How It All Started on the Hillside | People in the quiet little hamlet of Pigtail in South Kent, Connecticut, watched with curiosity as a straggling parade of unfamiliar cars made its way up the twisty dirt road towards the brand-new South Kent School throughout the day on September 26, 1923. These neighbors had seen all the frantic activity going on over the previous four months at the old Judd farm, with some of them actually lending a helping hand with the preparations. Pigtail was about to acquire 24 new residents, from all over the country. Today was the big day.
Curiosity, along with a healthy dose of nervous apprehension, surely was felt as well by the growing cluster of young boys in knickers, who, having bid tearful goodbyes to their families, began to take in their new surroundings. Bits of building material and plumbing supplies cluttered the yard, and a new flagpole lay flat on the ground, awaiting the time when it could be placed upright and the flag hoisted. But the school building in front of them shone with a fresh coat of paint, and the barns and fields around them held the promise of many places to explore. The new grownups in their lives, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. Cuyler, Mr. Goodwin and Miss Dulon, hiding their own apprehension, greeted them warmly and began the process of settling them in.
By the boys’ own account, written several years later in the 1928 yearbook, “school started off with a bang the first night. The air in the dormitory was virtually thick with missiles of shoes, slippers and the like.” Those 24 charter scholars were Aaron, Brown, Buckingham, Colt, Cumming, deCoppett, Dingwall, Gilbert, Gustafson, Harris, Hazen, Kimball, McManus, Meyer, Murphy, Newhall, Ransom, Schurz, Stevens, Thompson, Ward, White, Whitney and Woodward, entering the Second and Third Forms. They were to be joined in January by four more boys: Balch, Gillette, Simpson and the very young 11-year-old Files, who was often quite homesick. The Second Form was the equivalent of eighth grade, with the average Second Former being 13 or 14 years old. As the school grew over the next three years, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Forms were added, with the Sixth Form being the equivalent high school senior class.
The concept of self-help was introduced right off the bat, with the boys pitching in to get the first dinner on the tables and washing up afterward. Dinner consisted of scrambled eggs cooked by the Headmaster, and was followed by the first chapel service, held in the classroom, at which they sang, “The Son of God Goes Forth to War.” The altar was a packing box topped with a cross made of a couple of sticks, and the congregation was made up of two masters, the Housemother and three boys who knelt on the floor between the desks. The next day, instead of heading for the classrooms, the boys were given shovels and rakes, and put to work alongside the masters to help get the yard cleaned up and tidy. Part of the reason may have been that the main classroom was still full of plumbing supplies, and also the fact that there were no books to be had! But soon they all started to settle into the beginnings of routine, with classes, chores, meals, athletics and chapel. The boys were very young, however they learned very quickly that much was expected of them as integral players in getting the new school up on its feet.
Though the old farmhouse had been doubled in size, the school building was packed tight. The third floor held the dormitory, a washroom with showers and lockers, and rooms for Mr. Cuyler and Mr. Goodwin. The dorm rooms were so small that most of the boys did not have their own dresser in which to store their clothes, but there was a large one down the hall that they shared. A small, rudimentary infirmary was on the second floor, along with rooms for Miss Dulon and Mr. Bartlett. The first floor housed the dining room, classrooms, reception room, living room with a makeshift library, and finally the kitchen and other utility rooms. Eventually, space for a chapel was created in a room in the basement. The 1929 Class History spelled out the truly spartan conditions of the first few years: “Our study-hall was what is now a supply room. In the winter the temperature in this room went down to fifteen degrees above zero, and classes were held in mittens and sheepskins. The blackboard was only a large piece of card-board which soon became useless as every chalk-mark scratched off the paint.”
In the beginning, all aspects of running the school were done by the same few people. Teachers doubled as coaches, dorm masters and even business managers, while Mr. and Mrs. Martin and Miss Dulon took care of just about everything else, usually with the help of the boys. As the school grew in later decades, the workload came to be distributed over many more-focused staff positions, but at the start, the self-help system with the boys was a true necessity as well as an educational goal. There was no set job program at first, yet there was no end of work for the boys to do. Mr. Bartlett noted in his diary, “Miss Dulon has proved herself a gold mine. She is a wonder and there is nothing she cannot do. The boys and the parents think very highly of her… Stan Goodwin has without doubt proved a success. He has all the boys at his heels and his table is continually in a roar of laughter… Of course Dick is the stump to which I always tie my ship in case of storm. He is working harder than any of us.”