Then various people just immediately went out, dorm to dorm, put the letter on people’s desks and said, ‘Sign it.’ So, overnight, we basically got it signed. Lloyd wrote the first half the more angry and incoherent part was the second half, which was written by me. We were dissatisfied in an adolescent way. Lloyd and I, inspired by Martin Luther, we just sat down and wrote the letter. It was coming to the end of the year, and we had this vague sense of discontent and a feeling that we were leaving the School and there were certain unresolved problems that we felt were there and were not being addressed. Rick King: I wrote it with Lloyd Fonvielle. Tell me about the genesis of what provoked discussions about writing a letter for your form. Over Anniversary Weekend 2018, five members of the Form of 1968, including Sixth Form Letter co-author Rick King, sat down with Alumni Horae editor Jana Brown to reflect on the era, their words, and the difference the letter has made in the School’s history. A relatively narrow course of study had been expanded to offer almost a hundred courses, while the students’ field of personal choice had been enlarged in every sphere.” A church-oriented school had to a large extent become secularized. A single-sex school had become coeducational, and minorities made up a sizable portion of the student body. Paul’s School: “When the ferment subsided, St. August Heckscher wrote about the turbulent era in his 1996 book A Brief History of St. That summer, King, Fonvielle, and others remained at the School to discuss the institution’s future. Though the Sixth Form Letter, in its blunt and scolding tone (which King today calls “naive”), was not well received by all – particularly the longer tenured faculty, who felt it as a personal attack, to his credit, Rector Matthew Warren listened. St Paul’s, the letter asserted, “cannot attract an intelligent and varied student body and at the same time expect them to accept everything that goes on here.” The authors accused the School of resting on its laurels, of living in isolation, and demanded to be included in the process of change. The three-page, single-spaced harangue, signed by 82 of the 98 members of the soon-to-be graduates, outlined the students’ grievances, including too many restrictions, the formality of the teachers and the rules, the expectation that each boy adhere to the status quo, the lack of co-education, the eight Chapel services per week, and an overly traditional curriculum.
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