Pedigrees & Principles

Swank St. Mark's School, some 25 miles from Boston, couldn't find a clergyman for its headmaster. So last week the school's trustees did the next best thing: they chose a man who had been born at St. Mark's, raised at St. Mark's, educated at St. Mark's, and after four years at Princeton and one at Yale, had returned to St. Mark's as a teacher. He was William Wyatt Barber Jr., a squirish, 39-year-old gentleman with a wife named Peg and a dog named Thor.

During his long years in the cold corridors of the school's single Tudorish building, William Barber has had time to absorb the highly principled and highly pedigreed Christianity that St. Mark's preaches. Under Barber, the preaching will go on, with Barber doing a good bit of it himself at chapel services on Monday nights. The son of a Greek teacher at St. Mark's, Barber has taught Greek himself for seven years. Now, he will teach only one class. But he will go on coaching the hockey team, and every so often he will take over an evening study hall, just to keep more in touch with the boys.

By tradition, 83-year-old St. Mark's gives the kind of education and discipline that gets its graduates into the best colleges and the best clubs. Though the school's 177 boys now come from 21 states and nearly 20% are now attending on scholarships, Barber hopes to broaden the base even more. Every year, from now on, he will give a five-year scholarship to one boy from a different part of the U.S. "Private schools," says Barber, "justify themselves if, through their scholarships, they make it possible for all types of Americans to attend." Next year's type: a boy from Pittsburgh.

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