Education: Goodbye to the Chief

It was stern, strict, and snobbish—a cold facsimile of an English public school. Boys were belted for the most minor offenses; some tried to run away. Sons of the poor, who came on scholarships, were called "rats" by wealthier students. St. Albans School for boys, owned by the Cathedral Foundation (Episcopal) in Washington, D.C., was that sort of place 20 years ago.

Then came a new headmaster—a big, twinkly-eyed Episcopal clergyman named Albert Hawley Lucas. He had been a Marine private during World War I, later assistant headmaster at Pennsylvania's Episcopal Academy. He dressed in tweeds, liked to smoke pipes, played...