Headmaster's Letter to the Deerfield Community
Fall 2004

September 2004

Dear Members of the Deerfield Community:

As we mark the 207th year since Deerfield's founding, Meera and I send you our greetings, happy that the school year has begun and that we are both actually in the same place at the same time once again this September. This year the excitement that always comes with the beginning of school is amplified by our anticipation of the International Round Square Congress that will be held at Deerfield from September 28th to October 3rd. It will surely be one of the largest events we have ever attempted, and no doubt some of the excitement surrounding it has more to do with wondering whether we can actually stage-manage a week of seminars and activities for 500 students from around the world - to which my answer is that when Deerfield faculty, students, and staff take on a challenge I would never worry about the success of the result. The fact that we have been planning for the Congress for over a year, all of us working together, under the redoubtable leadership of art history teacher Lydia Hemphill, in a way that has been inclusive of everyone at Deerfield, not only makes me more certain of the outcome, but equally certain that the process leading up to the event will have been just as important to us as the Round Square Congress itself.

So no dyspeptic pep talk from me is required. A number of years ago, as we were contemplating what contributions Deerfield might make to the philosophy of education, and knowing that the ideas of "finishing up strong" and "being mobile" had already been preempted, we decided on "starting out strong." That is what we have been doing ever since. When we have so much to look forward to so soon, it does make us impatient to get on with the tasks we have set for ourselves.

I am reminded of that instance when a group of Deerfield girls came to see me with the observation that, whereas the statue of the Deerfield Boy had an inscription on his pedestal, the statue of the Deerfield Girl, standing within the lobby of the Memorial Building, had no inscription at all. I replied that we must indeed have an inscription for the Deerfield Girl, and as any headmaster would do, I appointed a committee. The Deerfield students who worked on this project did a terrific job, surveying all of their fellow students, getting advice from Mara Whalen '95 and Meera Viswanathan along the way, and finally selecting this quotation from Florida Scott Maxwell: "You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all that you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality." As we were just about to send the quotation off to the inscriber, one of the leaders of the "Rectification Campaign," Mattea Kramer, came to my office to ask if it were possible to make a modest elision in Florida Scott Maxwell's statement. I asked what she had in mind. Mattea then said, "Would it be all right if we removed the phrase 'which may take some time'?"

Smiling inside, of course I agreed. I agreed on the merits of the case (why does it have to take any time at all to become "fierce with reality"?), but also because I happened to know that the inscription under the statue of the Deerfield Boy was a rather heavily excerpted version of William Faulkner's Nobel Prize-winning speech in Stockholm in December of 1950 - the speech that includes the passage "I decline to accept the end of man..." Long ago I noted that the inscribers had included that part of the speech beneath the Deerfield Boy, but had judiciously omitted an earlier sentence, "There is only one question: When will I be blown up?"

Suddenly all of Faulkner's words, spoken in the early years of the Cold War, as the world was grimly adapting to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, seem relevant to us again. But I must say I prefer Florida Scott Maxwell. It's as if she were writing to our students, and believing in the future along with us, while we impatiently wait to lay claim to those events that we want to define us in the days ahead.

Deerfield joined Round Square four years ago, when we sent a delegation of students and faculty to the meeting at St. Philip's College in Alice Springs, Australia. We joined (being only the second American school to become part of Round Square) because we felt that the organization stood for all of the things we try to stand for, and because Deerfield students would thereby have some unusual opportunities that we couldn't replicate elsewhere. Round Square was founded by Kurt Hahn on the Gordonstoun School campus in Scotland in 1967. The principles to which every member school subscribes are those of democracy, internationalism, leadership, service, environmentalism, and adventure. There are now 53 schools in Round Square.

Two years ago, when the Congress was held at Salem Schule in Germany, we were made aware that we might well be asked to host the event this year. By the time of last year's meeting at St. Stithian's and St. Cyprian's Colleges in South Africa, the decision had been made and we had accepted the invitation.

We have chosen the theme of "Exploring Our Frontiers" because it has so many appropriate applications, not least to the history of Deerfield itself. Lech Walensa will be one of our keynote speakers at the Congress, along with Tom Heise, our Merriam Distinguished Chair in American Studies; Professor Louise Richardson, Executive Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and an expert on terrorism in the world today; and Professor Michael Gazzaniga, Deerfield parent and Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth. A panel of young Deerfield graduates will return to talk about their work in distant parts of the world. Meanwhile, 40 Deerfield students have been selected as discussion leaders and gone through a rigorous training program. Now the banners are up, the Round Square flag is flying with the Deerfield flag, and I do think we are ready.

Underneath everything that Deerfield and Round Square stand for there is always the unquenchable idealism of our students. I think it must be true of most students almost everywhere - the idea that their studies will somehow help them to make the world a better place. Generations of Deerfield students, on their way to school meeting, have passed through the entrance way of the Memorial Building where the statue of the Deerfield Boy stands. They stop and they read that man will prevail "because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance." And then they enter the lobby of the building and read beneath the Deerfield Girl that once they possess all that they have been and done they will be "fierce with reality" - without wasting a moment. Who could quarrel with such thoughts? Who would need a supplementary pep talk from the headmaster? Or doubt how strongly we have started out?

Sincerely,
Eric Widmer