Monson Academy - Academy Bell Yearbook (Monson, MA)

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The golden age of the school was the half-century between 1835 and 1885. This was, indeed, the period of the greatest flowering of the New England academy, and many fine old schools that made history then are no longer in existence. Only a few of the private schools survived the rival growth of the public high schools. In the middle of the last century, however, Monson built up the prestige that was to carry it through the years right up to the present day, though no longer as an academy for young ladies and gentlemen, but in its new role as a preparatory school for boys. In 1835 Charles Hammond, of Union, Connecticut, entered Monson as a student. He was zealous and idealistic, one of his idols being Dr. Arnold of Rugby. In due course he was graduated and went to Yale, but in 1839 he was back at Monson--as principal. He served as principal from 1839 to 1841, from 1845 to 1852, and again from 1863 to 1878-a total of twenty-four years. This great man educated more distinguished personages than many a college has turned out. He towered above his fellows in the educational field All kinds of reforms were introduced in his day, and the old dictum of spare the rod and spoil the child was abandoned. Like Thomas Arnold he preferred to trust to his students' honor, and he once said he would do his best to make of Monson a smaller Rugby. During his administration the enrollment of the school was frequently above three hundred drawn from all parts of the world. Almost a hundred years ago, in 1847, the first Chinese students ever to come to the United States enrolled at Monson Academy. Nearly a generation later the first Iapanese students came, and until the end of the century there was always a fair sprinkling of Orientals amongst the student body. The physical plant of the school, in the meantime, increased with the student body. In 1819 the first dormitory was built for the boarding students, near the present site of Cushman Hall. In 1824 the first laboratory was erected and expensively equipped with apparatus specially imported from England. The site of this old laboratory, one of the first in the country, is now occupied by the Holmes Gymnasium. In 1845, at a cost of four thousand dollars, Dr. Hammond had the entire school renovated and modernized and spent a further thousand to re-equip the English department. As in the case of the original building, this large sum was raised by the townsfolk. ' During this golden age of the academy, many great men were graduated from Monson. The class of 1850 was particularly brilliant. In that year Iacob Strong left to enter Williams College, and eventually he became an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. The brilliant young Chinese Wong Afun left Monson to enter Edinburgh University and to become eventually one of his country's greatest doctors. Another young Chinese, Yung Wing, was graduated, only to return to America some years later as Commis- sioner of the Chinese Educational Commission and as Chinese minister to the United States. Only two years later, in 1852, Henry Billings Brown, another future United States Supreme Court justice, was graduated. Iudge Reuben Chapman, a Trustee from 1828 to 1873, and Iudge Marcus Knowlton, a Trustee from 1874 to 1918, both later became Chief Iustices of the Massachusetts Su- preme Court. The Reverend Iazrnes Tufts was one of the outstanding principals of the Academy, his administration covering the period from 1852 to 1859. His son, Iames Hayden Tufts, who attended the Academy in his early teens, later became Vice-President land for one year Acting Presidentl of the Uni- versity of Chicago. The Civil War caused a temporary closing of the Academy in 18621 but it reopened the following year after two additional wings had been added to the old building.

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AN HISTORIC SKETCH .OF MONSON ACADEMY A Unlike most independent schools, Monson Academy does not owe its origin to a single founder. From the first it has been a co-operative effort. If we must point to a single great influence behind the school, we might go back to our first president of the Board of Trustees. It was the Reverend Iohn Willard, D.D., of Stafford, Connecticut, who joined with the local inn-keeper, Ioel Norcross, and the local parson, Iesse lves, in rousing public interest to the point of getting a state charter for the founding of Monson Academy. Mention should be made also of the Reverend Alfred Ely, one of the first Trustees and an active member from 1806 to 1866. Dr. Willard, who was graduated from Harvard as far back as 1751, was the brother of the more famous President Willard of Harvard C1781-18041 and was able to interest many of the leading scholars of the day in his Monson project. Under an act of 1797 the Massachusetts legislature had undertaken to endow with lands in the province of Maine any preparatory school built by the industry of the local people, if that particular area needed such educational facilities. For the location of such a school in this part of Western Massa- chusetts the citizens of Monson and Brimfield competed, and after some debate Monson was chosen. The Act of Incorporation of Monson Academy was passed by the Massa- chusetts House of Representatives on Iune 21, 1804, and half the Township of Monson, Maine, was granted as an endowment. A fund of over four thousand dollars was collected among local citizens, and the first Academy building was opened in 1806. ' Though the school was and still is closely associated with the local Congre- gational Church, there has been no official religious affiliation with any group. All creeds and races were welcome. This fact, no doubt, had a great deal to do .with the school's rapid rise to fame. The founding fathers had hoped for a school which would attract students from all over the state, in addition to functioning as a secondary school for the Monson area. In a very few years it had a national reputation, after its first quarter-century, students were coming from all over the world. There is no space here to go into many details of Monson's history. We can, however, note a few landmarks. The first headmaster, Simeon Colton, who left after his first year, in 1807, returned in 1821 and stayed for nine years. This was the period of Monson's beginning as a great school. During the decade 1820-1831 the school graduated such famous men as Sophocles of Harvard, America's greatest classical scholar, who came here all the way from Smyrna in Asia Minor, Dr. Henry L. Barnard, the first United States Commissioner of Education, regarded as second only to Horace Mann in the development of the American public school, Professor W. A. Larned, late professor at Yale College, and the Reverend Richard S. Storrs, D.D., of Brooklyn, New York, commonly and affectionately referred to in those days as Prince of Preachers. A glance at the catalogues of the eighteen-twenties will show students from England, Greece, Turkey, and many parts of North America. Men went out from the Academy to open up the West and carry the Gospel to the South Seas. The Reverend Cushing Eels and the Reverend Charles B. Sumner were instru- mental in founding, respectively, Whitman College in Washington and Pomona College in California.

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This brief survey would not be complete without a few words about the missionary endeavors of Monson graduates. The Reverend Iames L. Merrick, one of the first American missionaries to Persia, was graduated in 1826, and he later established an endowment fund entitled the Persian Fund. Gilbert Rockwood, class of 1834, went to the South Seas, and William Benton, class of 1839, to Syria. The zealous young Samuel Marsh, who was graduated in 1840, died while preaching the Gospel to the Zulus in South Africa. It was the work of such men as these that helped to attract students to Monson from so many parts of the world. The rise of free secondary education in the latter part of the last century did a great deal to decrease the need for the private school. Some estab- lishments, including Monson Academy, served the purpose of the local high school in many rural communities. Until regular high schools were built, these private schools accepted local students, whose tuition was paid by the town. This somewhat altered the character of the older academies, but in many cases it was the means of their survival. A disastrous fire in 1886 completely destroyed the old Academy Building, but later in the some year a more substantial granite and brick building was erected. The Holmes Gymnasium was built in 1900 by Miss Esther R. Holmes in memory of her father, Cyrus W. Holmes, Ir., and Cushman Hall in 1904 by Thaddeus L. Cushman in memory of his nephew, Frank Chapin Cushman. An older dormitory, Hammond Hall, was at the same time torn down to make room for the present headmaster's residence, Hammond Place. Cushman Me- morial Field was given in 1911 by Edward C. Cushman and Rufus P. Cushman as a memorial to Grace Sedgwick Cushman and Frank Chapin Cushman. After the first World War the town of Monson finally decided to build a separate high school. This action meant that virtually all of the Academy day students would transfer to the new institution. Consequently, the school was again temporarily closed in 1923, while arrangements were made to revert to the old status of a century before. During the next two years the Trustees granted the use of the Academy buildings to the town for use as a high school. In 1926 Monson Academy was reopened as a purely college preparatory school for boys. The new headmaster, Mr. Bertram A. Strohmeier, announced in the 1926 catalogue that the school would be developed on an American adaptation of the English house plan. By this arrangement the boys live in small groups in separate houses under the immediate care of one or more masters. In keeping with this plan an additional dormitory, Morris House, was deeded to the Academy by Miss Esther R. Holmes in 1927, and yet another house, The Homestead,,in 1937, through the generosity of Miss Hattie F. Cushman. No historical sketch of Monson Academy would be quite complete without a tribute to Thaddeus L. Cushman, who was a member of the Board of Trustees for thirty-eight years, Treasurer for thirty-six years, and Secretary-Treasurer of the Monson Academy Alumni Association for forty years. His deeds of unselfishness and benevolence afforded him great pleasure and satisfaction, besides providing necessities and comforts to others less fortunate than he. Mr. Strohmeier was succeeded in 1935 by Mr. George E. Rogers, under whose administration the size of the student body has greatly increased. Plans are now under consideration for the centralization of the school plant in the not-too-distant future.