Let Boarding Schools Bow Out Gracefully

America's boarding schools are in decline. Andover and Choate have decided to scale back, and admission is down 10 percent this decade. If this were not enough, it seems that boarding school morals are starting to slide as well. Our fleece-wearing friends are being cited more and more often for recreational drug use, drinking and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

In the latest issue of the American Scholar, David Hicks, the former rector of St. Paul's school, laments this sorry state of affairs. These schools have served our country by educating the privileged few, he argues, who by virtue of their wealth and social standing will wield a disproportionate amount of power in national affairs. These fortunate folk usually suffer from an excess of self-interest; Boarding schools strive to beat it out of them through strenuous athletics and a rigorously planned schedule. Or at least they used to.

Today, boarding schools cater to the adolescents that they are supposed to educate. The adolescent has become the consumer, and the school has become a provider, racing to keep up with teenagers' wishes. Hicks complains that more and more creature comforts, such as cable television, are destroying the former selfless asceticism of the schools. Psychological theories of development demand that adolescents be given room to express themselves, and, Hicks implies, the liberal establishment demands that such theories be adhered to.

There is a hint of conspiracy here and even a dash of the apocalyptic. Hicks is no friend to modernity. He fantasizes about the rural "gardens" that were the early boarding schools, safe from the encroaching roads of suburbia. While it is true that suburbia is probably not fertile ground for great-souled heroism, Hicks' negative reaction is uncalled for and even frightening. Hicks has a dangerous vision of the world that he only partially shares with us.

We have here the dystopia of youth run wild, of children armed only with remote controls ruling the world. It is hard to tell whether this is a real fear of Hicks' or simply a nagging sour feeling from spending too many hours yelling at spoiled teenagers from the suburbs. Still, this is a common enough concern. Robert Bly, for one, has written of the dangers of living in a world without active rites of passage. According to such thinkers, we live in a world of manchildren, of overgrown high-chair tyrants.

In an old "Star Trek" episode, we would visit the world of Adolenscia. Beaming onto the planet in a fog of cannabis, we would stumble over mountains of discarded jeans, Beatles records and love beads. After five minutes of soaking in the atmosphere, one of our number, probably a faceless engineer of one sort or another, would be seized by a group of crazed teenagers while we looked at our feet. Later, while rescuing the poor engineer, we would learn that teenagers have no regard for justice, other people's feelings or the right way of greeting strangers. Beaming back to the ship in a hurry, we would sigh and thank the lucky stars that our world was not ruled by adolescents.

This is the kind of silliness that Hicks falls into. His entire argument revolves around a pathological fear of self-interested adolescents. What if these kids grow up and remain self-interested, he seems to ask with horror in his voice. We have to wonder whether his concern is really all that pressing. Sure, if the adolescents are really awful, then maybe, just maybe, Hicks' beloved boarding schools have some reason for sticking around. But this seems unlikely.

For one, most kids mature as they get older. Experience often proves that self-interest is counter-productive. Even the snootiest suburban teenagers eventually get the hint and start paying attention to others around them. Of course, most adolescents are not that bad to begin with. They may be consumers, but this evil seems fairly tame in an age of gang violence and street crime. Besides, according to all of our recently disappointed supply siders, it is the money of kids like these that keeps our economy going.

If American boarding schools are falling apart, we need not waste our tears on them. Hicks, in his tired defense, cannot help romanticizing the past glories of the American boarding school. He himself seems convinced that the boarding school's best days are over. His caricature of modern-day adolescence is overblown and unconvincing, while his recommendations for the future are nearly nonexistent. We should, without attacking today's teenagers, let the American boarding school bow out gracefully.