Many of you have read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. The story she tells in the novel, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961, is about growing up in the South during the Depression; it is about poverty, racism, and the tragic consequences of ignorance. It is also about something called point of view - about where you stand as you view the world, and how your angle of vision determines what you see and what you take from your experience. Toward the end of the novel, Scout, the young girl at the story's heart, stands on the front porch of the town's recluse, who is also one of its heroes. Looking out from that spot, she is able, for the first time, to see the world through the eyes of another - and to catch a glimpse of her own world in a new way.

At its essence, this is what Hopkins School is about as well. Here, at a supremely academic place, one whose center is its teachers and learners, the broad purpose of education is to provide the foundation for a lifelong love of learning and to nurture young people as they take on the task of defining themselves in relation to their world. We seek to foster in our students the courage to think and act as distinct individuals whose angle of vision is wide, intelligent, informed, and compassionate.

In a demanding academic environment, we challenge students to try on the perspectives and habits of mind that historians and writers, mathematicians and linguists, scientists and artists, and athletes and musicians bring to their disciplines. Here students experience the ways that scholars from the various fields pose questions; then they pose questions of their own. They progress through increasingly empowering stages, from harvesting information to gaining knowledge, to reaching understanding and, finally, to forming convictions.

Life at Hopkins is also strongly athletic, artistic, and social; it presumes a commonality of purpose and a focus on striving for excellence in everything we do. We have in common a belief that independence and individualism should be balanced with a commitment to community and an embrace of obligation; we are distinct individuals at an independent school, but we welcome the responsibilities we have toward each other and to the world outside of Hopkins. We share the good fortune to be part of a place where the importance of respect, trust, kindness and laughter are givens, along with the importance of intelligence and hard work. We agree that when we meet in classrooms, in offices and on playing fields, most of the time, together, we pose better questions and find better answers than when we work alone.

And we are fortunate to have had in Edward Hopkins a founder who in 1660 bequeathed to us a portion of his estate and, in addition, the word "hopeful". At Hopkins the word "hopeful" has a special meaning. Here it conveys the belief that our young people hold the promise of future good; further, it expresses our expectation that they will fulfill that promise. A recent tribute from a Hopkins alumnus eloquently makes the point. Guido Calabresi '49, former dean of the Yale Law School, and Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, wrote this of his experience at Hopkins:

My friends at Hopkins…have gone on to become leaders in the most diverse areas of life. Some are diplomats, others scientists, still others writers - their subjects are immensely diverse. Yet the beauty of it all was, and is, that in the atmosphere Hopkins fostered we were able to be excited about all these fields. At the school, we became close to, and were challenged by, those who would make their names in the most different areas, while also learning deeply about the subjects that would become our own. . . I can truly say that not in Yale College, not at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, not in clerking for the United States Supreme Court, and only just possibly at the Yale Law School where I have taught for 44 years, have I found friends and an academic setting as conducive to intellectual growth and originality as I did in my years at the School.

Finally, I want to comment on the ultimate value of a Hopkins education. Here academics are central; it is at Hopkins that students first experience the breadth and depth of a liberal arts education. We remain tremendously and justifiably proud of our students' academic accomplishments - the number of National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists and Finalists, the national and other awards that recognize our students' remarkable achievements, and our students' placement at the most competitive colleges, to name a few. At the same time, we are mindful that we have the privilege of teaching our students during a distinct and rich period in their young lives and that life at Hopkins is more than preparation for the future - it is an educational experience that has its own meaning and purpose and pleasure.

Barbara M. Riley
Head of School