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Groton School is a private, Episcopal, college preparatory boarding school located in Groton, Massachusettsmarker, U.S.marker It enrolls approximately 350 boys and girls, from the eighth through twelfth grades. For decades Groton was a portal to power whose graduates trod a well-worn path to the State Department and the C.I.A. [45724] But today, while the idea of service is still paramount, students give back in more personal, less political ways[45725].

The school is a member of the Independent School League and is one of the schools collectively known as St. Grottlesex, a term that refers to several American boarding schools in New England. In late 2007, the Wall Street Journal listed Groton School as one of the world's top 50 schools for its success in preparing students to enter top American universities.

History

Groton School was founded in 1884 by the Rev. Endicott Peabody, a member of a prominent Massachusetts family and an Episcopal clergyman. The land for the school was donated to Peabody by two brothers, James and Prescott Lawrence, whose family home was located on Farmers Row in Groton, Massachusetts, north of Groton School's present location. Backed by affluent figures of the time, such as the Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, the Rev. William Lawrence, William Crowninshield Endicott, J.P. Morgan, and his father, Samuel Endicott Peabody, Peabody received pledges of $39,000 for the construction of a schoolhouse, if an additional $40,000 could be raised as an endowment. (According to the school's 2006 calendar year tax returns, the endowment is worth over $368,000,000 today.)

Peabody served as headmaster of the school for over fifty years, until his retirement in 1940. He instituted a Spartanmarker educational system that included cold showers and cubicles, suscribing to the model of "muscular Christianity" which he himself experienced at Cheltenham Collegemarker in England as a boy. Peabody hoped to graduate men who would serve the public good, rather than enter professional life. The school's motto, "Cui Servire Est Regnare," taken from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, translates roughly as "Whose service is perfect freedom." and literally as "To serve him [God] means to rule.", stressing the social goals of its founder.

The Rev. Endicott Peabody was succeeded at the end of the 1940 school year by the Rev. John Crocker, who had been for 10 years the chaplain for Episcopal students at Princeton Universitymarker. He himself was a 1918 graduate of Groton School; 15 members of his family were alumni. During his tenure as headmaster at Groton School, the Rev. John Crocker was known for his courageous viewpoints. In September 1951, three years before the Supreme Courtmarker's Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation in public schools, Groton School accepted its first African-American student. In April 1965 he and his wife, accompanied by 75 Groton School students, marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during a civil rights demonstration in Boston. After 25 years as headmaster at Groton School, he retired in June 1965.

Groton School has changed significantly over the past 123 years. Originally, it admitted only boys; the school became coeducational in 1975. Although most students in the early years were from New England and New York, its students now come from across the country and around the world. However, some traditions remain, such as handshakes to end the day, the school's commitment to public service, its small community, and its attachment to the Episcopal Church.

The school has been used as a setting for several novels including Louis Auchincloss' Rector of Justin (1964) and Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep (2005). Media coverage of the school came in the spring of 1999, when three Groton seniors alleged that they and other students had been sexually abused by students in dormitories in 1996 and 1997. During the school's investigation of the matter, another student brought a similar complaint to the school's attention. [45726] In 2005, the school pled guilty in criminal court to a misdemeanor charge of failing to report this younger student's sexual abuse complaint to the state and paid a $1,250 fine. The school issued an apology to the victims, and the civil suit stemming from the first student's complaint was settled out of court. [45727]

Currently, Groton is one of three secondary boarding schools in the country to offer free education to qualified students from families with household incomes below $75,000 a year.[45728]

Campus

Side view of the Schoolhouse, the main academic building where classes are held.
Groton's campus encompasses rolling forests, expansive meadows, a portion of the Nashua river, and various athletic fields, as well as academic buildings and dormitories. Most of the buildings on campus are situated around the Circle, which is the School's common green shaped like a circle. Tradition prohibits students from crossing the Circle to reach the opposite side of the campus. The School's buildings include St. John's Chapel, the Schoolhouse, Brooks House and Hundred House Dormitories, the McCormick Library (approximately 60,000 volumes and over 100 periodicals), the Campbell Performing Arts Center, the Dining Hall, the Dillon Art Center and De Menil Gallery. Other facilities include the Alumni House, New Athletic and Recreation Center, Pratt and O'Brien Rinks and Tennis Center, the Bingham Boathouse, outdoor tennis clay courts and hardcourts, and many faculty homes. The landscape was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who is noted for his design of Central Parkmarker in New York City and various other academic institutions.

Students

The students are divided into forms ranging from Second form to Sixth form (8th to 12th grade). Second and third formers live in Brooks House, part of Lower School, with their prefects; fourth, fifth, and the remaining sixth formers live in Hundred House, also known as Upper School, and in two dorms in Lower School. Each dorm has 2-6 prefects, and is headed and named after a faculty member who has an apartment that is connected to the dorm.

In the 2007-2008 school year there are 355 students, 172 boys and 183 girls; 313 boarders and 42 day students and faculty/staff children. A breakdown by Forms is as follows: Second Form (8th grade) - 35; Third Form (9th grade)- 70; Fourth Form (10th grade)- 87; Fifth Form (11th grade)- 77; Sixth Form (12th grade)- 86. At the start of the 2009 school year, there were 372 students enrolled.

In 2007, the median SAT I scores were 690 reading, 700 writing, and 690 math. Between 2003 and 2007, Groton graduates attended the following nine colleges most frequently (in order): Harvard Universitymarker, Georgetown Universitymarker, Brown Universitymarker, Trinity Collegemarker, Princeton Universitymarker, University of Edinburgh, Yale Universitymarker, Vanderbilt Universitymarker, and Tufts Universitymarker.

Traditions

The Groton School Rasterbation
Groton is an intimate community as 90% of students are boarders and most teachers live on campus in dorms or faculty housing. Classes are small, ranging from 12-14 students. There are regularly scheduled sit-down dinners during fall term and during spring term; at sit-down dinner, faculty and students dress up formally and sit down for a proper 45 minute dinner and are served by students assigned as waiters. On the school's birthday in the fall, sit-down dinner features a jolly singing of "Blue Bottles" (the tune is similar to "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"). At the request of the VIth form, the members of which yell "We want blue bottles!", the Vth form gathers at the entrance to the dining hall and, under the conductorship of the youngest faculty alumnus who sets the tempo of the song by swinging a large carving knife back and forth, counts down the age of the school. Following Thursday evening sit-down dinners, many students and faculty gather in the Webb-Marshall Room below the dining hall for an intramural debate featuring members of the school's Debating Society — Groton's oldest extracurricular organization. These debates also feature the Triple Speak, a fun and lighthearted extemporaneous speech during which the speaker must address at first only a single random word, but then incorporate a second and, finally, a third random word, which are announced during the speech.

On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, the Groton community begins the day with chapel, which is followed by Roll Call. Originally intended for taking attendance, Roll Call is now a general assembly where daily announcements are made. Led by one of the school's four Senior Prefects, the Brooks House Prefect, or the Hundred House Prefect (all of whom are members of the VIth Form and are elected by their peers), Roll Call usually features both clever and entertaining skits and serious announcements. Once a term, the Headmaster calls off class and announces a Surprise Holiday. Surprise Holiday is announced at Roll Call by the appearance of a bright green jacket, usually integrated into a skit. A particularly memorable announcement was when, one fall, a helicopter landed in the middle of the circle, from which three triumphant VIth formers marched out (one wearing the green jacket). On a day near the end of the year, the VIth form collectively will conduct a filibuster during Roll Call, causing the meeting to run well into (and sometimes right through) first period. However, since the installment of the current headmaster, the administration has been less lenient and the filibuster seems to be a dying tradition. The class of 2009 revived this tradition to some extent by holding an hour and forty five minute long filibuster through second period on Monday, May 18, 2009.

One of the most notable of the school's traditions is hand-shaking. Each day at Groton concludes with students shaking hands with their dorm heads and prefects. As part of the school's Prize Day (commencement) proceedings, every member of the VIth form shakes hands with both the entire faculty and all underclassmen. After examinations, a similar ritual takes place as all underclassmen shake hands with the faculty before leaving for summer vacation.

The school holds an annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols similar to the famous one held yearly at King's Collegemarker at Cambridge Universitymarker in Englandmarker. Groton's service, which dates to the 1930s, is only a few years younger than the one in Cambridge.

Groton's two most notable publications are The Circle Voice and The Grotonian. The Circle Voice is the student newspaper and publishes three times a term. The Grotonian is a literary magazine which publishes once a term.

Groton also has a long tradition of pranks, most notably the unveiling of the world's largest tiled poster on the chapel [45729] and some culture of "roofing". The Schoolhouse building used to have a secret room called the Shoe Room, where it is rumored a young FDR, among others, left a shoe.

Groton has long upheld a very intense, often bitter rivalry with St. Mark's School, a competitor in its sports league.

Sports

  • Fall
    • Boys: Soccer, Football, and Cross Country
    • Girls: Soccer, Cross Country, and Field Hockey


  • Winter
    • Boys: Squash, basketball, swimming, and ice hockey
    • Girls: Squash, basketball, swimming, and ice hockey


  • Spring
    • Boys: Crew, track, tennis, lacrosse, and baseball
    • Girls: Crew, track, tennis, and lacrosse


Groton School is a member of the Independent School League,which has sixteen member schools, but it also competes with schools outside of the league. Groton's traditional athletic rival is St. Mark's School. At Groton, the day the two schools meet in athletic competition each term is called St. Mark's Day.

School Hymn

Written by Phillips Brooks

Father of all below, above,Whose Name is Light, Whose Name is Love,Here be Thy truth and goodness known,And make these fields and halls Thine own.

Thy temple gates stand open wide;O Christ, we enter at Thy side,With Thee to consecrate our pow'rs,And make our Father's business ours.

For days of drought which yet shall be,On untrod land, on unsail'd sea,We kneel and fill our cup of youthAt these fair fountains of Thy truth.

O world, all bright and brave and young,With deeds unwrought and songs unsung,For all the strength Thy task will giveWe greet Thee, we, about to live.

Father, Thy children bless the careWhich shed Thy sunlight ev'rywhere,Shine on our school and let us beTeachers and scholars taught by Thee.


Notable alumni

Notable alumni of Groton School include:

References

Other sources

  • Ashburn, Frank D., Peabody of Groton, Coward McCann, Inc., New York, 1944.
  • Hoyt, Edwin P., The Peabody Influence, Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1968.
  • Fenton, John H., "Groton Headmaster Ends 25-Year Tenure," New York Times, June 13, 1965, p. 80.


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