Education: Mystery

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The boys had heard nothing, even the assistant headmaster was amazed, when Headmaster Mather Almon Abbott of famed Lawrenceville (N. J.) School, was reported by President John Nixon of the Board of Trustees, to have resigned. The Rev. Mr. Nixon assigned as cause Dr. Abbott's disapproval of a four-year-old policy of medical supervision. He also mentioned "a very flattering offer . . . made Dr. Abbott by another school with strong financial backing." Dr. Abbott only said: "I love this place. ... I dare say nothing. I have no money." There was an air of mystery.

A sharp-eyed newsgatherer saw that Dr. Abbott's name and pledge for $1,000 headed a posted list of subscribers for a new Lawrenceville dormitory. It was tangible evidence to bear out Dr. Abbott's gruff, nervous statement: "I have put eight years of ceaseless devotion into it, trying to make it the best school in the country."

Eight years ago Dr. Abbott was "Bott" Abbott to Yale oarsmen— their head coach in 1918-19. In 1917 he had organized the Yale Naval Unit. Before that he was famed as a professor of Greek and Latin at ultra-conservative Groton School, to which he went, with his bride, in 1897. Further back are his Nova Scotia birth, his training at King's College (Windsor, N. S.) and Worcester College, Oxford.