Roxbury Latin School

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Roxbury Latin School

Mortui Vivos Docent (The Dead Teach the Living)
Established	1645
School type	Private
Religious affiliation	None
Headmaster	Kerry P. Brennan
Location	West Roxbury, MA, USA
Campus	Suburban, 65 acres
Enrollment	290
Faculty	47
Student:teacher ratio	6:1
Athletics	10 sports 35 teams
Color(s)	Crimson, white, and black
Mascot	Fox
Conference	Independent School League (ISL)
Homepage	www.roxburylatin.org

Roxbury Latin School, founded in 1645 and located at 101 Saint Theresa Avenue in West Roxbury, Massachusetts since 1927, is the oldest school in continuous existence in North America.^[1]

Roxbury Latin was established in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1645 by the Rev. John Eliot under a charter received from King Charles I of England. Now located in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, the school serves close to 300 boys in grades seven through twelve. John Eliot founded the school "to fit [students] for public service both in church and in commonwealth in succeeding ages." The school's endowment is estimated at $143.8 million,^[2] the largest of any boys' school in the U.S. The school maintains a need-blind admissions policy, admitting boys without consideration of the ability of their families to pay the full tuition. As a result, most students receive financial aid. The school's board of directors announced in February that tuition would remain frozen at $17,900 for the 2007-2008 school year.

Other significant claims to fame are its students' high SAT score average – the highest of any New England independent school, according to Boston magazine^[3] – and its acceptance rates at the most competitive universities, despite maintaining a low tuition relative to its peers.^[4] In 2003, Worth magazine ranked Roxbury Latin as the #1 "feeder school" for elite universities, with a larger portion of its graduating class attending Harvard, Princeton, or Yale than any other school.^[5]

Its previous headmaster, F. Washington Jarvis, who retired in summer 2004 after a 30-year tenure, published two books about Roxbury Latin, a history of the school (Schola Illustra) and collections of his speeches to boys at Roxbury Latin (With Love and Prayers). The title of the former, Schola Illustris, was the phrase Cotton Mather used to describe the school in 1690, following John Eliot's death. In addition to those books, Richard Walden Hale published Tercentenary History of the Roxbury Latin School in 1946. Roxbury Latin continues to hold a unique place in the history of American education.

Roxbury Latin School is a member of the Independent School League and NEPSAC. It has an "unofficial" sister school relationship with The Winsor School in Boston.

[edit] Notable alumni

John Bowles (1667) – Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
John Wise (1669) – clergyman credited with revolutionary phrase, "no taxation without representation"
James Pierpont (1677) – principal founder of Yale University
Paul Dudley (1686) – Chief Justice of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1745-1751) and Attorney General of Massachusetts (1702-1718)
Joseph Warren (1755) – Continental Army General who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill, surgeon
Increase Sumner (1763) – governor of Massachusetts (1797-1799), Justice of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1782-1797)
John Warren (1767) – founder of Harvard Medical School, renowned surgeon
Francis Cabot Lowell (1789) – businessman, member of Boston Lowell family, founder of Lowell, Massachusetts
Charles Russell Lowell, Sr. (1796) – Royal Society and Harvard University fellow
Edmund M. Wheelwright (1872) – architect, designed Boston and Cambridge landmarks such as Longfellow Bridge, Horticultural Hall, and Jordan Hall
George Lyman Kittredge (1875) – influential literary scholar and professor at Harvard University
Hermon Bumpus (1884) – fifth president of Tufts University
Arthur Vining Davis (1884) – president of Aluminum Company of America (1910-1949), major educational benefactor in United States
Robert W. Wood (1887) – American physicist, professor at Johns Hopkins University
Frederick Winsor (1888) – founder of The Middlesex School
Edward Lee Thorndike (1891) – famed psychologist, former professor at Columbia, member of National Academy of Sciences
William Welles Hoyt (1894) – gold-medal winner in the pole vault at the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens
James Dole (1895) – founder of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company in Honolulu, Hawai'i currently known as Dole Food Company
Malcolm Whitman (1895) – tennis star, U.S. open champion in 1898, 1899, and 1900, member of original Davis Cup team, member of Tennis Hall of Fame
Charles W. Tobey (1897) – Governor, US Representative, and Senator of New Hampshire
Ramsen B. Ogilby (1898) – president of Trinity College (1920-1943)
Curtis Wolsley Cate (1903) – founder of The Cate School
Paul Dudley White (1903) – "Father of Modern Cardiology," noted cardiologist, founder of American Heart Association
James B. Sumner (1906) – noted chemist, recipient of 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
James Bryant Conant (1910) – president of Harvard University, ambassador to Germany
Marland P. Billings (1919) – noted geologist, Penrose Medal winner, Harvard University professor
Albert Hamilton Gordon (1919) – School Trustee since 1940, Wall Street businessman, centenarian, philanthropist, marathoner
Geoffrey W. Lewis (1928) – U.S. Ambassador to Mauritania and Central African Republic
Charles T. Bauer (1938) – business leader, founder of AIM Investments, major benefactor of Roxbury Latin, donating the Science Center and Jarvis Refectory
Richard W. Murphy (1947) – former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Syria, Mauritania, Philippines, television commentator
Richard Barnet (1948) – activist, scholar, co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies
Jared Diamond (1954) – noted biologist, author and Pulitzer Prize-winner for Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Christopher Lydon (1958) – radio broadcaster and former host of NPR's "The Connection"