History
Charles E. Merrill Jr., son of the founder of Merrill Lynch, founded the school in 1957, locating it in Boston's Back Bay to "restore good secondary schooling to the city". He encouraged Commonwealth students to be "decent, socially responsible, generous people," actively engaged in public affairs. Merrill returns to the school once a year to give a speech on a topic of his choice, and his books are on display in the school library alongside those of Commonwealth alumni.
Merrill insisted that the school had only one rule: "No rollerskating in the halls," — an exhortation that students should not "...act like a damn fool, but think about your actions and how they affect others".
Merrill retired in 1981, and his memoir of the first 23 years of the school's history and his experience as headmaster, The Walled Garden, was published the following year.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
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—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)