Our Boyden Day initiative has been an interesting one attended by a number of different controversies. Some have seen it as yet another tedious exercise in commemoration.... Others, who feel more reverential about the past, see it as something of a desecration of all that they hold dear. They may regard the day's events as a trivializing of a world-view, a set of shared values, a notion of community that we could not expect to recover by merely having three sit-down meals on one day or a score of check-ins. And for still others, the day may seem somewhat hypocritical: a celebration and exaltation of a time which in fact was not entirely ideal or golden, a time in which many groups were precluded from participating fully and equally in the life of the Academy.

I must confess that I have felt all of these things. I have a pragmatic streak that makes me want to get on with things rather than to revel too long in the detritus of the past. At the same time, I resent those who only see the past as something to parody, as if by putting on an article of clothing or listening to a particular kind of music, one has grasped the significance of history. Finally, the irony of my standing before you as an emblem of the school at this centenary observance is certainly not lost on me. As a woman and someone not of European descent, I am only too keenly aware that for most of those hundred years there are a number of factors that would either have prevented me from becoming a member of this academic community entirely or certainly as a full member entitled to all of the benefits of membership....

Despite some of my reservations about our observation of the centenary of Mr. Boyden's arrival at Deerfield, I am happy we have undertaken this endeavor. Doing so has forced us to confront the question of how to understand history and our relation to it. Is it something that we can ignore, is it something we can hope to recover, is it in fact something we can respect and to which we can look up? These are the questions that the day raises....

If we conjure up history as gingerbread and gingham curtains instead of confronting what was, we engage in a kind of childish fantasy that precludes any real understanding. But contrarily, to dismiss history is to deny the complex historical circumstances into which we've been thrown. There are things we may cherish about the past, but it is not inviolate and the observance of the past, where we rehearse a moment in history as we sought to do today, may allow us to see things that we might not have otherwise.... Finally, there is the question of how to consider history, as a list of glorious accomplishments or as a list of disheartening atrocities.

The twentieth century philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin asserted, "There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." I would agree that history is indeed both, meaning that the very same history that attests to our cultural progress on one level is precisely the one, which raises questions about our ethical compass on another. What do we do with such a history? Benjamin recommends that we "brush against the grain of history?' That is, that we challenge the received notions about what happened and how. We make original choices that may not be among those easy or obvious alternatives proffered to us by history, but instead beckon us to traverse difficult, seldom trodden paths, reflecting our desire to create something greater. Frank Boyden did that, so did Helen Childs Boyden. Now it is our turn to consider what we might do to brush against the grain of history...