SPS Today: "No Dearth of Material"
Alumni Horae Begins its 100th Volume
Jana F. Brown
Take a close look at the table of contents and you will see that this fall edition of Alumni Horae marks the first issue of the 100th volume of the alumni magazine of St. Paul’s School. In a letter addressing the alumni body on December 17, 1920, Fourth Rector Samuel Drury announced in Volume I, Issue I of this publication: “We want to provide a way for the School and the alumni to keep in touch, and to have a medium to carry to the old boys the present disposition and activities of this place. The Alumni Horae sets out to be a periodical devoted to School interests from the alumni point of view. We propose to print it in January, April, and June, and I may tell you in confidence that we are starting without a board of editors, and without any funds whatever! It is a sort of venture of faith. Moreover, we are going to send it to every alumnus far and near. And we don’t ask you to subscribe, because at this moment we do not know what a subscription would come to. We simply ask you to read it.”
Dr. Drury added that each issue would include a section called “The School in Action” and “Alumni Pages” (equivalent to modern-day formnotes). The inaugural offering included a tribute to recently deceased master Charles Knox, who served SPS for more than 50 years. It was written by Owen Wister of the Form of 1877, renowned author of The Virginian. There were also reports on scholarship and the activities of clubs and societies from the Missionary Society to the Choir; notes on recent improvements to the grounds, including enhanced lighting and bronze statuettes of St. Peter and St. Paul in the Chapel; a remodel of The Big Study; and construction of the “New Bridge” along Rectory Road.
There was an announcement that a physician, Dr. Sanford, had been added to the faculty and a call for alumni to return to Concord in June 1921 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of rowing at SPS. Reviews of the football season and a 7-3 hockey victory over Yale – led by brothers Charles (Form of 1921) and Austin Davis (Form of 1923) – boasted of the health of the programs. A report from Treasurer Reeve Schley put the endowment at $813,249.83, with St. Paul’s in the middle of an ambitious campaign to raise an additional $2 million. At the time, the capital effort was about $500k shy of its goal, a shortfall attributed to “the high cost of living and the depressed condition of business and the failure of many alumni to realize the urgency of the School’s needs, and of their obligation to help the School.”
The maiden Alumni Horae’s lone obituary remembered the life of William Robinson Blair of the Form of 1871, who died of pneumonia on December 19, 1920. Notes from the alumni associations of Pittsburgh (by Henry Chalfant of the Form of 1885) and Philadelphia (by Charles Wheeler of the Form of 1885) also were included.
“So deeply vital is the work we are engaged in, and so vivid is your interest in it,” wrote Dr. Drury, “I am sure that in the Alumni Horae there will be no dearth of material, and no lack of keen readers.” He went on to share that the second issue would be devoted to honoring the military records of alumni who served in World War I, and promised to include a proposal for a memorial to honor the war dead – it would eventually become Daniel Chester French’s stunning statue, Death and Youth, which has graced the Chapel since January 26, 1929.
“We do hope that you will enjoy this first issue of the Alumni Horae, and that it will fill your minds with those old scenes and events, which somehow are among our happiest memories.”