CultureNOW - Boston Latin School: Peter Vanderwarker

Boston Latin School

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ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
"We are looking at two photographs of classrooms at the Boston Latin School, one made in 1907, the other in 2002. They offer a visual record of changing values and demographics.

In 1967, all the students and their bearded teacher are white, all are male, and all are wearing jackets and ties. On the blackboard is an elaborate chalk-drawn timeline, titled ‘A Literature Graph,’ of English and American writing. All the authors in the graph are white and male, too. Some of the choices feel odd today. On the English timeline are Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, Gray, Goldsmith, Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, Macaulay, and Tennyson. On the American line are Franklin, Irving, Cooper, Emerson, and Lowell – and nobody else. The sense that culture is a closed society, a small club of Anglophile men, is very strong.

Needless to say, there’s no literature graph in the new photo. Instead, the blackboard tells us the class is studying cell biology with teacher Patreka Wood, who is a woman of color. The students are obviously of both genders and many backgrounds. They stuff their backpacks informally under their seats. Instead of ties, they often wear information about where they shop: Gap, Nike, Abercrombie. You may not be able to see it in the photo, but two of the kids are making faces at the camera. It’s a totally different world from 1907. It’s informal, diverse, and consumer-oriented, as is Boston itself today.

Boston Latin is one of our remarkable institutions. It is the oldest public school in the country, having been founded in 1635, one year before Harvard. Things may be changing at Latin, but they change more slowly than elsewhere. According to the school’s Web site, ‘The curriculum of the school is centered in the humanities, its founders sharing with the ancient Greeks the belief that the only good things are the goods of the soul.’ Entry is by examination. Among the many notable graduates are Benjamin Franklin, Joseph P. Kennedy, and Leonard Bernstein.

The present building opened on Avenue Louis Pasteur in 1922. The two photos, therefore, are of different buildings. But the kids in 2002 appear to be sitting at the same desks as the kids of 1907, desks with inkwell holes and ornamental cast-iron legs. Electric light, however, has apparently been added."

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Boston Latin School," Boston Globe, 2002

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Location

78 Avenue Louis Pasteur
Boston, MA 02115
United States

Nearby Items

Harvard Medical School, New Research Building		688 feet
Harvard Medical School		0.2 miles
Lumina		0.2 miles
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Addition		0.2 miles
Massachusetts College of Art and Design		0.2 miles
Center for Life Science \| Boston		0.3 miles
Longwood Medical Area		0.3 miles