The Headmasters Papers (21 page)

Mathematics

Florence—

By all means—as before?

J.O.G.

25 February

Mr. William Truax
President, The Fiduciary Trust Company
P.O. Box 121
New Haven, Connecticut

Dear Bill,

I am as impressed with the currency of your information about recent Wells developments as I am disturbed about the substance of your letter.

I am as surprised by the Seven Schools decision as you are. I am sorry you had to learn about it through scuttlebutt instead of from me. My plan was to get Dewey Porter at Seven Schools to elaborate the situation further (my letter enclosed) and then pose some alternative responses to the board. As you will not fail to detect in my letter to Dewey, I think the decision stinks. It was concocted in the dark, and there's no principle in it.

All is not necessarily lost. We can:

1.  Tough it out. Rescheduling the seasons without our Seven Schools rivals will be a monumental task, given our relative isolation, and given the time of year, but if we make a project out of it, we can do it. Two things are in our favor here: (1) Dave Tomasek's stock is very high in the area and in the state, other A.D.s will do him favors, and (2) we have a principle; some schools will appreciate this, and we might even find ourselves with new friends and the subject of a feature story or two. This alternative involves the most risk and the most unknowns, but there is some element of goodness in it.

2.  Bide our time and urge Seven Schools to equivocate. They don't want to reschedule either, for the same reasons we don't. Only St. I.'s is really out of joint about this. If enough discomfort and inconvenience surface in the near future, I suspect Dewey could get St. I.'s to put together some sort of not-too-cringing acknowledgement of last fall's fiasco. I've phoned all but one of the other heads, and nobody is passionate about expelling us—seem even a little embarrassed about the whole thing. They should. This is the political solution. It is easiest, but the outcome is not certain, and it could cost us valuable time.

3.  Slink back on the terms suggested. This would involve cancelling those games and matches already made that might conflict with St. I.'s contests. This is very poor form and reflects badly on Tomasek and the school. Filling St. I.'s into the cracks of existing schedules causes other problems and expenses; we are only budgeted for what we already have. This solution's only merit is convenience. It affirms foul play at one level and power plays at another. There is nothing good in it. Our faculty could probably live with it. I couldn't and wouldn't. How about you?

Your second and third concerns trouble me even more. I am sorry that my December-January absence delayed the Stone-suit proceedings, but I think it's madness to make any kind of settlement with her out of court. Not only, as in the St. I.'s business, would a poor principle—
no
 principle—be served, it would set a really destructive precedent for our disciplinary process, which happens to be an unusually fine one. Perhaps I should phone Seymour myself, but I cannot imagine Mrs. Stone really wants this litigation. I'm sure she would slink away if she were sure we were ready to go to court. If we do go to court, we will certainly win. As I understand it, and I have taken some pains to understand it, all we are obligated to do as a private institution is to carry out whatever disciplinary process we say we carry out. We certainly did this with Charles Stone and the other litigants. We don't do our fellow schools any favors by running away from this confrontation. So let's not. If, as you fear, the case
generates publicity in the northeast, it will be publicity about a school 
taking a stand
 on the right side of an issue that bothers most parents. This would help rather than hurt us in the long run.

I am bothered most by the 
basis
 of your concern about the Stone business. I don't like your implication that things are going to smash here because of “a drug mess, a drowning, a serious athletic squabble, an increasingly doubtful admissions picture, and so on.” “And so on”? Those incidents, although sad in themselves, are absolutely typical of what happens in schools, including great schools. A good school isn't good because there are no incidents; it is good because of the way it responds to them. Without distorting the facts, I could make any year at Wells look worse than this one. The flack you've been getting from “a number of alumni” is left over from a flat, half-assed alumni weekend we had earlier this month in the February Gloom. I wasn't quite back in the saddle then, and we botched it. See who among your complainants feels the same way after commencement.

Two points of substance before closing. (1) I haven't forgotten “Wells: Ten Years and After.” Wish I could. (2) Back to the Stone business, please urge Seymour and others not to back off from the confrontation.

You asked me, with respect to school policy, if it would matter too much if I curtailed the practice of announcing and discussing major disciplinary results before the school. Seymour told me in the fall the precedent has recently gone against this practice as defamatory to students and their families. This is bad legal precedent and betokens only poor legal work on behalf of some schools' lawyers. The most positive consequence of any discipline decision in a school is processing it out through the school community. You share it. You make it part of the students' collective experience. In this way preposterous rumors are squelched, and some actual moral lessons are learned. You tell the students all about what happened and why, because you are not ashamed about what you have done and so that the event can be an occasion for learning. No good school can do otherwise. This tradition has served us well for decades. Should it buckle for the likes of Mrs. Stone? Don't ask me to practice bad medicine for bad reasons.

Faithfully,

John

P.S. Could you get me some sort of board consensus on the Seven Schools decision when it is convenient?

J.

26 February

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Greeve

14 Bingham Drive

Tarrytown, New York

Dear Val and Frank,

Thanks very much for your nice offer to have me come down there and relax for a weekend. For what sense it makes, I don't have enough energy to gear up for a weekend of relaxation. Nor, I'm afraid, the time.

If the truth be known, things are not quite going smoothly here. We're getting thrown out of our athletic league for good sportsmanship, we are being taken to court for practicing consistent discipline, and I have just received a long, passionate letter from a man from Jersey Standard who says I need to learn about the real world.

This is a depressing time of year, extra depressing due to school circumstances, extra depressing due to personal circumstances. Everywhere I look I see mess.

I have no business writing in this mood.

Another weekend?

Write and tell me about Hugh, Jill, summer plans?

Love,

John

28 February

MEMO

To: Tim Spires

Hallowell House

Tim:

All we need!

Why not give the boy one more chance, alone, with you, to say where he got the stuff and who else at Wells was involved. Although it all sounds relatively straightforward to me, please write down a thorough account of how you found him and his explanation for what he did, etc. When your are finished with him, bring him to me.

Extra effort much appreciated.

J.O.G.

28 February

MEMO

To: Phil Upjohn

Director of Studies

Phil-

Tim Spires walked in on a Hallowell Boy, David Weisman, smoking pot in his room. He's worked him over pretty thoroughly, and in an hour we'll know about all we're going to know about it. Would you please assemble the Student Court and the Faculty Discipline Committee. They ought to meet at their earliest convenience, tonight if possible. I will see to isolating the boy and calling his parents.

Wonderful timing eh?

J.O.G.

28 February

Midnight

Mr. Jake Levin

R.D. 3

Petersfield, New Hampshire

Dear Jake,

Good to get your letter. Sorry to have been so long out of touch, but things have been a little crazy here since I got back.

It's a little strange, actually. The problems have been quite ordinary, which is not to say unimportant, school problems, but for some reason they won't be resolved. Even when the right answer is obvious—at least obvious to me—it seems impossible to get a consensus, to act. That of course sounds vague, but I'd have to tell you too much more to make it any less so.

I have spent the earlier part of this evening interviewing a boy who was caught smoking pot in his room, after which I had the unsettling experience of talking to the boy's parents, both on the line at once, two of the most wretched-sounding people I have ever encountered.

I must be losing my heart for this work.

The first annoyance was my realization, when the boy was led into my study, that I didn't know him, that although we are a self-professed intimate community (our catalogue says so), I could not recall ever having laid eyes on this boy before. If I had I would like to think I would not have allowed him to enroll. The overall impression was somehow assignably canine. There was a lot of nose and chin and closely set dark eyes. He slouched when he stood, slumped when he sat, avoided looking at me. His attitude may have been surly or it may have been his natural way of expressing unease. Perhaps it was the pot. He was guileless in a way that made me wish he had guile. Yeah, he said, I was smokin'. Yeah, he said, I know the rules. Yeah, he said, I thought about getting caught. I smoke pot, he said. I like it. Only then did he look directly at me, a look that was not quite defiant, but was at least detectably sure of itself. When I asked him where he got his pot, he told me: I found it around somewhere. Where? Around somewhere—outside. When I asked if he smoked with anybody else, he said no, never. He lied in the same flat, thick manner in which he told the truth. He was impervious to intimidation, also to instruction, also to inspiration. And the worst of it is that I didn't feel the slightest bit moved to try to intimidate, instruct, or inspire him. Although that is my professional duty. I sent him to the outer office and went through his file. He is a fourth former, entered as a third former. He had C's in his local middle school, where his guidance counselor noted that he was a good citizen who responded well to encouragement. Our admissions officer wrote: “seemed uncomfortable in interview, parents very aggressive, stressed how many other good schools were on their itinerary.” Testing: top of bottom third independent school norms; derived I.Q. 118. Grades at Wells: 60-70 in all subjects except Spanish, which he fails each term. Activities: went out for third-form football, was a back-up lineman, a reluctant practicer, quit mid-season claiming injuries. Discipline: quartered for smoking cigarettes last winter; minor discipline for failing to complete dining-hall assignments, Student Court for mauling, with others, a new third former this past fall. Expended to date at Wells: $14,000. Attainments: none.

I called the boy back in and made him sit down and sit up, directly in front of me. I looked dead into his pot-bleary eyes and said: I don't think this is going to sink in, but I'm going to tell you anyway. The reason we have strict rules against pot and other drugs is that they have taken boys we know on a one-way path to poor effort, poor performance, and bad, deep personal problems. This is not something we saw in a magazine. This is what happened to boys we know—to our school. It even happened to a boy in my family. You have not done anything special at Wells. You have been a weak student, and there are signs that you are getting weaker. You participate in very little, and you avoid assigned work. You cut corners. You disregard rules without much thought. You are doing a bad job. You are not growing up, except physically, and you are smoking pot. You smoke pot, and you like smoking pot. You like to smoke pot, and you are doing a bad job. Stop doing it. Stop doing it now.

I wished I were his father so I could have slapped him across his doggy face and shaken him till he cried. He waited me out.

They are all waiting me out, Jake.

Good night,

John

28 February

Mr. Dwight Nimroth

Editor, 
Poetry Magazine

1665 Dearborn Parkway

Chicago, Illinois

Dear Mr. Nimroth,

I have enclosed a poem, “Lesson,” for your consideration.

I don't know if you require background information from contributors, but for whatever interest it provides: I am a schoolmaster and have published several poems and some criticism in magazines, newspapers and literary journals.

My good wishes,

John Oberon Greeve

LESSON

I have held you after class.

I have brought you to this dark place

Of my books and bachelorhood not to bore you