Jane's Pocket Change: CSW History 101

Sherrill Bounnell, Executive Assistant to the Head of School

From time to time, as you know, I ask other members of the CSW community to write something for Pocket Change. This time Sherrill Bounnell, my colleague in the Head's Office, shares a little of The Cambridge School of Weston's fascinating history...



From time to time, as you know, I ask other members of the CSW community to write something for Pocket Change. This time Sherrill Bounnell, my colleague in the Head's Office, shares a little of The Cambridge School of Weston's fascinating history...


Ever since I arrived at CSW in July of 2001, I have been fascinated by the length and breadth of the school’s rich history. This past summer I fulfilled a long-held wish to visit the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College in order to view a scrapbook kept by Arthur Gilman. The book is huge…nearly every square inch is filled with newspaper clippings relating to the education of women. It is so fragile that it literally dissolves at the touch of a finger or hand, so I was only able to see a few pages.
 
So “Who is Arthur Gilman?” some of you may ask. Allow me to introduce him to you, as I introduced him at assembly last week in commemoration of what could be called the school’s Founders’ Day.

On September 30, 1886, at a house located at 20 Mason Street in Cambridge, our founders opened the school’s doors for the very first time. Arthur Gilman and his wife, Stella Scott Gilman, are the founders of The Cambridge School of Weston. They were among a small group of educators who, several years earlier in 1879, founded Radcliffe College, which was initially known as “The Annex” of Harvard. Our school was initially referred to as The Gilman School or its nickname “The Baby Annex” and its purpose was to educate girls in preparation for admission to Radcliffe and other local women’s colleges. In 1909, the year Gilman died, the school incorporated under its new name of The Cambridge School for Girls. It changed its name yet again in 1918 when it merged with Boston’s Miss Haskell’s School to become The Cambridge-Haskell School.

Some facts about our founding day…There were 30 pupils enrolled, all from Cambridge families. Two courses were taught that day - an English class and a “classical” class - conducted by 5 teachers (4 women, most from Radcliffe, and 1 male professor from Harvard). A newspaper article heralded that the leadership of the school was “a strong believer in the physical as well as the mental culture of girls” and that “those in her care will be trained to take care of their health while improving their minds, and to prepare themselves for collegiate work in a natural and healthy way.”

The Gilman Gate (pictured here: note the ironwork’s gryphon and the initials AG) is located at the Brattle Street entrance into Radcliffe Yard – on the opposite side of the Yard is the Radcliffe Gymnasium, which is where 20 Mason Street, our very first school building, used to stand.

During the assembly I shared a picture of Gilman with Helen Keller, who was 16 years old when she (along with her companion Annie Sullivan) arrived at the school in 1896. Keller only stayed through November 1897, but during that time Gilman (as well as the German teacher) learned “the manual language” so that he could teach her English literature himself (he took particular delight in teaching her Shakespeare). Keller finished her first year at the school with honors in German and the highest score in English of all the students.

A beautiful wooden plaque with our school motto, “Truthe and Gentil Dedes,” engraved at the bottom is housed in Jane’s office; it features the street addresses of the school’s first 3 locations in Cambridge. After the school constructed a new building in 1897 at 34 Concord Avenue, it stayed there until 1949 when the school ceased to have a lower school (yes, we originally had a lower school which eventually evolved into the Lesley-Ellis School). When the school moved its upper school to this campus in Weston in 1931, it incorporated under the simple name of The Cambridge School, Inc. When the school officially added “of Weston” to its name…… well, that’s a story for another day!
 

The Cambridge School of Weston is a progressive high school for day and boarding students in grades 9–12 and PG. CSW's mission is to provide a progressive education that emphasizes deep learning, meaningful relationships, and a dynamic program that inspires students to discover who they are and what their contribution is to their school, their community and the world.