III

"She was an extraordinary person.... She never married. She was a very strong minded, intelligent, active woman. She had a house on Mountain avenue and a lovely garden and at one time I think she ran for selectman and didn't win because in those days you didn’t have women, and personally she was just too such of a fireball for the selectmen.... She was a very wise person, and surprisingly considering that she had ran a girl's school and that she had never married, she was surprisingly broadminded, about certain things. She was also extremely intelligent and good at figures and so she became the treasurer of the school for at least the first two years I think, she did it entirely for love and she ran the school on a very tight schedule. That is, whenever a bill came in, she sat down and wrote a check for it. She never let things pile up. She was a trustee, but she was also treasurer, and also active in the day to day management.... She was really in some ways, I suppose a new woman."

Peggy Bailey, Interview, June 21, 1982

Enrollment of students at the Country School already has begun, it has been announced by Kenneth B. Webb, co-director of the new day and boarding school which is scheduled to begin this coming fall.

The catalog, recently published by the Elm Tree Press, gives information about the school, lists the curriculum, gives organization of the school day and other pertinent facts. As stated in the catalog, the aim of the institution mill be to provide a high standard of scholarship and effective instruction in various arts and crafts.

Students will do most of maintenance plus learning to care for livestock and do other farm activities. The 400-acre Timberlake Camp in Plymouth will be used for additional farming activities and for week-end camps....

David M. Bailey, now at the Lawrenceville School for Boys in New Jersey, will act as co-director and will teach classes in English and social studies. Mr. Webb, co-director, will teach general language, Latin and Greek....

Two women teachers and several part-time assistants will be announced later. -- Ken Webb, Press release in the Vermont Standard, March 8, 1945

As 1945 began, Ken Webb looked ahead optimistically

The Woodstock Country School, Inc., came into legal existence on the winter solstice of 1944 with the signing of its articles of association and first by-laws by the incorporators: Ken, David, Owen Moon, Julia Lee McDill, and Elizabeth F. Johnson. The simply-stated purpose of the corporation was to establish and maintain "a school for the education and training of boys and girls, with power and authority... to do any lawful act which is necessary or proper to accomplish its purposes." [Articles of Assoc 12.21.44] At this time the school became a profit-making capital corporation (like the Webbs' camps), which planned an initial capitalization of $50,000 through a stock offering of 500 shares at a par value of $100 per share.

As 1945 began, Ken Webb looked ahead optimistically: "The beginning of what should be an even finer year than the previous. The first six months, then the two of camp, will be perfect. Then the School with all its promise, all its unknown challenge. The greatest satisfaction of the moment is the fact of finding remunerative work right here which makes possible my staying in town the rest of the season and also doing something which will be pleasant, even thrilling." [WEBB diary 1.1.45]

Several weeks later he added with his usual shorthand spelling, "Looked back the other day thru some 1940 diaries, and found how surprisingly fertile my ideas were then. Most every page had a treatise on something. Now I scarcely have time to write in this diary. Not a decline in fertility, but I am putting into action, creating, so many of the things I could only dream about. And my thots now and visions are so much more clear, feasible, and detailed. Experience has helped, and I must not forget the part that prayer has played, nor let it play less; rather much more." [WEBB diary 2.12.45]

Much of Ken's time and energy during the winter went into organizing the camps in Plymouth for the following summer. Still he managed to remain attentive to Susan and their three small children, he taught Sunday school, he continued fund raising for the school, he took recruiting trips, he shoveled snow off the roof at Greenhithe ("stripped to the waist and enjoyed it greatly"), and led an active social life, including serving on the steering committee of the Woodstock Community Forum which sponsored a March program on the question, "Are we doing too much for our youth?" Ken reported: "Good discussion, with half a dozen boys present from the group who are going to start the youth center. I spoke informally on the therapeutic value of work. Think we must give more attention to this, which is really central in our philosophy. The joy of creative work, the kinesthetic pleasure of work, etc." [WEBB diary 3.8.45] All during the winter Ken was also writing and rewriting the first Country School catalogue, with such help as David could provide through the mail. The first edition (referred to in Ken's press release above) has not survived. But the second edition, revised in the spring, is the clearest, fullest statement of what Ken had in mind for his and David's school. The catalogue begins with the statement of the school's goals (quoted at the beginning of this chapter), then continues on the following four tightly-typed, single-spaced pages with the relatively mundane details of school life, occasionally punctuated by further illuminations of intent. For example, in the midst of an otherwise unremarkable discussion of the barn and a nearby foundation of an earlier barn now vanished, the reader suddenly learns that "One of the major projects of the second or third year of the school should be the rebuilding of this barn as a snug and roomy place to house the eventual herd from which the school should get its milk (when a small pasteurizing plant can be managed)." This would never come about. Instead, a few years later that old barn foundation became part of a new headmaster's house.

Another selling point for the school was the idea of "The Grand Campus," not merely the school's own 40 acres, but the surrounding reaches of Vermont countryside, which was much less populous then than it is today (now that the original campus has become a suburban subdivision). Over the years the land, the place, this "Grand Campus" (though few ever called it that) would make a profound impression on students, sometimes more so than curriculum, peers, and the rest of the school together.

According to the catalogue, Woodstock's academic week would have six tightly-scheduled class days a week. The class day began with wake-up at 6:30 a.m., breakfast at 7:30, followed by five classes between 8 and 1. After lunch at 1:10 p.m. came a brief respite. But, the text ordered, "By two-thirty all students (including day students) will be dressed for the afternoon's activity, and should have reported to the person in charge. Varying with the season and the weather, these afternoon physical activities will include organized sports such as soccer, possibly football; skiing, skating and winter sports of all sorts; hiking, cabin building, etc. Approximately three of the afternoons each week will be devoted to sports, two to various work projects. Saturday afternoon and probably Sunday afternoon will be free, with each student reporting to a person in charge what his intentions are." At 4.'30 on class days, students were to be free to study, attend to their barn chores, get supper ready, take tea in the living room at Greenhithe, or just relax -- "general reading will be encouraged." After supper at 6, a brief vesper service along Quaker lines was to be followed by "a general assembly for any matters of school life needing attention; often two or three good songs, and dispersal to evening studies; or in case of some outside speaker or some special program, the assembly may be replaced by this program. Bedtime will be eight-thirty for the younger students, an hour later for the rest."

Recognizing the demands that such a schedule makes on students and faculty alike, the catalogue explained: "Each subject will meet five times during the six day period, this with three purposes: 1. To enable each teacher to have one full 24 hour period free during the week, a time at which he should leave the place entirely, come back refreshed, eager to give his maximum. 2. To break to some extent the monotony of the week's classes. 3. To create some extra daylight study time. (Each student will take not over four courses, have one study hour each morning, two on four days of the week.)"

The catalogue concluded with a brief epilogue: "Response both to the financial proposal and to the enrollment campaign - not yet really begun -- has been so splendid that there seems little likelihood of our not having registration to the capacity of the present accommodations (including the remodeled barn).... A recent visit to two schools founded on the modern ideal of making sound scholarship vital and the whole educational value of the environment realized makes it appear even more certain that there is a grand place for a school like this, which while being tharoly (sic) modern and progressive academically, will still emphasize the religious values in the life of a growing youngster, and by reason of the unusually fine community of which the School will be a part, will establish a close relation with the activities and interests of the town."

All this describes a school which embodies Ken's values more than David's -- -- particularly in its heavy emphasis on spiritual values and the idealization of physical work. Not surprisingly then, as Ken turned 43 that winter, he felt in control of his fate, his mood was close to euphoric, despite the workload that kept him chronically tired. As he recorded in his diary, "This eighth of March I have no enthusiastic plans, burning ideals to set down. Probably it is because I am too well satisfied with the way life is going anyway, too busy working out some of these ideals of long standing.

"Matters I have still to work out, tho, are these:

"1. How to keep life relaxed and joyous next year despite the evident demands on me. I will have to plan time off each afternoon; perhaps an hr. after lunch

"2. To get my feet so comfortable that I can hike again.

"3. A good, rugged, lithe, graceful frame, well muscled, obedient, joyous.

"4. Most important: a radiant personality, result of morning watch."

The arrival of an early spring reinforced Ken's happy mood. By March 27 he was raking the lawn and tending flower beds at Greenhithe. Renovation of the barn had begun. Earlier in the month, the school had bought a house on the Green in the village to use for a boys dormitory. David's return to Woodstock during his spring vacation prompted another round of board meetings to deal with necessary but not unpleasant details. At the end of March, Ken predicted the school would have 50 students in September, 40 boarders and 10 day students. He wrote that "we have 15 day prospects, 24 boarding, 12 of them very good."

But with the approach of summer, Ken's attention turned increasingly to his camps in Plymouth. Progress on the Country School slowed. In late June, now fully immersed in the seventh summer of Farm and Wilderness, Ken recorded one of his now rare trips to Woodstock in his diary: "Read mail, including one letter from [his friend and supporter] Tennien saying O.K. for $10,000 more. Praises be! Now our financial troubles are ended, for we can concentrate on enrollment; we can make the conversion to a non-profit; we can get in contributions from a wider area." [Webb diary 6.20.45] As for enrollment, he noted that there were now "about 16, or half" the students the school needed, a downward revision of his March prediction of 50. This was one of his last diary entries of any sort until the camp season was over.

In May the board had decided to convert the school from a profit-making corporation to a non-profit, which was completed in August with Ken, David,, and Miss Johnson as the principle incorporators once more. The new articles of association stated that The Woodstock Country School, Inc., was formed "for the purpose of establishing and maintaining at Woodstock in the County of Windsor and State of Vermont a school for the education of boys and girls, exclusively for that public and charitable purpose.... The members of this corporation shall be the incorporators, the trustees when elected, and such other persons as the Board of Trustees may from time to time elect to membership. This corporation shall have perpetual existence."

Coming home to Woodstock at the end of Lawrenceville's school year, David found himself more or less in charge of getting the school ready to open. Ken was busy running his camps, but Miss Johnson still provided guidance and support. As David recalled that summer, "I was always available for enrollment, for people who phoned inquiries or came there for interviews. I also supervised the alterations we were to make on Greenhithe and the barn. These included establishing one classroom for biology in the barn, and a second floor apartment where the groom's quarters had been, and then putting heat in the main building, Greenhithe. We also had to construct a two-story wooden stairway to run down to the ground as a fire escape." David also hired the last few teachers the school needed and handled the details of buying a house on the Woodstock Green which would serve as a boys dorm and residence for the Webbs. Meanwhile, David's mother and her friend, Mrs. Giles, worked long hours furnishing and decorating Greenhithe in the most tasteful and delicate fashion -- so delicate, in fact, that most of their work would not withstand the normal wear and tear of the following year.

After the end of the camp season in September, Ken took stock, outlining a Five Year Plan for the school, the camps, and himself. Nothing in his plans suggests that he considered the possibility that he might have been overcommitted. He wrote, "How different from college days and before, when I used to dream, but with a lurking sense of frustration because I couldn't see how to accomplish the things I dreamt of. Now I dream as much, but the foundations are laid for the realization of plans, and I have both the confidence in tested ability and the experience to know how to achieve what I wish.... What are some of these dreams? First, that the School will prosper, will become one of the choice little schools of the country, will make a significant contribution to the cause of better education: classes designed to stimulate intellectual curiosity, to awaken interests which will lead to the continuing process of self-education; an environment rich and varied, designed to teach the dignity and the satisfaction of labor, the joy of wholesome activity in the out-of-doors; a spiritual life deep and true enuf to give youngsters the anchorage they so vitally need, to help in building a fine, noble, and useful personality, at peace with God and man." [WEBB diary 9.8.45] By early September, the Country School enrollment was still far from full, with only 5 more students than had signed up in June. That signaled potential trouble for the school, but there was real trouble at the camps: they had lost money during the summer. Yet Ken's optimism remained undaunted: "it has been a fine summer: boundless goodwill and prospects for another year. Only the finances are bad, but we'll get that fixed with this fall and plan for a $10,000 profit next summer. At the moment School enrollment looks good: 21 yesterday, with three or four more pretty sure, one visiting last night." [Webb diary 9.8.45]

The Webbs spent as much of September closing up the camps and moving into Woodstock as they did setting up the Country School for its first opening day. Ken went on another trip to visit other New England schools to glean ideas for Woodstock. He was particularly taken by the weaving program at Fireside and a local bird identification project at Indian Mountain. Ken's diary betrayed no anxiety about the prospect, nor did he record many details of preschool activities, but stopped writing entirely the day before school opened. Only in the last week before opening did Ken immerse himself once more in the details of school business on campus. For three months he had left all that to David so that, although the abstract plan of the school was still largely Ken's, its physical and practical realization was largely David's. Only in the final week before opening day did Ken and David truly begin working together, side by side, making joint decisions on a daily basis, which required mutual respect and understanding. Time and circumstance had robbed them of the academic equivalent of spring training, and without it they found it difficult to remember always that they were supposed to be on the same team.