Montgomery Bell Academy

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Montgomery Bell Academy

Address

4001 Harding Road, Nashville, Tennessee 37205

Founded

1867; traces origins to 1789

Community

Urban

Students

Boys

Grades

7 to 12

Mascot

An Irish setter named Byron (The Big Red Dog)

Colors

Cardinal and silver

Motto

"Fortitudo Per Scientiam."

Ideal

"Gentleman, Scholar, Athlete."

Alma Mater

"Hail MBA of thee we sing Now and forever more. Long may the bells of glory ring, As in the days of yore. Hail to thee! Hail to thee! Where loyal hearts and friendship dwell. On and On! Faithfully, Hail Montgomery Bell!"

Newspaper

The Bell Ringer

School Website

mongomerybell.edu

Montgomery Bell Academy (often referred to as MBA) is a preparatory day school for boys in grades 7 through 12 in Nashville, Tennessee.

The school motto is "Gentlemen, Scholoar, Athlete." The school is noted for a large number of National Merit and other scholarship winners. Like many old traditional prep schools, MBA is governed by an honor code.

1 History
2 Alumni
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

MBA was established in the 1867 in the aftermath of the American Civil War. It is the successor to at least two well-known predecessors, the Western Military Institute, which was attended by Sam Davis, the "Boy Hero of the Confederacy", and the preparatory school for the former University of Nashville. (Indeed, the school's board still operates under the corporate title, "Board of Trustees of the University of Nashville", although that institution was otherwise disbanded in the early 20th century.)

From 1870 to 1875, former Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith was the chancellor of the University of Nashville, which operated both a two year college operating as the University of Nashville, and MBA, the preparatory high school and grammar school. In 1875 a financial crisis and a timely donation from the Peabody Fund caused an organizational separation of the university and the preparatory school. The university was operated under a new board of trustees and used the proceeds of the Peabody Fund to operate the university under the name of Peabody Normal College, later called the George Peabody College for Teachers. The board of trustees of the University of Nashville continued to operate MBA as a prepartory school.

In 1881, the campus of MBA was moved to an estate which was at the time well west of downtown Nashville which was previously known as "Totomoi". The military nature of one of the predecessors notwithstanding, under its current name it has always operated as a civilian institution, as a day school rather than a boarding school. The school is named in honor of Montgomery Bell, a Pennsylvania native who made his fortune as the early 19th century "ironmaster" of Middle Tennessee and whose will endowed it, with the stipulation that it forever be an all-male institution. That this practice has survived into the 21st century has proved to be quite startling to some, but in recent decades there has been little local sentiment in favor of a change since a number of excellent girls-only and coeducational academic options have developed in Nashville. Probably more of its graduates go on to attend Vanderbilt (down to 7% in recent years) than any other university, but no single institution of higher learning attracts a very large proportion of the graduates.

The 1989 motion picture Dead Poets Society starring Robin Williams, depicts a school patterned on Montgomery Bell Academy. The Alumni Department of Montgomery Bell Academy, according to a website [1] about the film, has stated:

The movie Dead Poets Society was written by Thomas Schulman, a 1968 graduate of Montgomery Bell Academy. The teacher portrayed by Robin Williams in the movie was based on one of Mr. Schulman's teachers while he was at MBA, Mr. Sam Pickering. The events in the movie, however, are purely fictional.

MBA also has extensive exchange links with boys' schools throughout the English-speaking world; arrangements are in place with Eton College and Winchester College in England, Kearsney College and Michaelhouse in South Africa, and The Southport School and The King's School in Australia.

Racial desegregation was very late in coming to MBA, as it was to many similar Southern prep schools; the school was all white as late as the 1970s.

[edit] Alumni

The front of the Davis Building at night.

The former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, is an alumnus. Other alumni include Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank F. Drowota III, Grove/Atlantic Inc. president Morgan Entrekin, founder of HCA Thomas F. Frist, Jr, renowned novelists Madison Jones and Madison Smartt Bell, essayist Samuel Pickering, noted professional wrestling critic Deke Shearon, Band of Brothers actor Richard Speight, Jr., and Admiral Joseph W. Prueher, a former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command and Ambassador to China. Earlier in the school's history, its graduates included journalist J. Frederick Essary (1881-1942), diplomat Ralph James Totten (1877-1949), and U.S. Secretary of War Jacob McGavock Dickinson (1851-1928). Lt. Gen. Frank Maxwell Andrews, the aviation pioneer and World War II European commander for whom Andrews Air Force Base is named, graduated from the school in 1901. A large number of other Nashville business and professional leaders are also alumni.