Ohrstrom Library Digital Archives

Henry Crocker Kittredge, Sixth Rector: 1947-54

At a meeting of the Trustees on May 22, 1947, Henry Crocker Kittredge was elected Sixth Rector of St. Paul’s School, and the first layman Rector in the School’s history. Mr. Kittredge had been a master of Latin and English at SPS from 1916 to 1938. He served as Acting Rector from 1938 to 1939, until the election of the Reverend Mr. Nash. He served under the Reverend Mr. Nash as Vice Rector from 1939 to 1947. The St. Paul’s community looked to the new Rector with affection and confidence. He knew the School, and beneath his easy manner were mature convictions about the nature of SPS students, the methods of teaching, and the destiny of the School. Mr. Kittredge’s long career as a successful teacher had afforded him deep insight into teaching and learning. As August Heckscher noted in his history of the School, Kittredge:

. . . envisaged a school where boys would step across the threshold of a classroom – as not long since they had stepped across his – feeling an anticipatory thrill, and where each boy would leave the room “wiser and better than when he entered it.”