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In fact, moping is almost impossible. At 7:05 comes breakfast in the Commons, at 7:50 compulsory chapel—a requirement so generally resented that at times boys have refused to sing or pray. From chapel on: classes, lunch, athletics, more classes before dinner. Until 8, the joiners have a chance at some 40 extracurricular activities, from the jazz club to the Phillipian. But then comes studying, which totals more than five hours a day for seniors—all night if they care to. It takes this to keep up, which may explain why Andover is short on creative writing and boasts only four Westinghouse Science Talent Search winners.
The Andover costume is coat, tie and button-down shirt, plus wrinkled khakis and loafers or ragged sneakers. Andover bars cars, bikes and liquor. Seniors and upper-middlers can smoke; others, if caught, are "posted" (confined to campus). Otherwise, rules are sparse. A boy can go for days without making his bed. The recipe is "independence"—so much so that Andover can be a very cold place. Not long ago, the head of a smaller school who thinks Andover is too big decided to test his theory. He sent one of his boys to spend a week at Andover, where he lived in a dorm, went to classes, played games—"and nobody knew he was there."
Killing Place. More disturbing to some teachers is that Andover seems to be filling up with boys who feel that any earthly sacrifice is worth an Ivy League heaven. They work, work, work. The irony is that Andover's soaring standards may encourage the widespread notion summed up by one senior: "We get good grades so we can get into a good college—a prestige college. That's why we're here."
Such a narrow view of goals infuriates some Andover teachers. "The spirit of man is neglected in this school," fumes Emory Basford, veteran chairman of the English department. "These boys admire managerial things. Even when they collect clothes for the poor, it is done as a study in organization. A little boy likes to linger, to look at bugs and birds. Here he has to hurry away because he hasn't time. This has become a strange, bewildering, killing place."
Those Great Kids. Typically, John Kemper is inclined to agree. "The school is in a ferment about it, and I intend to keep it that way," he says. ''We can't demand less than the best of these kids. But we may be trying to get the wrong kind of best." Though he does not excuse the school, he also blames parents in part. A good college and a good job, he feels, have become the goals they teach. "There's just not enough emphasis on the old dream of simply being a good father, a good man," he says.
But it is no bad thing to have created the modern Andover. "You can talk about money and prestige," says Science Teacher Hammond, "but the incentive at Andover is much bigger. Here we have the facilities to do our professional job the way it should be done. Here we have the joy of pure scholarly discussion. And those great kids—where can a man find students who are so electrifying? There lies the dream of the good teacher. There is the significance and the challenge here."