John Murray Forbes of Boston made a fortune in China before he was 24. Back home again, he built the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, acted as a Lincoln secret agent in the Civil War, and in 1885 opened a school near Boston. He called it Milton Academy, after the town, and after a school that had once flourished there. Last week Milton gave a dignified party to celebrate its "150th" anniversary.
Milton's 2,500 graduates include 15 Forbeses, four Cabots, eight Coolidges, five Saltonstalls, nine Welds. Most Milton alumni go to Harvard, and State Street (Boston's Wall Street) is full of them. Besides...