The Beaver Country Day School was founded when John Dewey's ideas on progressive education were rearing their bumptious little heads. "Education generally was a pretty stale dish," recalls its headmaster. "Green mold is not limited to penicillin. Many a school has flourished in mold and called it tradition."
Beaver School for girls started in a stable on Boston's proud Beacon Hill, now inhabits a million-dollar home in suburban Brookline. Not quite so "progressive" as it once was, Beaver draws a set of well-heeled bobby-soxers (42 of Boston's current crop of 130 debs are Beaver girls) and succeeds pretty well in making scholars...