Mission Statement
Pierrepont School seeks to provide academically engaged students with a vibrant, rigorous intellectual experience taught by teachers who are accomplished in their respective fields and demonstrate the intellectual aptitude and flexibility to work effectively with elementary and high school age children.
Founder’s Statement
There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he looked upon and received with
wonder or pity or love or dread, that object he
became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a
certain part of the day . . . . or for may years or
stretching cycles of years.
The early lilacs became part of this child,
. . .
And the March-born lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint
litter, and the mare’s foal, and the cow’s calf, and the
noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the
pondside . . and the fish suspending themselves so
curiously below there . . and the beautiful curious
liquid . . and the water-plants with their graceful flat
heads . . all became part of him.
. . .
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the
crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the
furniture . . . . the yearning and swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsayed . . . . The sense of
what is real . . . . the thought if after all it should
prove unreal,
The doubts of daytime and the doubts of nighttime . . . the
curious whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so . . . . Or is it all
flashes and specks?
. . .
These became part of that child who went forth every day,
and who now goes and will always go forth every day,
And these become of him or her that peruses them now.
If a reason can exist for the improbable act of starting a school, Whitman’s words are its ground and horizon. They prefigure my beliefs about childhood and learning. The minute particular in the life of a child cannot be mapped. It is nevertheless the territory we strive to make vital—when our students are engaging with an enduring text, a pattern sensed but not yet understood, a language no longer spoken, yet alive with promise and possibility.
The Pierrepont School, in its eighteenth year, has surpassed my most daring expectations. Andrew and I marvel at the rigor, warmth, grammar and beauty that is the context for our children’s education and days. We are grateful to our brilliant faculty, our beloved students and the families who make it so.
Eleanor Chai Beer