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More like a prep school than the average public high, Boston Latin has a number of programs not found anywhere else in the city system. There are eight advanced courses—equivalent to freshman-level work in college—in subjects ranging from chemistry to German. Boston Latin has also preserved much of its proud classical past. There are six classes in Greek, including a tough honors course conducted by ex-Fulbright Scholar Joseph Desmond. Nearly everyone takes five years of Latin (Boston Latin encompasses the seventh and eighth grades plus high school), and one of the top academic prizes is for the ancient, neglected art of public declamation.
Every March, 2,500 boys from Boston grammar schools are chosen to take Latin's entrance tests; only the top 550 or so are picked, and 20% of them now come from poor backgrounds. O'Leary makes no apologies for the "middleclass values" his school seeks to give them. "That's what made America," he says. "The Protestant-ethic. You can't improve upon it." Coat and tie are mandatory dress ("Good dress is related to good spirit, and besides, who wants to dress like a bum?"), and at least three hours' homework is required every night. Not surprisingly, the attrition rate is steep: 60% of those who enter fail to graduate.
Frills & Eyewash. Not all educators agree with O'Leary's aims or his drillmaster methods. "Education has to be a two-way street," says one critic, "and I doubt that it is at Boston Latin." Others complain that Boston Latin's curriculum is hopelessly outdated and irrelevant, and that its methodology and discipline are straight from the 17th century. O'Leary, in turn, chides some of the more permissive, student-oriented schools in the suburbs for teaching "eye-wash," "frills" and "too many purposeless programs."
With a staff and curriculum of his choosing and the highest admission standards in the city, O'Leary's main concern now is capital. Despite its glittering reputation, Boston Latin receives no more money per student than any other city school. The headmaster's proposed solution: a private endowment of $4,000,000 to supplement city funds. To achieve that would cap the career of a supremely confident and happy man. "I am one of those rare people who have achieved their life ambition," says O'Leary. "There is nothing I would rather have as my epitaph than 'Headmaster of Boston Latin School.' "
*Some representative mean scores of this year's freshmen on the verbal half of the exam: Bryn Mawr, 703; Vassar, 659; Princeton, 655; Johns Hopkins, 640.