Good Morning.
I went to a private girls' school founded in 1909 under the auspices of the Congregational Church. The religious affiliation was eventually dissolved, but the students were required to attend a daily chapel service that was simple in nature. There was an opening and a closing hymn, a reading, a prayer, and announcements about after school activities. We wore gray
wool skirts, white shirts, and gray wool blazers. We could wear a colored sweater over the shirt and short white or colored knee socks that hopefully coordinated with the sweater. Footwear had to be saddle shoes or clunky brown Oxfords; loafers
were considered a loose shoe that sent the wrong message. So did make up, permitted, in moderation, only at the spring and fall dance. Conspicuous jewelry, like the noisy charm bracelets popular at the time, was also not allowed. Nobody pierced
anything, of course, and tattoos were seen only on men who sailed the high seas.
We took a strenuous college prep curriculum that included English, math, science, history, art, music, and at least three
years of French and Latin. Competitive girls' sports didn't exist then, but we played field hockey in the fall, basketball over the winter, and tennis during the spring. Modern dance was also required, presumably to encourage a certain gracefulness.
We were expected to use decent table manners and were taught how to properly consume a banana. Basically you slit the thing open from end to end, cut the flesh into small sections, and extracted them, one by one, with a fork or a spoon, dabbing at your mouth quietly with a napkin between bites.
There wasn't a male person anywhere in sight except for a history teacher and the school custodian named Louis. The rest of the staff and faculty were women, mainly spinsters in wool dresses and fat-heeled shoes. These ladies and the history teacher had majored in the subject they taught and were passionate about it. There was none of this education thing that supposedly
qualifies someone to teach almost anything. Nobody would want me teaching math or chemistry under any circumstances,
but I might have a shot at English - as long as I majored in it and had an advanced degree in it.
The school has changed over the years but has retained its reputation for academic excellence. It merged with a nearby boys' school and relocated to the boy school campus that was a great deal larger and provided amenities like more tennis courts, an ice hockey rink, and a theater. Girls' sports are now highly competitive, and the girls are vying with the guys for acceptance into institutions of higher learning like Yale and Princeton that used to be only male. The uniforms are gone but there's still a dress code that people of my generation find comforting. Chapel is out too, but there's a reason for it: the school, once a place for students from pedigreed Anglo-Saxon families with only a handful of Catholics, a token Jew here and there, and not even a hint of color, is now much more diverse and a one-size-fits-all service doesn't work. The deal is to have a nice amount of brains in your head and who gives a rip what the packaging is. I must send in my annual contribution.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
Comments