Seagoing Schoolman

Out from Charleston Harbor this week chugged the sleek 72-ft. auxiliary schooner Indra, bound down the Atlantic coast to the Caribbean. Each of the crew of six boys who manned the Indra had paid $1,500 for the privilege of rigging her sails, holystoning her decks, polishing her brass every morning until June. When they return they will be examined, not as Able Seamen but by the College Entrance Examination Board.

At the wheel of this unique U. S. preparatory school was its Headmaster William McDonnell Pond. A blond, sturdy, fortyish Harvardman, until three years ago Headmaster Pond ran the Pond School in Cambridge, Mass, to tutor boys for Harvard. He and his wife Augusta May both liked to sail, used to take Pond pupils for weekend cruises aboard their small schooner, Gulmare, once asked a boatload of them if they would like to work aboard for a full week. They did, liked it so well that they asked their parents for enough money to sail down the Maine coast. When all returned a month later to pass their College Boards with flying colors Headmaster Pond bought the Indra, soon set his school afloat for good.

This year the Indra will cruise comfortably about the West Indies, drop anchor off Yucatan and Venezuela for shore trips. Last year Headmaster Pond and pupils landed in Haiti, were promptly invited to a Governor's Ball. On board Mrs. Pond watches over the health of her charges, supervises the cook, only professional member of the crew. The Indra stays at anchor every morning until the pupils have finished their reading and recitations. Seaman Pond does not stand in awe of College Boards. Says he: "Any boy this side of imbecility can be prepared to enter college."

Although no other U. S. preparatory school was afloat this week, many of them will not stay in the same place all term.

Most famed educational wanderer is Adirondack-Florida School, which opened last fortnight in cabins on the shore of Clear Pond near Onchiota, N. Y. After the Christmas holiday Headmaster Kenneth Wilson, a onetime Princeton instructor, will move his 24 pupils and six tutors to Coconut Grove, Fla. Swank Adirondack-Florida specializes in outdoor life, provides canoes in the Adirondacks, a beach and 35-ft. cruising sloop in Florida. Tuition is $1,500 plus extras. Enrolled there this year are George Nichols, grandson of J. P. Morgan, and Drayton Phillips, son of William Phillips, U. S. Ambassador to Rome. Alumni include Leonard and Raymond Firestone, George Vanderbilt, three sons of Hiram Bingham, two sons of bridge-building Roeblings.

Humbler and bigger Kentucky Military Institute ($950 tuition, 225 enrollment) was established at Franklin Springs, Ky. in 1845. It moved to Lyndon, Ky. a half-century ago, went on the move two years ago when its headmaster Colonel Charles Blair Richmond bought a Depression-crippled resort hotel and a block of stores at Venice, Fla., whither K. M. I. repairs every January.

Migratory on a smaller scale is Arizona Desert School in the Santa Catalina foot hills north of Tucson, whose 30 students take week-end pack trips on their own cow ponies, perform in an annual rodeo that last year attracted 3,000 visitors. To live & learn in Arizona's sun-drenched Mexican ranch house have gone such gilded youngsters as Lester Armour, Jr. (meat), Prentiss Kent (radios), Harry Payne Whitney, John Gilbert Winant Jr. Arizona's tuition is $2,500, Arizona's fun polo, cricket, equitation.

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