Two First Days of School

So indulge an aging Headmaster for just this once. Let me tell you about my daughter.

Seventeen years ago we took the picture on the right, on her first day of Kindergarten. Our Jenny, off to school. She was heading off to another school, the year before she started first grade at Trinity. She attended Trinity from first through eighth grades, and she loved every year of it. One of my few educational disappointments is that Trinity didn't have a high school for her and for all the other kids like her who would have thrived in Trinity's learning community.

Just last Wednesday, we took the other photo. Another first day of school, this time at Trinity. Jenny is finishing her senior year at Duke, and we needed someone to fill in for one seventh grade Latin class at the last minute. And there she was, having cut her Latin teeth with Michael Myer back in the day, and then Sam Jackson and Durham Academy's Edith Keene. So last Wednesday, as we headed out the door, Desiree took this picture. I hope it's encouraging to someone other than Desiree and me. I hope that some of you young parents will see this and be confident that a Trinity education bears good fruit. I hope that we all will rejoice that some of our own are wanting to come back to Trinity. I hope that some of you who are mourning the loss of your graduating children will realize that when they leave they can come back as practicing adults, learning to make their way through the world like the rest of us.