Humane Doctor

In front of the headmaster's quarters in Hundred House one day last week Dr. Endicott Peabody stepped into his limousine, rode out through the gates of Groton School. In similar fashion, dozens of times each year, "The Rector" starts out for New York and Boston to marry old Groton boys. This time he was bound for Albany where, next evening, he was guest of honor at the 71st convocation of the University of the State of New York.

The University of the State of New York has neither campus nor faculty nor students. It consists entirely of a Board of Regents who administer the State's educational system, set the Regents Examinations, second in stiffness only to those of the College Entrance Board. But, being a chartered university, it also cherishes certain prerogatives. Among these are to dress up, make speeches, award honorary degrees. Last week President Frank Pierrepont Graves presented Dr. Peabody with the year's only degree, an L. H. D. (Doctor of Humanities).

Up then rose President William Mather Lewis of Lafayette College to speak on ''The Contribution of the Secondary School to a Better Social Order." To some, this seemed a sour subject to bring up in the presence of the headmaster of a school so closely identified with the existing social order. Fears were set at rest when President Lewis began listing the evils of secondary education: "The use of correct, trenchant and beautiful English among the graduates of our secondary schools is so rare as to attract surprised attention. Manners are poor, the courtesies of an early day are classified as Victorian and are therefore discarded. It is considered smart to appear uncouth. Lawlessness is on the increase. Political indifference has increased. Spiritual ideals have become less evident."

Thus by indirection Dr. Lewis told off some notable Groton virtues. Groton boys use good English, so good that six have received 100% on the College Board Examination. Their manners are flawless. They are never uncouth. They obey all the major laws. Their record as public servants is unique among swank schools. And if spiritual ideals are less evident, that is no fault of Endicott Peabody's.

Though they call him "Peabo" behind his back, most "Grotties" consider their Rector the awesome model of a fine New England gentleman. No U.S. headmaster has called forth more reverent tributes. Sample: '"As long as I live his influence will mean more to me than that of any other people next to my father and mother."--Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1900.

Endicott Peabody was 27 when, with two Boston friends, Sherrard Billings and William Amory Gardner, he founded Groton. Born in Salem, he had spent his own school and university days at Cheltenham and Cambridge in England where his father was a partner in the British branch of the House of Morgan. Returning to the U. S., he studied theology, became an Episcopal deacon (later priest) and built the first school building, Brooks House, in the little town of Groton, 45 miles from Boston.

From the English public schools Dr. Peabody borrowed much. Groton boys wear stiff white collars at dinner and blue suits on Sunday. They play "fives," a game vaguely like handball which originated at Eton. They have some say in choosing from their number a senior prefect who, with half a dozen ordinary prefects to help him, exercises disciplinary authority over the whole school. They live in "cubicles." small curtained cells, until they reach the upper forms, when they also get studies. At all times they are closely supervised and when they go home for vacations they are told what a terrible thing it is to disgrace the name of Groton.

Dr. Peabody has made no bones about Groton's being a school for the upper class. Among this class Groton found early favor. To it went Higginsons, Whitneys, Harrimans. Rogerses, Morgans. Theodore Roosevelt sent three sons and some plain words: "I was glad to hear the Rector when he asked you to be careful not to turn out snobs. Now there are in our civic and our social life very much worse creatures than snobs but none more contemptible."

However snobbish Groton may seem to outsiders, it is both democratic and in some respects Spartan within. Boys still wash up in tin basins at long soapstone sinks where hot water taps are few. Neither boys nor masters enter the infirmary without a faint feeling of shame. Endicott Peabody at Cambridge was a great oarsman, and exercise at Groton is "almost a sacrament." The Rector permits tennis and golf but he encourages the rough team sports. Until rivals raised too loud a clamor, he and many masters played on the school teams.

Groton is an inbred school. When a son s born to an old Grotonian, the happy news is wired to the Rector, who enters the child on the list of favored applicants. Result is that out of a student body permanently fixed at 180 boys, 94 are sons of alumni. Brighter than these are apt to be the ten boys admitted each year by competitive examination. Groton's scholastic standing is high, partly because it drills for College Board Examinations.

Of the three men who founded Groton, Billings ("Mr. B.") and Gardner ("Mr. G.") are dead. Endicott Peabody at 78 is as quick of wit and pink of cheek as a man of 60. Every boy and master knows that the Rector misses nothing, that his word is law. Dr. Peabody still coaches one of the intramural crews, still rides horseback. Sometimes Mrs. Peabody rides with him. A handsome, fragile lady, in black velvet dog collar and pearls, the Rector's wife has been a Peabody all her life and the Groton colors, red, white & black, were the colors on her grandfather's ships in Salem harbor.

In 1909 Groton celebrated its 25th anniversary. Among such alumni as Joseph Clark Grew, Bronson Cutting, Robert Rutherford McCormick, Payne Whitney, George & Richard Whitney, W. Averell Harriman, Warren Delano Robbins, Ellery Sedgwick and Percy Haughton, the favorite subject of speculation was "who will succeed the Rector?" Last year the school was 50 years old. Its alumni had grown to include Arthur Train, Sumner Welles, E. Roland Harriman, F. Trubee Davison, Dean Acheson, Junius S. & Henry S. Morgan, Oliver LaFarge. Again the favorite subject of speculation was "who will succeed the Rector?"

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