Northfield Mount Hermon School - History

History

The school was originally founded by famed Protestant evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody as two separate institutions: Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies in 1879, and Mount Hermon School for Boys in 1881. Moody envisaged both these schools as parts of his dream to provide the best possible education for less privileged people. Indeed, even, in their infancy, Moody’s schools matriculated students whose parents were slaves, Native Americans, and from outside the US—something that was unimaginable in many elite private schools at that time.

On September 14, 1934, Headmaster Elliott Speer was murdered by a shotgun blast through the window of his study at the school. The crime was never solved.

Moody located the girls' school in Northfield, Massachusetts, the town of his birth, and the boys' school several miles away in the town of Gill. After the schools merged in 1971, both campuses remained in use until the Northfield campus was closed in 2005. Moody's birthplace and burial place are both located on the Northfield campus.

In Moody's view, Christian religious education was an essential part of the objective of his schools. However, under subsequent administrations, the schools became more theologically liberal and ultimately became nonsectarian and ceased evangelization of students. (This change put them at odds with other Moody institutions such as Moody Bible Institute in Chicago). Spiritual life continued to be an important part of the schools, but religious services ceased to be compulsory and students were no longer instructed in Christian doctrine.

In 1934, reformist headmaster Elliot Speer was murdered by a shotgun blast through his study window. The crime was never solved. The book Murder at Mount Hermon: The Unsolved Killing of Headmaster Elliott Speer by Mount Hermon alumnus Craig Walley proposes a possible solution.

In 1944, Howard Lane Rubendall, a graduate of Dickinson College and Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York assumed the presidency of the Northfield Schools, which included both Headmaster of Mount Hermon School for Boys and President of Northfield School for Girls. He came from First Presbyterian Church, Albany, New York, and continued at the Northfield Schools until 1961.

In the 1970s and 1980s, many U.S. private secondary schools that had previously offered single-sex education either became coeducational unilaterally or merged with other schools to become coeducational. In what was then a controversial decision, Northfield Seminary and Mount Hermon School merged to become a single coeducational institution in 1971. The settlement at NMH of mutually accepted terms was a contrast to the takeover of Abbot Academy by its neighbor, Phillips Academy. The schools had been run for many years by a single board of trustees with a similar mission and vision. The new school was dubbed Northfield Mount Hermon School. Both original campuses were retained at that time, a frequent bus schedule to connect the two campuses (five miles apart) was added but students were (and still are) segregated by sex at the dormitory level.

The school operated on two campuses up until the end of the 2004–05 school year, but consolidated all students and classes onto its Mount Hermon campus when the school's board of trustees decided that students would best benefit educationally and socially in a smaller, more close-knit community. Most influential in the Board's decision were the capital resources required to maintain operation on two campuses.

In December 2009, the Northfield campus was sold to David Green, CEO and founder of Hobby Lobby The school retained ownership of the Moody legacy sites: Round Top (Dwight L. and Emma Moody's burial site), the Birthplace, and the Homestead. Also retained are the golf course, the East Northfield Water Company, and over a thousand acres (4 km²) of the Northfield Ridge. Although The Auditorium was part of the sale, the school brokered an agreement to continue to hold its annual Concert of Sacred Music there annually.

In 1976, a history of Northfield and Mount Hermon entitled So Much to Learn was written by Burnham Carter to commemorate the school's 100th anniversary. A second history of the school entitled Lift Thine Eyes was released in October 2010 to commemorate the school's 130th anniversary.