Education: Plan for Andover

"An observation of the growing neglect of youth'' wrote Samuel Phillips Jr. a few years before the U.S. Constitution was ratified, has "excited in us a painful anxiety." To allay the anxiety and cure the neglect, the 26-year-old Phillips persuaded his father and uncle to make a gift of lands and cash for the establishment of a school to teach boys "English and Latin Grammar, Writing. Arithmetic, and those Sciences, wherein they are commonly taught, but more especially to learn them the great end and real business of living."

Last week Phillips Academy at Andover, Mass., one of the oldest and richest prep schools in the U.S. (market value of its endowment: $28 million), announced an ambitious plan for getting on with its business. The school needs $6,060,000, said West Point-educated Headmaster John M. Kemper, and of that amount some $1,000,000 has already been pledged. Biggest project in view is the construction of five dormitories for $2,620,000. Other goals: $1,150,000 for a science building and $850,000 for a creative arts center. Perhaps the most important objective is to set up a salary range for faculty members of from $4,000 to $12,000 a year, with additional benefits, such as housing, of up to $3,000 more.

Dormitory and classroom expansion will let Andover raise its enrollment from 790 boys (30% of them on scholarships) to about 850. Not all the academy's plans involve construction and large chunks of cash; in recent years a broad system of honors courses has been instituted, and boys with special ability are encouraged to take exams that will let them skip routine college courses. Last week, deep in plans for improving his academy, Headmaster Kemper explained his purpose—to meet "an era of unparalleled rapidity of change with new ideas, new attitudes, and new techniques and tools, while holding fast to the enduring values of the past."