William G. Pollard - Fiftieth Anniversary of Kent School

Fiftieth Anniversary of Kent School

At an ecumenical seminary held in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Kent School (1955), Pollard was one of eight distinguished speakers giving talks on The Christian Idea of Education. According to acting New York Times reporter Edward N. West, a Canon of New York Cathedral St. John the Divine and author of Mediations on the Gospel of St. John, "the speakers were as distinguished as authentic Christianity produces." Other speakers included Princeton University historian and Presbyterian layman E. Harris Harbison, Cry, The Beloved Country author and Anglican layman Alan Paton, Professor of Liturgics and Episcopal priest Massey H. Shepherd, Roman Catholic priest John Courtney Murray, Roman Catholic layman and then professor emeritus of Princeton University Jacques Maritain, Russian Orthodox priest and then Harvard University professor Georges Florovsky, and Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. According to Canon West, "These contributors are so excellent, the thinking on so high a level, that any intelligent reader will be excited. The Christian position has never been better stated." Pollard and Edmund Fuller co-edited the results of this seminary, which were published as The Christian idea of education: papers and discussions (Yale University Press, 1958).