School Name

Observations of Rob Walker '53, H'66, P'94, GP'18

Brooks Then and Now

In our recent search for fresh, meaningful content for our class notes, Hal Hamilton ’53 and I considered recalling our Brooks education in the 1950s in contrast with today’s curriculums and other school characteristics. That led me to first ask, "What do I remember about my Brooks experiences?"

To begin, I should say Brooks seemed the right school for me from the start and I never regretted that it was my own choice. More specifically, I never experienced any poor teachers and in fact developed a lasting respect for their academic competence. Over time, a fondness for many of them generated in and beyond the classroom. In contrast to today’s mixed faculty, ours was all male, but the many wonderful wives tempered our masculine environment. Although there have been many impressive physical additions, too numerous to discus, fortunately they fit in comfortably without intruding on our magnificent campus setting. I have always been drawn to its beauty from my early pleasurable wanderings along the wooded lake paths and over the fields and nearby hills. And I must not fail to mention the special lifelong friendships that grew out of my Brooks experience as a student and teacher.

The size of the student body has more than doubled along with a comparable increase to the faculty and administration. Undoubtedly the greatest changes since our time are the addition of girls, and racial and ethnic diversity. Brooks is now a much more complex institution with many more challenges than in our day, yet seemingly able to creatively deal with them. The tone of a good school, as in our time with Headmaster Frank Ashburn, is set from the top and fortunately the even, upbeat leadership of Head of School John Packard H’87, P’18, P’21 and other key players has permeated positively throughout the school community. Brooks seemed to have a special character and soul in our day and evidence suggests it retains that today. Although I thought at the time that I was working my hardest, I realize now, that often distracted, I was slow to reach the intellectual maturity required for excellence. Indeed, in Frank Ashburn’s often wise early assessments, I was likely one of his “late bloomers.” However, in the end, I was well prepared for Yale, though today probably an improbable goal given my mediocre math scores. Compared to today’s expanded, ever-innovative Brooks curriculum, ours was basic and rather spare, but more than sufficient for the time. Good writing skills were stressed by my English teachers, Francis Parkman in the third form and Fessenden Wilder in the second and sixth forms being my most demandingly, influential, yet encouraging guides. We learned effective writing requires organization and clear logical thinking, and that once started on this exercise the mind seems to generate self-propelling creative sparks within itself.

Our stellar college acceptances were normal for Brooks at the time, especially for Harvard and Yale, and given the small class of thirty or so it seems remarkable that we sent four classmates to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Today’s extreme change in the college admission situation in no way reflects poorly on the quality of Brooks education, but rather a radically different and widely expanded competition. Our sports were certainly important, serving also to burn-off adolescent energy and coaches were expected to provide character values as part of good sportsmanship. It was important to win or lose with dignity and grace. In my own experience as a three-year starter in football, our coach Leo Cronan gave me life-learning lessons I still value as part of my overall Brooks education. Today, even speaking as a former athlete, I wonder if our competitive athletic schedules require too much student effort and time, especially in overly long-distance trips to St. George’s, Tabor and others. The Independent School League has steadily expanded to more teams, resulting in many more games and perhaps its overall influence is out of balance.

Compared to current comprehensive offerings in the arts, except for our excellent choir and dramatics, I would have wished for more extracurricular outlets, particularly with singing, which I loved from early childhood. Other similar schools had quartet and octet groups that flourished with faculty guidance. It seems unfortunate that something similar did not develop out of the occasional fun-filled singalongs on Saturday evenings with George Barr at the piano, leading us through a wide medley of songs, particularly American show tunes. We had a good nucleus of singers in Peter Buswell ’53, Carter Harrison ’53, GP’20, Steve Stranahan ’53, P’88, Peter Ward ’53, Carlo Zezza ’53, myself and Al Donovan ’53, who had a superb voice. Since Frank Ashburn enjoyed music and was a Yale Whiffenpoof, it seems odd that small group singing didn’t become a tradition during his time. Something else which might have helped had we known about it was that Leo Cronan, as a notable Irish tenor, sang semi-professionally at different times during his life. Wouldn’t it have been rewarding for us to have been able to involve our own titan of sports in such a potentially satisfying experience?

Due to a gradual demise of a liberal arts curriculum at many colleges, it seems all the more important that key cultural and intellectual underpinnings be at least touched upon in secondary education. One would hope that exposure might include pivotal figures such as Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Machiavelli and other Renaissance humanists, Leonardo DaVinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven; and of course great poets and novelists, not to mention figures in more contemporary culture, dare I say Pablo Picasso, Aaron Copeland, Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, and even Cole Porter, to mention but a few, endless possibilities? What seems most important considering our increasingly dominant technological education at all levels is to maintain connection to our humanist traditions with their timeless insights on how to live socially responsible, productive and meaningful lives working for the common good. And just as critical, our students must be given strong, thorough American history courses, truthful about our shortcomings as well as triumphs. They should also be taught civics, how government was intended to function and citizen responsibility, and perhaps a bit of practically applied economics.

For a school such as ours, the above might seem too tall an order, but if we are to maintain civilized standards and conditions in today’s troubled country and world, time-tested values must be recognized, fought for, and transferred to the young. As a former history teacher, I have always believed the subject provides a valuable framework or context for better understanding other disciplines including literature, art, music, economics, politics and human culture as a whole.

As one can sense, I am still a teacher at heart, regretting as I do having abandoned this noble, rewarding profession many decades ago. My memories of Brooks as a student and teacher remain preeminent in my life. Overall, Brooks has always had more than its share of strong students as reflected in its enviable academic standing and college placement records.