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Full of other ideas, Saltonstall believes that boys of different ages should live in the same dormitories; Andover does the opposite. Deeply concerned about public schools, Saltonstall helps out in every way he can. Exeter holds summer conferences for public school teachers, invites some to work in its classrooms for a year. To help improve New Hampshire public schools, Saltonstall serves on a study commission appointed by the Governor. It may jolt colleagues, but Saltonstall believes that, ultimately and ideally, "private schools should become obsolete."
Not all parents want or can afford to turn their teen-agers over to schools 24 hours a day, and their needs account for a boom in day schools. The country day kind can match a boarding school's big playing fields, gets just as many graduates into top colleges. Notable around Philadelphia are Haverford (802 boys), a good Main Line escalator to Princeton, and Episcopal Academy (742 boys), biggest Episcopal day school in the U.S. Philadelphia's Quakers support strong coed day schools, such as topnotch Germantown Friends (enrollment: 725). The top Quaker boys' school is also a day school: Philadelphia's William Penn Charter (702 boys), one of the oldest (1689) and best schools in the U.S. Oldest private school of all (1638) is Manhattan's Collegiate (395 boys), now famous for experiments in programmed learning. Oldest endowed school (1645): Boston's Roxbury Latin (205 boys), which rejected James B. Conant as headmaster just before Harvard accepted him as president. St. Mark's School of Texas (570 boys), which has cut off Andover's business in Dallas, was started by rich Texans for just that reason. To give their sons an Andover-level education without sending them away, they recently gave St. Mark's a remarkable science building that outdoes Andover's.
* St. Paul's, Saint Mark's, St. George's, Groton, Kent, Middlesex.