(2 of 2)
Since part of Porter Sargent's bread-&-butter depends on the goodwill of U. S. private educators, he might normally be expected to betray a certain amount of mild toadyism. Yet such is not the case with this fanatically independent old man. He gives equal praise to those who do and do not use his service, throws protests straight into the wastebasket. Those institutions of which he does not approve come in for a sound flaying in Private Schools. Of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Groton, Mr. Sargent dryly observes: "It has brought nurture, intellectual pap, and a spirit of aristocratic democracy to leading and socially ambitious families, especially from New York." Through many an edition he has carried on his pet campaign against the "remoteness" of lordly Headmaster George van Santvoord, the "Duke" of Hotchkiss School. Of swank Miss Porter's, he notes that "girls still hear stilted talks on ethics by one of their number." Although Porter Sargent has circled the globe five times, he preserves a certain New England wonderment at the rest of the world. Much of the liveliest reading in Private Schools is furnished by his running comments on the U. S. Scene, ostensibly undertaken to provide parents with desirable geographical background information. Of his native city he realistically observes: "Boston is one of the world's choicest places of residence although its climate is harsh, its people aloof, and its government corrupt. . . . The aristocrats of Boston all left with Lord Howe. The old Boston families of today are for the most part derived from the rabble of smugglers and privateersmen who poured in as the Tories left with the British fleet."
Of Philadelphia: "The city has lent its name to cream cheese, scrapple, capon and a certain type of lawyer. . . ."
Of Wilmington, Del.: "For more than a century the Du Ponts and their products, gunpowder and its modern substitutes, have been first in war. But since recent Congressional investigations (and articles in FORTUNE), they are no longer first in the hearts of their countrymen."
Porter Sargent himself has chosen to live in suburban Brookline, Mass, whose "winding shaded roads provide a beautiful setting for many homes." His own is a 130-year-old farmhouse. A widower, he pressed no formal education on his two sons, let them roam free. The elder died two years ago while traveling alone in the Hudson Bay region in an airplane-fabric canoe. For Porter Jr., he suggested North Carolina's highly experimental Black Mountain College. Explains Porter Sargent Sr.: "Harvard practically ruined me."