DOCTOR STEARNS

The resignation of Alfred Ernest Stearns as headmaster of Andover, though scarcely unforeseen, will startle the large army of youth which has passed over Andover Hill in the last quarter century. For his appointment in 1903 was one of those rare and happy incidents of fate that places a man exactly where he belongs. The Puritanic austerity which was his guise and the intense human sympathy which was his self combined before youthful eyes to make inevitable that apotheosis which though often lonely, is necessary to the unity and order of a large secondary school.

But it is all too easy for a spell-bound generation to submerge the mind in the man. And only when the headmaster has been partially forgotten can the education be accorded his significance. For thirty years, Doctor Stearns has labored to make easier the difficult step between school and college. So-called progressives find much to criticize in the result; for there remains considerable old-fashioned iron in the Andover scholastic methods. Through all the fads and "isms" that have swept through America's educational system, Doctor Stearns has clung to the belief that the preparatory school is the place where a youthful mind must be toughened by obstacles and provided, if possible, with the rudimentary tools of self education. Experience has yet to disprove the validity of that faith.

A more cogent criticism, however, may be leveled at the Stearns regime. In the late twenties, Andover succumbed to the national frenzy for materialistic expression and acquired what is probably the most elaborate and expensive secondary school plant in the country. That particular and isolated lapse is to be sure mitigated by the creation of a few teaching foundations for distinguished faculty members, and was probably a prerequisite to the huge donations; but the contrast with the educational advances of Exeter is only too obvious.

Through all the changes of a quarter century the name "A1" Stearns has symbolized and given a splendid continuity to the character of Andover. And the most unfortunate aspect of his retirement is that at just this time, when conservative continuity is needed as never before, sickness has deprived the school of that influence. It would be all too easy to enumerate the qualities which his successor should have, all too difficult to discover them in any one man. It is sufficient to point out that although the resignation of Doctor Stearns has cleared the way from an interregnum to a new regime, it has also placed Andover at a critical point in her career. It will be difficult to discover a man of equal caliber; and to fall in that search will be dangerous.