Youth from Every Quarter: Diversity at Exeter Today

Each year time-honored tradition dictates the subject of my talk at the Opening Assembly. That topic is the Deed of Gift. For those who are new to the community, John and Elizabeth Phillips gave the assets that formed Phillips Exeter through a Deed of Gift dated May 17, 1781. It is significant that it is still a working document. Its most oft-quoted passage-"though goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous" -is repeated daily in the life of this institution. Few founding documents attain this status.

And one of the traditions that accompanies this remarkable founding deed is that each year the principal bases the text of the opening speech on some aspect of the Deed's charge. This year I would like to talk about a subject to which the Deed of Gift devotes relatively few words, but which has become one of the most important characteristics of this Academy in the last 50 years.

That subject is the inclusive spirit of this institution, its cultural, racial and socioeconomic diversity, and the democratic spirit that seems to be born anew each fall at the Harkness table and that influences everything we do here.

The Deed of Gift defines admission to what, in various passages, the document refers to as a "free school," or "public academy" or, reflecting a Puritan heritage, a "seminary." "The Academy shall ever be equally open," the Deed proclaims, "to youth of requisite qualification from every quarter." We sometimes forget the phrase, "requisite qualification," and simply speak of "youth from every quarter"; but clearly the founders foresaw an admissions process. Who knows what image swirled in the minds of the Phillips family as John penned that stirring language that seems so inclusive. It is likely, given the history of the family and the nature of the times, that the founders were thinking primarily about socioeconomic diversity. Late in the Deed they refer to the introduction to the Academy of "poor children of promising genius." John Phillips established the first scholarship fund at the school. Financial aid has been a part of the heritage of Exeter since its founding.

It is not likely, however, that John and Elizabeth Phillips envisioned anything like the diversity we see as we turn our heads in this hall, and there is a strong implication that they did not envision religious diversity at all. The Deed is quite specific that the principal and faculty should be Protestants and, until the trustees amended the constitution in the early 1950s, teachers who were Catholic, Jewish or any non-Protestant faith could not be given faculty status.

Fortunately, the Deed of Gift has a quality much like the American Constitution: it is sufficiently precise and sufficiently vague to admit reinterpretation as times change. It gives the power for this reinterpretation to the trustees of the Academy. In the 220 years since the Deed of Gift established Phillips Exeter Academy, the trustees have broadened the Academy's vision of what it means to serve "youth from every quarter."

Judging Students on Merit, not Means

There are five areas in which the Academy has significantly expanded the meaning of "youth from every quarter": socioeconomic background, race, religious heritage, sexual orientation and gender. Exeter began, of course, as a school for boys. The histories in each of these five efforts vary, so let me give a pencil sketch of each one, with the exception of the decision to become coeducational in 1970. That single decision may well have been the most significant made by any group of PEA trustees in the last century, and it is a notable enough tale to merit its own opening day speech. Today I will focus on the other four areas of change.

As I mentioned earlier, socioeconomic diversity was an interest of the Phillips family and a characteristic of the Academy from the start. If you read the older histories of the Academy you will find stories of young men who walked barefoot from distant farms to Exeter carrying their shoes over their shoulders so as not to wear them out before they had to put them on for classes. While many of the students who attended Exeter in the early days, and even in the early days of the 20th century, were well-to-do, there are many indications in faculty minutes and alumni and trustee notes which suggest that the mixture of students from different economic strata, learning in an environment that only rewarded academic achievement, was seen as fundamentally democratic and appropriate for what was, in the early days of the Academy, an infant nation.

In the 1930s, the Depression and in the 1940s, World War II threatened the socioeconomic mix. Exeter went through the first of two difficult economic periods it suffered in that century and the number of students receiving financial aid dropped drastically. A trustee report in 1940 worried the Academy might "lose some of the democratic complexion for which it has been famous-where the rich boy learns from the poor boy and where the poor boy is enriched and stimulated by his association with more fortunate boys." (C. Benton, Report to the Board of Trustees, PEA, 1940, p. 1.) In response, major fundraising efforts were mounted, as happened a number of times in the past century, and socioeconomic diversity of the school once again improved.

I have a particular interest in this characteristic of Exeter because it hits close to home. I was what was known as a "scholarship boy" at the independent school I attended in Connecticut. In 1960, when I began high school, the headmaster took a moment at the opening assembly of the school year to present publicly the scholarships to those students. There were four of us, out of 250 students, who had won them. I learned then the lesson of what misguided consequences good intentions might have, because from my perspective what was meant as a public honor only signaled to all of these potential new friends that I couldn't pay the bill.

Over 35 percent of the current student body at Exeter receives financial aid and I hope that that number is large enough so that everyone can avoid the feeling of isolation I felt in my first high school assembly. In this world and this country the inequalities of wealth are inescapable and often cruel, yet the ongoing commitment of the Academy to remain a place in which students are judged on their merit, not their personal wealth, continues strong.

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