“To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals, that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.” (1)
Dear Saint David’s School Community,
Sitting atop the highest peak in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, I opened my summer; the season closed with me sitting cross-legged on the floor of a Buddhist Temple in the Hudson Highlands of New York. It was a summer of profound contrast, setting the stage for Saint David’s 65th year.
Experiencing the architectural beauty of Monticello for the first time, one can’t help but admire the genius of Jefferson—a founding father of a nation and a university. One also can’t help being struck by the incredible paradox Jefferson’s Monticello represents. The very ideals of the Enlightenment that informed his authorship of a Declaration stand in stark contrast to the policies and practices of his day. Although he was trapped by the prevailing culture of his time, Jefferson could see what others could not—a different moral country ahead.
Deliberate moral introspection, this year’s school-wide theme, comes from the first line of Saint David’s mission. Falling between “rigorous academic pursuit” and “critical analysis of ideas and issues,” it demonstrates the wisdom of our school’s founders. By placing it in the middle of the first sentence, they show us its primacy, while also revealing it as the glue that bonds a critical mind and rigorous pursuit with the moral, “the good.”
In our Western (classical) tradition, introspection is valued. Etched in stone on Apollo’s Temple at Delphi are the words “know thyself,” and St. Augustine, in the school’s faith tradition, certainly wrote extensively about introspection; that’s largely where it has stayed—on walls and in books. Not widely practiced in today’s popular culture, introspection has given way to having needs and desires met now, on having the fastest, latest, and best immediately. If we want to teach our boys introspection, we have to reclaim the tradition.

Eastern philosophies and religions have not lost this practice. Introspection, they tell us, begins with the mind, and like any skill it must be practiced. To know, shape, and liberate the mind, we first have to teach our boys to filter out the noise around them so that they may see what’s really there and develop mental qualities that weaken and undermine distractions. We then need to teach them to reflect inward to find that quiet voice within. When our boys learn to do this effectively, they can see more clearly what is truly important. None of this is easy; it takes sustained effort to strengthen the moral core. It’s our experience and what we repeatedly do, that leave a residue on our souls. (2) What we choose to do, especially that which becomes routine, shapes our inner moral core.