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The Parkman period
USINFO | 2013-12-06 16:44
With Thayer's retirement, Headmaster Francis Parkman was chosen to lead the school, and he initiated changes which continue to resonate. Parkman faced a conservative faculty and alumni body, and found his efforts to modernize St. Mark's a challenge. Nonetheless, he made some brilliant teaching appointments that may well have had a profound impact on American letters. Parkman brought the noted poet Richard Eberhart to the school as an English teacher from 1933–1941, and W. H. Auden for a brief appointment in 1939. Auden described St. Mark's to a friend as a school that “sets out to be a sort of American Eton”; he was reportedly struck there by the “dimness of the boys and the reverence of America for the average.” Eberhart briefly memorializes Auden's time at St. Mark's with his poem: “To W. H. Auden on his Fiftieth Birthday” in which he mentions the school in passing.
Auden's catty views notwithstanding, a brief perusal of an old boy list quickly demonstrates that whatever St. Mark's shortcomings during this period, it was certainly not producing mediocrities. St. Mark's alumni around this time formed a virtual “Who's Who” of American achievement in a variety of endeavors. St. Mark's during this period produced two Senators, not to mention influential Congressmen, Episcopal Bishops, senior government officials, and other national leaders. Intriguingly, two of the most influential families in twentieth-century American journalism, the Pulitzers and the Forbes, representing both ends of the political spectrum, have strong St. Mark's connections. While business, the law, and banking remained key professional arenas, literature was not neglected. Arguably the greatest American poet of the twentieth century, Robert Lowell, attended St. Mark's in the thirties and wrote his first published prose for student journals there. Richard Eberhart was an early mentor of Lowell, despite Lowell having never taken a class with him; their relationship continued during Lowell's time at Harvard University. Lowell's references to St. Mark's in his mature poetry are occasionally dark, sometimes grudgingly admiring, and at other times merely atmospheric. There is little doubt, however, that his education there had a profound impact upon his development as a writer.
Headmaster Parkman left the school in 1942 – to enlist in the army – and never returned, although he remained active in independent school policy all his life, eventually rising to the presidency of the National Association of Independent Schools in Boston, MA.
Auden's catty views notwithstanding, a brief perusal of an old boy list quickly demonstrates that whatever St. Mark's shortcomings during this period, it was certainly not producing mediocrities. St. Mark's alumni around this time formed a virtual “Who's Who” of American achievement in a variety of endeavors. St. Mark's during this period produced two Senators, not to mention influential Congressmen, Episcopal Bishops, senior government officials, and other national leaders. Intriguingly, two of the most influential families in twentieth-century American journalism, the Pulitzers and the Forbes, representing both ends of the political spectrum, have strong St. Mark's connections. While business, the law, and banking remained key professional arenas, literature was not neglected. Arguably the greatest American poet of the twentieth century, Robert Lowell, attended St. Mark's in the thirties and wrote his first published prose for student journals there. Richard Eberhart was an early mentor of Lowell, despite Lowell having never taken a class with him; their relationship continued during Lowell's time at Harvard University. Lowell's references to St. Mark's in his mature poetry are occasionally dark, sometimes grudgingly admiring, and at other times merely atmospheric. There is little doubt, however, that his education there had a profound impact upon his development as a writer.
Headmaster Parkman left the school in 1942 – to enlist in the army – and never returned, although he remained active in independent school policy all his life, eventually rising to the presidency of the National Association of Independent Schools in Boston, MA.
