Belmont Hill Life in 1923 Ezra Lee ‘25

Belmont Hill Life in 1923

Ezra Lee ‘25

As Belmont Hill celebrates its centennial, the centennial logo everywhere around campus, many people are wondering just what life was like for the Belmont Hill boy 100 years ago. In this article of History On The Hill, you will learn exactly what life was like for the Belmont Hill student 100 years ago. From old songs, the first letter from Belmont Hill’s headmaster, and Roger F. Duncan’s book on Belmont Hill’s history, this article will walk through life at Belmont Hill 100 years ago.

The first and most noticeable difference between now and 100 years ago was the size of the school; both in terms of physical size of the campus and the people that kept Belmont Hill running. Made up of a faculty of just ten, it’s hard to imagine how only ten people, regardless how hard they worked (which was extremely hard) could form such an amazing school environment. Today, Belmont Hill has a faculty seven times that size with 17 buildings on 37 acres. In 1923, Belmont Hill’s fundamental statement went “Working together is its fundamental idea - of men with God, of men with prophets, leaders, and teachers, of men with one another, of men’s intelligence with the forces of nature. It teaches only such uses of authority as are necessary to secure the cooperation of several or many people to one end; and the discipline it advocates is training in development of cooperative goodwill.” While there have definitely been changes to Belmont Hill’s current mission statement, it is clear that Belmont Hill’s core values as a school have not significantly changed.

In 1924, Belmont Hill’s first edition of The Sextant, the student yearbook, was published, documenting what life was like for the Belmont Hill student at the time. Beginning with a note from Belmont Hill’s first headmaster, R. Heber Howe, Jr. saying “Dear Boys: I appreciate very much being asked to contribute to the first publication of the School. However, I feel that a school paper belongs to the boys, and that they should in all except rare occasions be the only contributors. All I need to say to you is that, thanks to the untiring efforts of all those connected with the administration and the hearty cooperation of the boys, we have made a start this year on which we can build the future with confidence. We must not forget that a school’s work and its reputation is not confined to any one year’s achievement. The School’s future depends on the continuance of the spirit of helpful cooperation among us all. If we have established such a spirit as a school tradition we have placed a vital and enduring

cornerstone in the School’s foundation.” Following Belmont Hill’s headmasters note, the six buildings that made up Belmont Hill, the Shaler House, the Bolles House; a portable school-house; an open-air structure familiarly called “The Cage”; and a service cottage were discussed. To finish up the yearbook, the students put in the Belmont Hill song which went as follows:

Belmont Hill School, best-of all School, In our hearts you are forever first; We will always treasure all days Spent upon the Hill with you. Dear Alma Mater, we’ll follow after Your colors bright, and ever fight For Red and Blue! In the evening, see the gleaming Of the cheery lights that beam upon the Hill,

While the wind blows round the windows, But the Old Man can’t get in; For if he bellows, our jolly fellows Will sing a song to speed along Old Mister Wind! In the morning, at the dawning,

See the sunbeams dancing oh, so merrily! On the chill air, on the Hill where Stands the School that we adore.

So here’s to Belmont, to dear old Belmont We’ll all be true to Red and Blue Forevermore! (Sung to the tune of the Italian melody, Jovinetta) In 1983, a writer by the name of Roger F. Duncan wrote a book about the history of Belmont Hill between the years 1923-1983 in where he states in his introduction: “A school has an organic life of its own, apart from including the lives of all those who touch it. Until the morning of September 26, 1923, Belmont Hill School was unborn, merely a group of buildings, a collection of papers, a bank account, and a conception in the minds of its incorporators, Headmaster, faculty, and prospective students. By recess time on that morning, it was a school. The personality and attitudes of Dr. Howe, the personality and attitude of each teacher in each of the first classes, the responses of each student, even the way in which the secretary answered the telephone, began to establish the character of the newborn school.”

Today, the school has changed a great deal, and for many people, the change is so significant that the school now would be unrecognizable to a student that graduated from the class of 1927, however, enrooted in the community, be it through dress code or the school spirit, is an energy that students at Belmont Hill 100 years ago carried.

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