Dear Friends:

Trinity's mission, stated in carefully considered terms, is essentially to provide its students with a setting—intellectual, moral, and physical—in which they can pursue the elements of a liberal education. We understand the idea of liberal education in different ways, all of us, but I'm pretty sure we could agree on a small number of things that are necessary to it: reading and writing accurately and truthfully; being curious and critical-minded; opening our minds to the ideas of others; questioning authority; maintaining self-respect and respect for the other. It is an endless project. Its ideals are woven through the ideals of democracy. I've come to think that, beyond the ideal of learning for its own sake, for the love of it, a liberal education serves politics. The political question is something like, "What is one to do with one's power?" How Trinity goes about the business of a liberal education is our way of answering that question.

The future of liberal education is not guaranteed. It needs to be protected and defended by those who believe in its importance. As colleges and schools become more competitive and commodified, it's easy to imagine our core mission changing and being rationalized before we can catch our breath and react. The kind of education Trinity students come to believe in will always need vigorous defense, through vigorous practice.

At its best, liberal education is education in skepticism—I mean the "yes...but" argument. Students at Trinity learn to hold two or more mutually challenging ideas in their minds at the same time. This kind of skepticism is not just a matter of suspending judgment until all the facts are in—all the facts will never be in; it's a matter of refusing to become complacent. If it's not especially broke, this may be just the time to mess with it and try to make it work better. And what's important on the Trinity scene is essential on the national and international stage. You can love American democracy and be deeply critical of aspects of its present practice. This may, in fact, be liberal education's definition of citizenship.

From the earliest weeks of a young person's time here, even from discussions in kindergarten, through upper level courses in all the traditional academic disciplines, to specific programs in politics, morals, ethics, and citizenship, to community service, to chapel programs and talks, to our efforts to develop this school as meaningfully diverse—all of our efforts are bent towards creating an understanding, caring, and kind place. It is essential that we respect one another and ourselves in this conversation.

Every year I ask the seniors to write me letters about their experience at Trinity. In a recent batch of letters I noticed the number of times that the students tell me about particular teachers and the way they have changed their lives, some of the students remembering teachers from years ago, in the Lower and Middle Schools. The students are very clear about what is involved in this process of life changing: it is always inspiration, what Ralph Waldo Emerson might call "provocation." The students imply that their best teachers have called them out of themselves, set them free to be passionately curious and to love learning; it sounds to me as though the teachers have set the students free to teach themselves at Trinity and from now on. Seniors have written movingly about the teachers who had the deepest effect on them, about the quality of cherished Trinity friendships, and about things that might be done to make Trinity a better place for everyone. Those letters have helped me understand what we should try to do next, what we should admire, and what we should deplore in this institution we all share.

One might well ask where the laughter, the play, the requisite silliness and bounce are in Trinity School; the answer is, everywhere. Pay attention to the eyes and voices of our young people; eavesdrop at practice, theater or team; take someone by surprise in the hallway; visit one of the studios. Joy colors the place.

Thank you so much for your interest in Trinity. I invite you to explore further and to discover what we are made of.

Cordially,

Henry C. Moses
Headmaster