The curriculum is largely determined by college demands. Recently, efforts have been made to enable students to take advantage of the advanced standing programs at Harvard and other colleges. Classes are held in small discussion groups, with constant insistence on self-expression. There are few formal examinations, but frequent critical essays are required in all course. Projects and several long papers allow college-level work in the last year.

Skepticism and Responsibility

Religiously, Putney is a secular school. There is no chapel. On Sunday evening a speaker discusses questions dealing with religion, ethics, or philosophy, but there is little mention of formal religion or God. Skepticism prevails, and faith is not considered a part of life by most of the student body.

Students are given wide responsibility in directing projects, crews, and dormitory government. Except for administrative and academic decisions, all school problems, including those of discipline, are handled by a community council, composed of students, faculty, and staff, and presided over by a student.

Nevertheless, the force which in the final analysis guides every life at Putney is the pressure of the community. The major paradox which the school faces is that any encouragement to think and act as an individual is balanced and sometimes negated by the ever-present collective opinion, with its subtle demand to conform. Although the problem of conformity is probably far smaller at Putney than at most schools, it is still not eliminated.

An even greater problem is the adjustment of the student to "life", or rather, the world outside of Putney. Mrs. Hinton retired three years ago, and was succeeded by H. Benson Rockwell; it is still too early to tell whether he will mitigate the pure idealism which shaped the school in its first two decades. But the early Putney will, in any case, be remembered as a very special, and in some ways unreal experience. It is only unreal because the world does not change easily, and Putney's standards of a complete life are higher than those of most communities. The Putney graduate, who has given little though to the transition, very often finds it difficult to cope with what he considers the mediocrity of life. It is the necessary price to be paid for having been shown the possibilities of one "better world."