Fox has been with the Chelsea School for only ten years. At the time he joined us, there was intense pressure for the school to consider coeducation. It was argued that schools such as ours were an anachronism, raising a generation of misogynists who had no idea how to behave with women and little respect for them as equals in mind and spirit. This point of view is still held by many, though it is one I disagree with. I thought, further, that I might have been able to represent the school’s interests quite well as a dean, or perhaps, even as headmaster. I made my interest in such a position known to the trustees at the time. They interviewed me, examined my credentials, and then decided that I was unsuited for an administrative position. They informed me of this in a meeting that I remember as profoundly uncomfortable. I was very angry for a time, like a fist clenched in my heart. But as Horace once observed, Ira furor brevis est (“Anger is a short madness”). My disappointment changed nothing. If I loved this school as I claimed to, it was up to me to accept the judgment of those who administered it and work to support them in their decisions in any way I could. In time I came to like and admire Ted Fox. I rarely thought about the fact that he was five years younger than I and had considerably less experience. I rarely thought about the fact that he was white and I was not. I simply continued in my work here, trying to uphold the standards I had set for myself. No matter if others didn’t live by them. In Rome, public life consisted only of men. I imagine that the tenor of that life was much like the character of Chelsea—full of a surging energy and clarity. Fox shares this viewpoint and has a particular gift for articulating it to alumni, faculty, and students. At assembly after assembly, he spoke of the great traditions of men learning from men, of the importance of men’s culture, of boys being cradled and nurtured by the rough-and-tumble of bumping up against each other’s minds and bodies. He even spoke, though indirectly, of the sharpness it brought to a young mind not to have to deal on a constant basis with the mysteries of sex and the desire to impress or to win this or that girl. Whatever one’s opinion before hearing him speak, it was hard—no, impossible—not to be moved by the force of his conviction and personality. I could see why the trustees had been impressed.