself touts the "school under one roof" concept as a unique strength. It is certainly unusual. With the exception of St. Paul's School, the other St. Grottlesex schools and schools in the Independent School League built their campuses in architectural styles that mimicked the architectural vernacular and English colonial references of the Harvard University campus and the early New England academies.

St. Mark's late twentieth and early twenty-first century construction of an athletic center, a dormitory and a large performing arts center have led to some of the campus structures no longer being under a single roof.

How this close, cohesive architectural environment impacts student relations has not been formally studied. Sadly, during the construction of the performing arts center, another beloved facility--the fives courts mentioned by Nabokov--were razed. This effectively ceded to Groton School, the only other school in the independent school league with fives courts, the permanent title of North American Fives Champions.

Some interior shots of St. Mark's can be seen in the film "School Ties" (1992), which was filmed at Middlesex School and St. Mark's. Originally, the director wanted to use St. Mark's picturesque Tudor buildings as the primary film site; however, he was unable to get a permit from the local police station that would allow him to close off the street for filming. Thus he decided to use Middlesex School for exterior shots.

Athletics

St. Mark's has historically been strong at ice hockey, and a number of its alumni have gone on to careers in the National Hockey League. In 2007 - 2008, St. Mark's basketball team was the champion of New England and of course of the Independent School League. In addition to a seasonal outdoor swimming pool, an enclosed hockey rink, a cage, gymnasiums, and squash and tennis courts, St. Mark's has a nine hole golf course on campus.

St. Mark's traditional athletic rival is the younger Groton School. St. Mark's high school football rivalry since 1886 with the Groton School is one of the oldest athletic rivalries in the United States, following the Andover-Exeter rivalry. The two schools have met in regularly scheduled athletic contests for more than a century. (See the List of high school football rivalries for more information.)

Baseball's catcher's mask was first used in 1875 by a St. Marks School catcher. It was originally a fencing helmet he modified so as to protect his broken nose. A Harvard baseball player by the name of Fred Thayer was playing on the opposing team that day and by 1878 Thayer had gotten a patent on it.

chool profile

* School Endowment: $140 million

Notable and famous alumni

St. Mark's School has had numerous illustrious alumni and been well represented in the arts and letters. Poet Robert Lowell wrote for the school literary magazine while a student, as did Lost Generation literary figure Harry Crosby. Artist William Congdon began painting there. Henry Demarest Lloyd, a notable nineteenth century progressive and generally considered the father of investigative journalism, studied at St. Mark's. Journalism has historically been particularly well represented at the school, with a number of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists having begun their writing careers there. Former CBS news chief and the Nation editor Blair Clark, Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee, and most recently Motley Fool financial publisher David Gardner are alumni. The Forbes family of the Forbes Magazine publishing empire includes a number of St. Markers. The Pulitzer publishing family also counted generations of St. Mark's graduates, including Joseph Pulitzer III, who credited St. Mark's with awakening his appreciation of the arts. St. Markers have become senior Episcopal clergy and parish priests. The school has produced senators, representatives, governors, and senior diplomats, and of course St. Markers are heavily represented in academia, education, finance, the law, and business. Story Musgrave is a St. Marker who is now a retired astronaut. In recent years, a number of critics, actors, and artists who attended St. Mark's are now building their own legacies of achievement.

Notable faculty

*W. H. Auden, poet
*Kate Benson, novelist.
*Richard Eberhart, poet (1933 to 1941)
*Peter Glomset, Rhodes Scholar and Fulbright Scholar (2000 to Present)
*Laurie Lorant, a Melville scholar and author.
*Stephen Lynch, Andre Gide scholar and author.
*Robert Metcalfe, trustee and inventor of Ethernet
*William E. Peck, Founder of the Pomfret School in Pomfret, Connecticut
*James Tanton, renowned mathematic educator and popularizer; founder of the Math Institute. (2003 to Present)
*John Rowe Workman, distinguished classicist and later chair of Brown University Classics Department

Trivia

*Fay School was initially founded to be a feeder school to St. Mark's.
*William E. Peck founded the Pomfret School in Pomfret, Connecticut in 1894 after serving as head of St. Mark's.
*Discussed in "The Official Preppy Handbook" by Lisa Birnbach.
* St. Mark's was referred to in the Gilmore Girls episode titled "You've Been Gilmored". In it, one of the characters is mentioned to have been kicked out of Groton, St. Mark's, and Rivers.

References

External links

* [http://www.stmarksschool.org/ Official school website]
* [http://www.southboroughtown.com/ Town of Southborough official website]