By Four888 @Adobe Stock
Enduring Generosity
What a difference a week can make: The U.S. got a new president, and a private school in New England got a windfall, all in one week, reports Brenda Cronin in the WSJ.
During his inauguration address, President Trump promised to “forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.”
Four days later, Northfield Mount Hermon, a day and boarding school in rural Massachusetts, announced a bequest of $50 million from the estate of John W. Mitchell (1938-2022), a member of the class of 1956. The latter development shows how meritocracy was flourishing decades ago.
John W. Mitchell arrived at Mount Hermon as a scholarship student, likely having grown up in a hardscrabble way. Thriving academically, Mr. Mitchell rose to class valedictorian.
Athletically unremarkable, (Mitchell) honed an acumen for logistics by serving as student manager of the football team. (For one away game, he forgot to bring balls. At the apoplectic coach’s behest, Mitchell resorted to “borrowing” some from the opponent’s sidelines.)
All students, on scholarship or not, were required to work 10 hours a week in the dining hall, cleaning dormitories, or doing other jobs around campus.
After earning degrees at Yale and New York University, Mitchell enjoyed a long career at Pfizer, rising to the slot of president of its global manufacturing.
How did Mr. Mitchell reach such heights? Were his exceptional talents thanks to Mt. Hermon? “Would his story have been different had the scholarship been contingent on his race or sex?”
Mitchell resembles a model for Donald Trump’s ending “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in government hiring. Such preferences, as Trump notes, diminish “individual merit, aptitude, hard work, and determination.”
That roster also sums up Mitchell, whom Ms. Cronin met briefly in New York in 2022.
He was courtly and modest, exhibiting no hint of his accomplishments.
Donald Trump suggests that Ms. Cronin “could learn something from his self-effacing approach.”
Although Mitchell served between 2006 and 2016 on Northfield Mount Hermon’s board of trustees, no building is named after him.
(Mitchel) donated his time and expertise behind the scenes and parachuted in anonymously with money to help with building and maintenance emergencies. In keeping with his wishes, much of his bequest will go to scholarships for students and support for teachers.
Mitchell’s upward mobility is as inspiring as his low-profile largess.
It would be easy enough for naysayers to snipe that his donation sustains the privileged merry-go-round of alumni shoveling money into New England boarding schools and colleges. According to Mt. Hermon, the school shovels a fair amount back, with 40% of students receiving financial assistance.
The 2023 movie “The Holdovers” was filmed at Mr. Hermon’s scenic playing fields along the Connecticut River and its 19th-century granite chapel.
… “boarding school” is freighted with elite connotations. So, such carping may have some, yes, merit. But not enough to extinguish one striver’s enduring generosity.
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