The Headmasters Papers by Richard A. Hawley Page A

changing sexual expectations in the contemporary world. Moreover, Wells School has demonstrated that it is still a satisfactory, and arguably a superior, place to prepare for the intellectual challenge of college, and for adult life beyond. Moreover, our unusually loyal alumni body have supported the school in a variety of ways financially, and the larger community continues to send us more applicants for places than we can accommodate. We are fortunate to be working still with boys of “demonstrated promise.” Over the past five years there have been more than four applicants for every available place, and last year the applicant pool was the largest it has been in a decade.
    We continue to carry out our founders’ charge to prepare boys “who aspire to university,” although we no longer train many boys, at least directly, for the practical arts. Over the past decade every single Wells graduate has matriculated into college within a year of his graduation from school. Of last year’s graduates, all but two matriculated into colleges and universities, and the two who elected to work and to travel for an interim period deferred until the following year places for which they had been accepted by colleges. Although a rigorous college preparatory school, Wells continues, in the context of contemporary society, to prepare boys for especially responsible work and for leadership, both of which were at the heart of the founders’ stated aims.
    Nor have we departed much from the ethical intentions of our charter: the “lessons of character, manliness, and Christian virtue.” The lessons of character we convey in a number of ways. Foremost among these, certainly, is direct participation in school processes: captaincies, editorships, monitorships, prefectorships, Student Court, Student Senate, and the scores of other leadership opportunities and responsibilities every boy must to some degree take on. Moreover, we address students on points of character—on charity, on basic honesty—directly in assembly. There is also the required Ethics course for under formers, and optional ethics and religion courses for upper formers. So we not only insist on ethical conduct, we encourage serious reflection on ethical matters. Manliness we consider to be the expression of the fullest range of potential given to each man; it entails self-confidence, and self-confidence is impossible without genuine achievement. Seen this way, manliness is impossible without taking risks, physical, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional. Wells School unashamedly sets the standards and provides the challenges it does to invite risk-taking. Real risk-taking involves the possibility of failure. It is possible to fail at Wells. Typically, however, boys who fail are those who fail to take risks, who close themselves off from challenges. This is always regrettable, and for some boys only a temporary delay in development, but it is no basis, we believe, for lowering standards or for removing challenges.
    Given the diversity of the Wells student body today—a pluralism both intended and welcome—it is no longer appropriate to restrict the kind of conduct we aim at to “Christian virtue.” Wells has for the past fifty years been open to boys of all faiths and to those of no traditional faith. The standards of conduct expected and maintained are compatible, however, with all established religions. The school continues to hold a non-denominational assembly each morning, in which prayers are sometimes offered and in which inspirational addresses, including religious ones, are occasionally given. Sabbath services, including a non-sectarian Christian service in Perry Chapel, are encouraged but not required. A school chaplain is retained both as a teacher and as a pastoral counselor to all boys, whether Christian or not. While no longer a purely Christian school by composition or affiliation, Wells is still a school whose