foot

Farm has also demonstrated successfully the fact that pork products can be made to be wholesome and toothsome food by attention to the hygiene and habits of the pig, and by insisting on his early death.

Model dairies and barns are common enough to agricultural experiments, but model quarters for the farm hands are not so frequent. The farmhouse at "Deerfoot" is almost unique in its provision for the comfortable housing of its help. "Each hired man, in addition to his own private alcove and bed, has closets, bathroom, electric light, scientific ventilation, library and recreation room, and a hospital that can be isolated from the rest of the house." To Mr. Robert Burnett, the present owner of "Deerfoot," this altruistic plan for housing his working people is due. As a sign of the times, what could be more hopeful?

But Deerfoot Farm is endeared to New England for gentler reasons than "little pigs and bacon." Here James Russell Lowell spent some of

ROBERT M. BURNETT'S HOUSE

the last days of his life, looking out upon its familiar loveliness and making acquaintance with "the genus loci, the shy little fellow who has charge of the hills and the pastures and the woodpaths here."

Southborough began her educational history in the humiliation of a rebuke, having been in 1732 called before a grand jury in Worcester to answer to the indictment of "having kept no public school." With characteristic energy, the town fathers amended their ways and appointed two schoolmasters to different portions of the community: Dominie Johnson at a salary of six pounds per year, and Samuel Bellows, rewarded less munificently with four pounds and ten shillings. Somewhat later the practice was in vogue of having one teacher conduct school in the four different parts of the town in rotation. Until 1830 the largest sum granted annually for support of education

religious life is in accordance with the teachings of the Episcopal Church. The ascendency of a ritualistic

religion has naturally tended to impress upon Southborough a character differing widely from that of the usual New England village, partaking somewhat of the charming features of English cathedral towns.

The Fay School was opened in 1866 by Mrs. Eliza B. B. Fay and Miss Harriet M. Burnett and is truly a memorial to its founders. Here, in a charming colonial home with added dormitories, recitation rooms, playrooms, and every facility for their care and happiness, boys are received between the ages of eight and twelve for a four years' course preparing them for St. Mark's and other classical schools. Mr. Waldo Burnett Fay is the present head master. The school not only aims to give a thorough preparation for the fitting schools,

but to train lads physically as well as mentally, and to lay the foundation of sturdiness of character, and purpose in work, and to develop punctuality, self-reliance and integrity. For its purposes the equipment is ample and includes a gymnasium, football and baseball fields, golf course, tennis and squash courts and spacious playgrounds. The regular life which a small boy leads here gives an opportunity for healthy growth of mind and body, while he is most carefully looked after in a sensible practical way, which the school's remarkable record for the health of its pupils proves efficient. More than half of those who graduate go to St. Mark's.

The successful establishment of church schools in New England has been one of the more significant features of modern education. At a time when older endowed schools, whether fostered by a "denomination"

or not, were losing their numbers from year to year because of the increased facilities for the high school, the first church school in New England, St. Paul's of Concord, was established. So successful was this educational experiment that in ten years' time it was difficult to secure a place for a boy there. It was then, in 1865, that Mr. Joseph Burnett founded St. Mark's of Southborough. The Rev. Charles Wingate, speaking of the hopes of the founder of St. Mark's, voiced the feeling that was at the root of church schools when he said: "The most thoughtful men in our communion, believing that a system of teaching which sharpens the intellect, but does nothing toward improving the heart, a system which would teach 'morality with out religion and religion without a creed,' has, to say the least, no tendencies to good; and believing, too, that whatever man needs for instruction as well as admonition should be furnished through the medium of the Church, are urging the establishment of 'schools where the children of the Church will not only be thoroughly furnished with secular knowledge, but also trained for God and heaven."

The eager response to the opportunities for such training at St. Paul's inspired Mr. Burnett, and "with singular disinterestedness, prudence and foresight, and with a persistency and perseverance daunted by no obstacles, disheartened by no reverses, depressed by no disappointments, he pushed forward in the confidence of a certain faith and with

*See NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE for June, 1897.

cheerful hopefulness," until St. Mark's became from a beginning of twelve pupils housed in a dwelling, the school it is to-day with one hundred and twenty-five boys domiciled in the most complete and perfectly equipped school building in this country. St. Mark's has from the beginning been modelled with a view to being a home school in a very real sense of the word, and a home school suited to the peculiar needs of life in the New England climate. Its present building finished in 1890, is most admirably suited to serve these ends. It is situated on high ground socially near the village, and commanding a view of cultivated fields, masses of trees, rolling hills with their suggestive spires, and gleams of white houses, while Mt. Wachusett watches, sentinel-like, on the distant horizon. "St. Mark's," writes Mr. Lowell, "has been kindly taken into fellowship by great nature, her friendly grass has grown up to its feet and she is encouraging woodbine and ivy to play, as they do, gracefully and freely on the brick walls."

The building fronts the south and is built around an open quadrangle, thus securing direct rays of the sun in every part at some time in the day. Cloisters connect the east and west wings, while in the centre is the gateway, a fine architectural feature of the structure, bearing the winged lion and the motto of the school, “Age Quod Agis." The cloisters and gateway are a memorial to Arthur Welland Blake.

The chapel is at the west end of the cloisters on the front of the build