Huber Gray Buehler, Headmaster of the Maria H. Hotchkiss School, died in the Headmaster's House in Lakeville, Conn., which rises high above Lake Wonoscopomoc in the Litchfield hills.
"The King," for such he was in name and fact and fable, is dead. His reign was historic in the development of American private schools. Coming from Gettysburg, an obscure college town in Pennsylvania, achieving his first petty distinction as an author of Buehler's Modern English Grammar, he was suddenly elevated 20 years ago to be the supreme administrator of a new and comparatively small school. When he died, the Hotchkiss School had equals but no superiors in the land, and was one of a group of schools which boasted a pride of spirit and a social discipline comparable to the ancient schools of England.
"There is only one rule in this school," said the King each year, "Be a gentleman!" And the 14-year-old, as he glimpsed, week after week, the King walking with businesslike majesty down the long corridors, would ponder the implications of so vast a rule. To boys, most of whom had come from homes of wealth, where justice had oft been tempered with pleasure, the King preached annually a sermon which concluded with the lines of Matthew Arnold:
In the fiery prime of youth
To sit obedient at the foot of law!
Other schools, other ways. Other Headmasters attain their ends by other means. At Taft School is the Rev. Arthur Howe, famed Hotchkiss and Yale football star, who, were he not already bound to Taft, would be a likely successor to Dr. Buehler. Howe's method is one of personal comradeship with the boys. In this he follows his chief-Horace D. Taft (brother of "Bill" and "Charlie"). Headmaster Taft is, after the Hotchkiss manner, called the King, but his authority rests on a Garibaldian affection rather than on a Cavourian dominance. The head of Groton is Dr. Peabody. "The Rector," the "Grotties" call him. He has instituted the "prefect" system in assiduous loyalty to the English manner. The Hill School was for many years the intimate home of the boys of the late John Meigs, and very particularly of "Mrs. John." It is now under the more formal (and perhaps more efficient) direction of the Rev. Boyd Edwards. Lawrenceville is the bailiwick of Mather A. ("Bot") Abbott, a man who acts as he looks and looks as he acts—vigorous. He has taught Latin at Groton and coached crew at Yale. Exeter, biggest of the lot, is guided by the sweet sternness of Lewis Perry, a Williams College man, of the intellectual Perry family. Despite Mr. Perry, Exeter is popularly more famous for her quarterbacks than for her poets. Nearby is Andover, dignified by "Al" Stearns, who personally coached the Andover ball team for many years and who has contributed more than any other man to the literary discussion of the private school system. These are the schools which during the last quarter century have achieved some national repute. The King put Hotchkiss in the list.