FOUNDER S DAY SPEECHES – MAY 1997 - ecfs.org

FOUNDER’S DAY SPEECHES – MAY 1997

WELCOME

MATTHEW IES SPETTER
Leader, New York Society for Ethical Culture

It is a great joy to welcome you here at this home of the Ethical Culture Society.

You the faculty, and you the students, represent something of beauty and of lasting importance to
us. Together we hold that the worth of each personwhatever their ageis affirmed when we
maintain a place of learning that is also a caring community, that builds the bonds of the heart.
There is a hopefulness that gets communicated as I look out at what shines forth from each of
your young faces – and I feel grateful and close to so many here whom I have known for so many
years. I know that you do not want to listen to long speeches – but I need to stress, as I welcome
you, how the School and the Society are intertwined in what directs us to a better future for
humankind.

Felix Adler, the founder we celebrate today, visited a factory of one of his friends in the late
1890’s. It was a factory that produced glass bottles. At that time there was no machine to make
the bottles, so it needed people to blow their breath into the mixture of chemicals. Adler saw a
great many boys and girls blowing such bottles. Many of them looked sickly from accumulating
the dust of glass into their lungs. Adler asked his friend when these kids went to school. The
answer was: “Well they can’t. They are happy to have a job here and earn some money”.

Millions of children worked this way in those times and the Ethical Culture Society was very
active in promoting child-labor legislation to protect young people. You see, that is where the
roots are of the Society and the Schools: the care for human beings; their dignity; their chance to
build better lives. Those are still our ideals, seeking to build justice and to affirm hope.

Adler never forgot the faces of the children in that factory. With some of his fellow members of
the Society, he developed the idea of a “Workingman’s School”. Its purpose: to provide excellent
education for the children of parents who worked for a living but at low income. It started as a
free kindergarten and then grew into a full school program.

Adler had been teaching at Cornell University and at Columbia. He knew many outstanding
teachers and he involved them in his project. The Schools grew based upon the care for each
student in stimulating to bring out their strength and their minds. It is best illustrated by the motto
behind me: “The place where all meet to seek the highest is holy ground”.

People have to meet each other with openness so that they can seek what is the best in themselves
and thereby they create something that is sacred, that is holy. That is still our purpose here. The
Schools developed the so called “Fieldston Plan” building upon each student’s abilities, new
projects, the arts and of course ethics. I was a teacher of ethics and head of the department for
close to thirty years. It is a profound, deeply meaningful part of my life, as I hope it will be for
you.

We have tried to build for the ideal that Adler had before his eyes: A place to learn; to grow; to
feel safe; where no one would be held up to ridicule; where you would learn the courage to come
back after setbacks in your personal life or in the Schools. So, it is terms of these living ideals that
I welcome you in the name of the Ethical Culture Society – we hope that you will always want to
come back here, as a spiritual home for you and as you remain a blessing to your parents and all
those who love you.

Here is to a happy Founders Day!

GREETING

Jeanne E. Amster
Director, Ethical Culture Fieldston Schools

Good morning. We gather today in this historic and beautiful space to celebrate the founding
mission, and continuing purposes of our school. These schools were founded to lead the nation in
their commitment to scholarship, excellence, and social justice. Since 1878, for 199 years, we
have used the best minds and hearts in education to combine theory and action. The hope was that
through the instrument of education, our graduates would themselves lead by combining rigorous
thought with profound action to strengthen the culture. That was our mission then, and that is our
mission now: to combine academic excellence, social justice, and purposeful action. We seek, as
Felix Adler taught us, to turn “potential into potency, to use our human and community potential
to lead an ethical, meaningful life”.

Today we also honor four teachers who have served these schools with distinction for over 100
years. They have taught brilliantly and with inspiration, they have combined compassion with
rigor, and they have demanded of themselves and their students excellence and creativity. Today
as they move on to new chapters in their lives, we recognize their dedication to their students and
to the profession.

Roney Rabassa joined the Ethical Culture School to teach first grade in 1971. Her respect for her
students’ work and their capacity to learn and create is memorialized in her collections of student
writing, art and photographs. Her energy and commitment are legendary. Roney, we are grateful
for your service to this school for the past two decades.

Gladys Art joined the Fieldston School 26 years ago as the school nurse. Her kindness, empathy,
and calm made her office a sanctuary for students and adults. Gladys, we will miss your elixirs of
wisdom and sympathy.

Sima Szaluta joined the Fieldston School in 1960, probably at age 11, to teach French. A scholar,
an intellectual, a focused and gracious member of the community, we celebrate you and your
contributions as you move on to the next chapter in your life.

More than half the graduates of the Fieldston Lower School have begun their educational journey
in Betty Radens’ kindergarten. Betty, you are an examplar of what it means to be a progressive
educator and your creativity will be enshrined in the curriculum of the school and the lives of its
graduates. Thank you for your service over the past 34 years.

These four teachers have touched many lives over the past four decades with their combined 114
years of service. To gain some perspective on their contribution, I ask that:

All those students who have been taught by Roney Rabassa stand and remain standing.
All those students helped by Gladys Art stand and remain standing.

All those students who have been taught by Sima Szaluta stand and remain standing.

All those students who have been taught by Betty Radens stand and remain standing.

Will all of you who have been touched by the work of these four colleagues please stand.

You have served our children, our families, our faculty, and our schools with generosity and
distinction. You have touched our lives. We thank you.

INTRODUCTION OF KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Jeanne Amster

Vernice Miller is a graduate of the Fieldston Enrichment Program and is a member of the
Fieldston class of 1977. We welcome several of her classmates and her mother today. She
attended Barnard College and graduated from Columbia University. Vernice is an expert in
environmental policy and an advocate of environmental justice. She currently serves as the
Director of the Environmental Justice Initiative of the Natural Resources Defense Council. NRDC
is a national environmental organization dedicated to protect natural resources and the public
health through effective litigation, persistent advocacy, and hard-hitting research to protect our
air, water, land and food supplies.

Vernice has worked for the United Nations; she has worked for racial justice; she worked for
constitutional rights, and she has chaired the West Harlem Environmental Action Group since she
founded it in 1988.

It is hard to imagine a Fieldston graduate who epitomizes the call to justice, action, and leadership
more than you, Vernice. On the eve of your twentieth reunion, it is a joy to welcome you back
and to hear your remarks.

FOUNDER’S DAY KEYNOTE ADDRESS

“ETHICAL CULTURE - A STATE OF BEING, A WAY OF LIVING,
A PATH WORTH FOLLOWING”

VERNICE D. MILLER
Class of ’77

Director, Environmental Justice Initiative of the
Natural Resources Defense Council

Good morning to all the assembled faculty, administrators, staff, parents, special guests, and most
especially to the Ethical Culture Fieldston Schools students.

It is with great honor that I stand before you as your speaker at this Founder’s Day celebration.
Some twenty years ago I attended my last Founder’s Day program here in this very auditorium in
May of 1977. I do want to say that I realize that none of you students gathered here today were
even born when my classmates and I graduated from Fieldston twenty years ago. The things that
defined our lives then - the Civil Rights movement; the Vietnam War; John and Robert Kennedy,
Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks; Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug; Huey Newton
and Angela Davis; the Black Power movement; the Women’s movement, Richard Nixon and
Watergate; Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott Heron, Bob Dillon, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, the
Beatles, the Supremes and the Temptations, are all merely historical references to you. For us
these were the issues and people that shaped our lives.

My how things have changed in the world, but I am truly happy to note that the Ethical Culture
School system has not changed, but rather it has grown and blossomed and continues to serve as a
beacon for enlightenment, and educational excellence. How lucky was I to be included in this
family, how lucky are you to be students and faculty of such a special place.

Now I know some of you students are probably thinking to yourself, what is this woman
blabbering about, what luck is she referring to? You mean the luck to be assigned more reading
and writing assignments than the average class full of students, or is it the luck of having to
rigorously engage in your studies and be expected to participate in the non-academic life of
school, as well as that which is expected of you by your family, and oh yes your very demanding
friends. What luck is it that I am referring to. Well I need to share with you that my last year
attending Fieldston I was filled with thoughts of graduation and escape. Oh how I longed to be
released from the mental bondage I thought I was living through at the time. Okay so I may have
been a little crazed about my perception of my final year of high school, but I do clearly
remember that the closer I got to June 10th, 1977 that more excited I became. College, the world
out there, no teachers constantly engaging my mind and haranguing me about where I was going
to attend college. No mother asking me daily (at the time it seemed like hourly) if I had finished
all my assignments. I always wanted to respond that no human being could possibly finish all the
homework I had in one night, but fortunately I was blessed with common sense and only thought
to say that but I never actually uttered those words to my mother. I just wanted out, graduation
could not come soon enough.

What I found when I graduated was that life would never be the same as it was when I was a
student at Fieldston. Never again would I have a group of people who were not related to me who
would care so intensely about my well-being, my happiness, my growth and development. Never
again would I feel the safety and comfort of walking through familiar corridors, sitting on the
quad, or walking from the bus stop to campus and always looking forward to what every day held
in store.

When you are about to celebrate the twentieth reunion of your graduation from high school things
do tend to become covered in the mist of nostalgia. I’m sure though that the pride I feel in having
graduated from this school system, the love of my teachers and life-long friends, is not made
happier because of the passage of time, but rather because I really do feel a tremendous fondness
for the period of time that I spent at Fieldston.

I thought I would share with you some of my fondest memories from my years at Fieldston and
then share what lessons I learned from Ethical Culture and how I continue to incorporate those
lessons into my life today. My very fist day as a student at Fieldston was in September of 1973, I
was walking down the stairs to get my books for my assigned classes, a young black girl ran over
to me and said “you must be Vernice Miller, my name is Dayna Vernice Bowen and we’re going
to be friends for the rest of our lives”. Who knew how right she would be, and that today twenty-

four years later she is still one of my closest friends. I watched her graduate from college and
from law school, I sang at her wedding, I’ve held her children in my arms, and I still get excited
when I hear her voice on the other end of the phone (she actually screams when she picks up the
phone and hears my voice).

I also met another black girl named Erica Phillips and we just took to each other and became
inseparable. Erica is my closest friend even today, she lives in Los Angeles now and I remember
being heartbroken when she decided to move to California, yet we try to see each other as many
times during the year as we can squeeze in. That’s what Fieldston gave to me, life-long
friendships that have transcended boundaries of race and class and time.

I was a scholarship student at Fieldston, my parents were hard working people who could never
have afforded the Fieldston tuition even then, twenty four years ago. But thanks to Alfredo
Thomas and Dr. Eugenia Baines who were the coordinators of the Saturday enrichment program
that I participated in at Fieldston representing my South Bronx Junior High School, I was asked
to interview for a possible space in the Third Form class of 1973.

David Schwartz interviewed me, and I remember being very skeptical. You see at the time I was
an avid art student and choral music lover. I had been accepted to Music and Art High School and
had already made up my mind that that was where I was going to attend High School. So as Mr.
Schwartz was interviewing me I was interviewing him. All I wanted to know is what kind of
music program did Fieldston have, smugly thinking to myself that whatever they had it couldn’t
possibly compare to the program at Music and Art High School. I don’t know if Mr. Schwartz
remembers but he really had to sell me on all the things that Fieldston had to offer, he kept
stressing the art program but he readily acknowledged that the music program at the time was a
little weak. He did proudly mention that there was a very lively Gilbert and Sullivan society that
frequently put on musical productions that I might enjoy. I remember thinking who is this Gilbert
and Sullivan, and does Gospel, Jazz or soul music ever get sung at this school? I guess Mr.
Schwartz saw something in me that he really liked, and thank goodness he did. He saw the
promise that Fieldston held for me, and being the consummate teacher that he is he saw that I
could really grow and blossom in ways that I could not have imagined because of my four years
at Fieldston.

The thing that I enjoyed most about Fieldston were our bi-weekly ethics classes. I never ever
missed a single ethics class, and in fact I don’t think I was ever absent on a day when I had ethics.
I lived for our discussions about the full range of ethical and moral issues of our day. Discussions
about racism, classism and sexism, about drugs and sex, about peer pressure and family pressure
to do well, about war and government misconduct. There wasn’t anything that we didn’t discuss
in these classes. I remember one parents day when our parents were on campus attending our
classes and meeting our teachers and my father came to school. We don’t have enough time to
discuss what a unique personality my father was, suffice it to say that he was a piece of work. In
fact being his daughter was perhaps the greatest challenge of my life. Well my dad came to ethics
class and I kept nudging him to join in the discussion, which he was somewhat reluctant to do
(my father was never at a loss for words especially when he was lecturing me). He finally chimed
in and afterwards I asked him why he didn’t speak up sooner, he said “I was amazed at the level
of the discussion from your classmates” not their parents but the kids themselves”. I looked at
him with my practiced sixteen year-old scowl and replied “well gee dad we are Fieldston students
you know,” he looked at me and laughed as if to say that now he finally understood what it meant
to be a Fieldston student.

From the time I was eleven years old I fancied myself to be a black radical. I wanted to be a
member of the Black Panther Party, but fortunately for mother I was too young to join. But

thoughts of the liberation of Black people were the things that made me the most passionate then
and now. My classmates most of whom were not people of color - were constantly subjected to
my harangues about inequality among the races and about injustices that most people of color had
to endure. I’m sure by the time we got to the end of our senior year they were tired of the sound
of my voice. Although they did enjoy my singing, Gilbert and Sullivan and all the other various
productions I participated in over the years. Even when I went to college I studied political
science and public policy with the express desire of working for the betterment of communities of
color in some fashion once I graduated. Our ethics classes throughout high school reinforced for
me a passion for social justice that I would never be able to quiet.

Today, I spend my every waking moment dealing with some aspect of racial or social injustice.
And guess what I get paid to do - the thing that I love the most. I work every day on trying to
untangle the web of racism, classism and environmental policy and pollution. I could never have
imagined twenty years ago that I would find the level of professional satisfaction that I have in
my work. For the past eleven years I have helped to research, write and raise the level of national
awareness of the issue of environmental racism. These issues are complicated, difficult,
challenging and very intense. I must tell you though that I am very blessed to be able to go to
work every day and know that I am in some way contributing to the betterment of society, and
that I am helping some community somewhere to resolve serious environmental threats to their
safety and well-being. I know that I and my colleagues at the Natural Resources Defense Council
are fighting the good fight every day. Every day in some way I have to make ethical decisions
and choices, I recommend strategies and plans for actions that are meant to help people and
communities.

Every day I go to sleep knowing that I have spent my time trying to make someone’s life a little
bit better. This is what Fieldston and Ethical Culture taught me, that a life of service to others is a
life worth living. Who knew that the ecology class I took in fifth form as a way to get out of
taking physics would become my life’s’ work.

That’s my message to you today - there’s no way you can know for sure what life holds in store
for you, but I can promise you that as a result of attending the Ethical Culture Fieldston Schools
the promise your future holds is wide open. I, myself, grew up in Harlem and the Highbridge
section of the Bronx. Not much was expected from the young people who lived in my
communities, no one thought we had the potential to change the world. But I’m here to tell you
that I spend my every day trying to change the direction of our society, away from a path of racial
and social division, toward a path of reconciliation and understanding that transcends race and
class and gender. Some days I actually see progress being made as a result of something that I
and others that I work with have done. There is no greater satisfaction I have known than to know
that I have contributed my best effort to the greater good of others. That’s the path that Ethical
Culture laid out for me and my life, and that’s the path that I have chosen to follow.

Finally I want to close by sharing with you one of my favorite biblical passages; To those whom
much is given, much is required. We’ve been given the gift of the Ethical Culture system and we
must find ways to share with others the many gifts that we have received during our years in
these schools.

Thank you again one and all for the invitation to share this day with you. Tomorrow as my
classmates and I relive our great times together this day will have to be added to my list of great
Fieldston memories.

AFTERWORD AND INTRODUCTION

Jeanne E. Amster

We all understand it better by and by…..

I have loved my time and work here. I cherish the gifts of our students, what a joy it is to watch
you grow from these seats….; I honor the commitment and energy of our teaching faculty; and I
appreciate the commitment of our staff, maintenance, trustees, and administrative leaders who, on
a daily basis, serve in anonymity so that others may shine. I have been captivated by the mission
and idealism of this place and as I move on to the next chapter in my life I do want to take a
moment and thank all of you for the privilege of having the opportunity to serve you and these
schools over the past six years.

Today I turn over the reins, or perhaps more precisely the opportunity to “herd cats” to a
colleague, friend and mentor. Fred Calder is the Executive Director of the New York State
Association of Independent Schools which is our accreditation agency and an advocacy group for
independent schools. He has headed two schools: the Town School in New York City from 1965
to 1970 and the Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia from 1970 to 1986. He has been a
teacher, counselor, author, public advocate, and school head and he is one of the most respected
independent school thinkers and leaders in the country. More importantly, he has been a friend
and counselor to our school for more than a decade. We are enormously fortunate to have his
advice, friendship, counsel, and leadership for the next year. Good luck Fred: come meet your
community.

INTERIM DIRECTOR

Frederick C. Calder

It’s good to be with you for my first time on Founders Day. The truth is that most schools don’t
celebrate Founders Day, certainly not on this scale, and that’s their loss.

I’ve always been fascinated by founders, especially of schools. They are an unusual breed.

All founders are in some ways revolutionaries, because they want to start something that they
think is better than what they see around them.

To do that takes a kind of undeviating focus and unstoppable energy that pushes through all the
obstacles in their path.

Precisely because of their single mindedness, founders are often difficult people, but they are also
hugely exciting.

The ultimate test, of course, is whether their idea is good enough to survive.

And though some people would argue that 119 years isn’t very old, I think Felix Adler’s Ethical
Culture Fieldston Schools have stood the test of time.

My congratulation to the Seniors. I’m sorry I won’t get to know you. This is the shortest
graduation speech you will ever hear. “Be founders. Be seekers. Good luck.”

It’s wonderful to be here. I look forward to our time together.

Oh, and next year on this occasion, I’ll speak at much greater length.

STUDENT BODY GOVERNMENT PRESIDENTS

Julian Tepper
Joshua Weiselberg

Class of ’97

Julian:

Greetings

Joshua:

Loosely translated from the Greek, Plato wrote: “I would have you imagine, then, that there exists
in the mind of men a block of wax, which is of different sizes in different men; harder, moister,
and having more or less of purity in one than another, and in some of an intermediate quality...Let
us say that this tablet is a gift of Memory, the mother of the Muses; and that when we wish to
remember anything which we have seen, or heard, or thought in our own minds, we hold the wax
through the perceptions and thoughts, and in that material receive the impression of them as from
the seal of a ring, and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the image lasts;
but when the image is effaced, or can not be taken, then we forget and do not know.

Let us now suppose that in the mind of each man there is an aviary of all sorts of birds - some
flocking together apart from the rest, others in small groups, others solitary, flying anywhere and
everywhere. We may suppose that the birds are kinds of knowledge, and that when we were
children, this receptacle was empty; whenever a man had gotten and detained in the enclosure a
kind of knowledge, he may be said to have learned or discovered the thing which is the subject of
the knowledge: and this is to know.”

Julian:

Clearly we all have our own block of wax and clearly my block of wax differs from your block of
wax in a variety of ways. It is the eveninity of what we have all seen and heard and thought in our
own minds that binds us to this community. So for those of you who enjoy the imprint on your
wax and your flocking birds of knowledge the Ethical Culture Schools will always have a place
to perch in your mind. And for those of you who have just started your experience here especially
the youngest children, may you fill your empty aviary receptacles with the finest birds in town.

Over the course of the year we have brought you many philosophies of great thinkers like Felix
Adler, Marcel Proust, Robert Haymen, Al Camou, and today we brought you Plato. Here in our
final speech, we would like to remind you of all the wondrous words we once worked with while
wading in histories watery well of words. Here is our abridged version of the important messages
we attempted to deliver to you as your PAC presidents.

Joshua:

“We would have you imagine that within the minds of all people there exists an absurd gap
between the soul of our time and the perfect lie. Through long struggle this gap can mark a step

forward on the road of ethical progress which will lead to awaken in us sleeping senses which
relinquish the progression towards totality and when formulated in totally different terms: justice
is a living thing.”

Julian:

In other words Fieldston is a place where students and teachers are willing to listen to and
consider any student’s theories. It is a place for intellectually hungry people to feed on the bark of
wisdom and raise a mind which will thrive on the goodness of human nature. A place where
students can live their academic dreams and turn them into memories. Whether or not we are the
ideal that we strive to be we can always improve on our situation. Fieldston the epitomy, the
state, the utter essence of perfection.

The other day a friend from outside of school asked me what Founder’s Day was and what other
way could I reply than Founder’s Day is a day when we gather in a convenient central co-
ordinated point and honor our foundation. My friend was satisfied with the explanation but I was
not. I needed to know the true history of Founder’s Day. So I looked at the speech we gave here
last year and we said that Felix Adler’s vision was of a community of individuals who helped
themselves through helping others. We also said even if we don’t better our community we will
in the act of trying to better our community, actually better our community. So that is a brief and
fairly modern history of Founder’s Day.

Joshua:

Founder’s Day is a time to look at our predicament, at our inner selves, at the sign which floats
above our heads. Disregarding any pious connotations or religious affiliations we firmly agree to
believe that we have to admit what with something like “The place where people meet to seek the
highest is holy ground” inscribed in silver above our heads, it would be unfair to not bring up the
absurd gaps of our predicament, our inner selves, and the sign above our heads.

We told you we would be the first to leap into the absurd gap of the student government and
would then attempt to emerge from it with a blueprint for a schoolwide renaissance. Our goal was
to make things happen. We were not looking to change the world or to alter the course of history,
although many would argue that that is exactly what we did. Either way; that is not the point. The
mini mart, the music day, the shuttlebuses, all those are pawns in a bigger game. We wanted to
show that PAC could get things accomplished and build back its reputation. Whatever projects
we used were just red herrings. The fact is that PAC needed a break from the yearly tribulations
and failures which lead to civil unrest. We gave PAC a break, it made a lot of money and pleased
a lot of people and got both of us into college.

Amanda Brody
Daniel Squadron

Class of ’98

Daniel:

Amanda and I have been going to Fieldston since Kindergarten. That first year we were both in
Betty Radens’ class. For those of you that haven’t experienced it…it’s quite an experience. Betty
takes five and six-year-olds and asks the world of them. It is often challenging, sometimes scary.

But kids come out of that class with experiences that are totally unique. No other Kindergarten
teacher in the world makes igloos with her kids, or let’s them create their own city and country.
It’s a lot to ask of kindergartners, but Betty does, and, for over thirty years the five and six-year-
olds in her classes have delivered. And by the end of that first scary year we had learned more
than how to add 1 to 3, we had learned about the world. And, more importantly we had learned
that it is our world, and we were each capable people in it, ready for whatever first grade had to
offer, and ready for the huge world beyond it.

Amanda:

Betty serves as a wonderful gateway to Fieldston, or what Fieldston should be. Her class was not
just about academics, it was about challenges, and working together, and asking more of children
than anyone in their right mind could think possible. That is what Fieldston does at its best, it
asks more of us than anyone else would, and we deliver. Unfortunately Fieldston is often not at
its best. Not enough trust is given to the students, and when it is, it’s abused. This is not about
chewing gum in the halls, or getting a bad grade on a paper. It’s about trying to make this more
than just an academic institution, it’s about creating a place where each kid can discover the
mores of the world, and find out where he or she belongs in it.

Daniel:

Founder’s Day is a perfect example of this. We give up a day of academics in order to celebrate
the ideals that this school was founded on, and the institution that has grown out of those ideals.
But who among us, students, faculty, administration, actually use Founder’s Day to think about
the resources and opportunity that this school offers us? We should use today to evaluate whether
we are living up to our potential as a school, and as an institution that fosters morally rigorous
free thought. We too often tell ourselves that this is a great place, but don’t back our statement up
with that kind of honest self-evaluation. It is very easy to become complacent at a school that has
as many obvious attributes as Fieldston.

Amanda:

That complacency will only serve to weaken the school and lessen our possibility of greatness.
Dr. Matthews, Chair of the History Department, put it best when he said that, “We need to reject
the cynicism and apathy that keeps people from being moral”. He was referring to the constant
struggle to keep Fieldston on high ground, or to keep the history analogy running, to make it a
city on a hill, towering above the assembly lines of such narrow-minded institutions as Dalton
and Horace Mann.

Daniel:

This is not to say that Fieldston is failing at its task. We often still do live up to our potential.
Examples of Fieldston’s success range from the incredible unity and devotion of Coach Yurus’s
football team, to the diversity and excitement of the gospel choir, to the amazing generosity and
helpfulness of everyone who attended, participated in, or helped us with last night’s May Day
Band/Day Concert. These things are so emblematic of Fieldston at its best not only because of
their success, but because they occur outside the classroom among people who are volunteering
their time to participate in an activity that they love, and while so doing are contributing to the
unity and ideals of the school.

Amanda:

Fieldston is a college preparatory school. We stop here on our way to the top colleges in the
country, and then some of the top jobs in the world. We can use it just to learn how to write an
essay and do basic calculus. Or we can make it a place where we discover what we want, what we
think, and where we should be going. It is possible, even easy, to go through our fourteen, or ten,
or four years and not discover these things, and it shouldn’t be so easy. But it's also possible to
take advantage of the opportunities that are offered to us, and come out of this school as morally,
as well as academically, able people.

Daniel:

Do we want to look back on our time at Fieldston as years of stifling toil? Or do we want to look
back on our years here as a time when we were surrounded by some of the most interesting and
eclectic people we have ever met, in one of the most stimulating, challenging, and supportive
atmospheres that we have ever experienced? In many ways we envy the adults at Fieldston; many
of them spend more years here than any students will. They have the opportunity to invigorate
Fieldston for decades, and enhance the lives of the countless students who pass through the
school during their tenure.

Amanda:

But we should all spend the time that we are here seeking the highest as people, and as a school.
Fieldston’s greatest strength lies in that unique mission. We are not just another prep school for
rich kids, we are also supposed to strive for diversity, equality, and an ethical standard. If we are
conscious of that mission, and constantly fight to keep these ideals alive, Fieldston will continue
to become a center not only for academic excellence, but will foster conscientious, interested, and
virtuous members of society.