Headmaster's Letter to the Deerfield Community

September 2000

Dear Members of the Deerfield Community:

Anyone whose life is in any way conditioned by the school-year calendar knows that this is the time of year that is so full of promise, when spirits are high, and when the beginning of school-notwithstanding the nervousness that may be associated with it-is an exciting time for everyone. September in Deerfield is always that way. It is no different this year, and if anything, there is more to look forward to than ever.

That is all well and good in September. Sustaining that mood through the winter term and then to the end of the academic year is the greater test, and as headmaster I do worry about such things as the happiness of the community in general and of our students in particular. In part it is because I remember how I struggled to be happy when I was at Deerfield as a student almost 50 years ago. And in part I suppose it is because I have always been fascinated-ever since I studied history at Deerfield with Mr. Miller-with the inclusion of "the pursuit of happiness" among the inalienable rights of Americans that our Founding Fathers so exuberantly set down in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, just as if they were themselves going off to school in September.

In the culture of present-day America, I believe the constitutional right is misunderstood. People today often imagine that happiness should be manufactured for them. The pursuit of happiness-for example-may mean going to Dave and Buster's, that novel chain eatery that comes with an electronic game wonderland and a sports bar. That is where Meera took me this summer, just so that I could have a keener appreciation of pop culture today. Inside the Dave and Buster's establishment in Providence, amid the beeps and whistles, you are greeted by impersonally cheery people who pause at your table every few minutes saying, "hi, guys." The idea is that you will spend a lot of time and a lot of money at Dave and Buster's being "hi, guyed," until you finally tear yourself away, when with equal treacliness they will say "bye, guys" instead. Meanwhile you have spent so much money you are convinced you've had a terrific time.

That is not the kind of happiness I am concerned with, except that I am concerned that too many people confuse it with the real thing. But I do want our students to begin to understand what the ingredients of real happiness are, and how indeed to pursue happiness in a way that they will be truly fulfilled human beings. Such were my thoughts, half a year ago, when the cover story of the New York Times Sunday magazine consisted of an interview with His Majesty Abdullah II, King of Jordan, and our illustrious graduate in the class of 1980. There, in the middle of that article, Abdullah was quoted as saying that his three years at Deerfield were "the happiest years of my life." It was a comment he has since repeated a number of times, when he came to Deerfield as our commencement speaker in May and shortly after that on the "Larry King Live" television program.

Certainly Abdullah's visit to Deerfield was a happy event for the school. He arrived in four helicopters on the Lower Level on Saturday afternoon with his brother Ali and his two sisters, Zain and Aisha. Their motorcade proceeded down Albany Road just as Mr. Hindle was concluding his commencement luncheon speech-an honor bestowed upon him by the class of 2000, who themselves had the honor of leaving Deerfield at the same time as Mr. Hindle began his retirement after 44 years on our faculty-the fourth longest serving teacher in Deerfield history, after Mr. and Mrs. Boyden and Mr. Miller. Once the luncheon festivities were concluded, Meera and I went back to the Manse to greet His Majesty properly. Then, while preparations were underway for the evening (a small reunion of 1980 graduates was planned in the backyard of the Manse, over a cookout of kingly hamburgers) Abdullah and Ali and two senior student tour guides, Louise Lamphere and Guy Smith, and I took a walk around the Deerfield campus on that beautiful Saturday afternoon in late May. We visited all the buildings new and old, stopping deferentially in front of the portrait of Tom Ashley in the gym. And when we got to the Ephraim Williams house, there was Mr. Lambert waiting for us, having driven down from Maine so that he could do his part in greeting his former student. That evening was indeed a grand time, with almost a hundred of Abdullah's classmates returning to see him and to see Deerfield. We presented Abdullah with a framed Deerfield wrestling jersey and photograph of the team he captained (now surely hanging in the Royal Palace in Amman), after which Meera and I had to make our excuses in order to participate in another special commencement-time tradition, the telling of the Tom Ashley story to the gathered members of the senior class on the night before their graduation.

According to this tradition when I finish telling the Tom Ashley story, and after Meera tells the story of Helen Childs Boyden, as she now does, the floor is turned over to the seniors who then, in whatever order they wish, proceed to stand up and tell the rest of us what their time at Deerfield has meant to them. As this tradition is reenacted every year, often with great poignancy, I find myself again thinking about the question of happiness and what it is about our school that makes our students value their experiences so highly. Twenty years earlier it was no different for the class of 1980, now once again enjoying each other's company a short distance away.

I do not know how late the reunioning members of the class of 1980 stayed up, because Meera and I got home long after their party had ended. It took the members of the class of 2000 until 3:00 a.m. to finish telling us about Deerfield and about themselves. Even then, I think I adjourned the meeting before everyone had had a chance to speak, in the interest of getting a little sleep before the commencement ceremonies began that very morning. As Meera and I walked back to the Manse, having said our last goodnights to the senior class, it occurred to me that we never said anything to the King's staff about how late we would be getting home. When we got to the house we found every door locked, even the doors that hadn't been locked in two hundred years. I suppose that with the King, a Prince, and two Princesses inside I should not have been surprised, but it did strike me as a rather funny situation-a Headmaster and his spouse trying to get into their own home at 3:00 a.m. on the evening of the Deerfield commencement. Finally, one door opened very slightly, and through that fissure we were able to persuade the officer of the royal household that we lived in the Manse as well.

The next morning (or three hours later) the house was suddenly alive again, with the business of getting ready for commencement. Abdullah, David Pond, and I had a chance to have breakfast together, and to talk about the Middle East, where I had been born 60 years ago. Then we went off to take our places at the head of the commencement procession, watching the seniors march behind the Academy bagpipers and then ourselves marching into the great tent behind the 8th Massachusetts Regiment and Fife and Drum Corps. No one who listened to Abdullah's speech that day will ever forget it. Abdullah began by performing obeisance to Peter Hindle (homage befitting a "czar")-which occasioned a thunderous ovation from the faculty and students. The seniors had already announced that Queen Rania had been voted an honorary member of their class, so that she could share with her husband the distinction of having a Deerfield degree. But when he spoke, Abdullah turned things around and asked our seniors what, after all, their degrees meant to them. And he went on to put to our students an eloquent challenge to be true to themselves and their ideals. Afterwards, as Meera and I escorted him to his helicopter, I thought that here indeed was a man who was at peace with himself and at the same time was passionate in his pursuit of peace in the world. Wasn't he saying to our students that in fact this was the prescription for happiness? That the self-awareness and the self-acceptance one develops at Deerfield are the building blocks of our idealism and commitment to causes greater than ourselves? For Abdullah it was not that he was happy as a student at Deerfield because time somehow stopped for him here and he could be irresponsible for a moment; it was precisely the opposite, that he knew that he was becoming himself in this community, with all of the support of his faculty and his friends.

When Abdullah looked at the portrait of Tom Ashley in the gym, he also noted with interest the inscription underneath, which I had written several years ago: "Tom Ashley, Deerfield student and teacher, in whose memory will live forever the ideals of our school." The idealism of Abdullah, or his classmates in the class of 1980 or of our graduating seniors in the class of 2000, is no different. Neither is the idealism of our students returning to school this September, old students and new students alike. If students at Deerfield are happy, it is because of a generosity of spirit which is very much a part of Deerfield and will, I hope, always be part of the life of everyone who has ever been part of this community.

Sincerely,
Eric Widmer

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