HISTORY
Global Citizens & Spectators International school trips in the 1920s and ’30s included visits to the Games By Eliott Grover ’06 Two dates are inscribed on Tabor’s seal: 1876 and 1916. The for-
riers are being smashed and the man with a broad vision counts
mer, of course, is the year Elizabeth Taber founded her school.
for so much.”
The latter’s significance might not be as readily identifiable, but there’s a good chance Tabor would not exist today without the changes that started in 1916.
The shadow of World War I weighed heavily on Lillard, who ultimately served in both world wars, and he felt a duty to ensure his boys graduated as conscientious global citizens. He fervently
The school enjoyed steady growth over its first few decades,
believed that international contact between students promoted
but its fortunes faded as a wave of financial catastrophes swept
world peace, and he introduced several foreign exchange and
across the country around the turn of the century. By 1915,
travel programs to advance this belief. As early as 1919, Tabor
Tabor had fewer than a dozen students enrolled.
“
Fearing insolvency, the Board of Trustees considered relinquishing control of Tabor to
students visited Central America and Europe, working as merchant marine cadets on the voyages––directly applying the seamanship skills they had learned
the town to run it as the local high school.
UNTIL WE LEARN HOW
Three of the Trustees, however, proposed
TO PREVENT WAR, WE
changes once they reached their destinations.
another solution. A visionary headmaster,
SHALL HAVE TO DEAL
In 1927, Lillard was instrumental in founding
WITH ITS AFTERMATH.
the International Schoolboy Fellowship (ISF).
they believed, could chart a new course. Walter Lillard became Tabor’s fifth headmaster in 1916. Working with the Trustees,
”
Other schools perceived the value of Tabor’s
– Walter Lillard, 1942
he wasted no time reorganizing the school. In order to position Tabor more competitively with
in Buzzards Bay––and engaging in cultural ex-
international outreach and were eager to join these efforts. “Believing that misunderstandings and quarrels between nations often arise through long-dis-
other prep schools, the girls boarding program was discon-
tance misjudgments,” Lillard wrote in the ISF’s handbook, “the
tinued. Girls were still admitted as day students as part of a
headmasters of some American schools are now cooperating in
new division called the Tabor Academy Girls School. Marion’s
the development of contacts that will tend to promote cordial
geography, Lillard discerned, was the key to distinguishing
relations and lasting friendships.”
Tabor––promotionally and programmatically. During his tenure, Tabor became the “School by the Sea.” Even before the Trustees brokered a deal with the town to move the entire campus to its current waterfront location, the water became a vital part of Tabor’s identity. The rowing and sailing teams started, the Tabor Boy program launched––initially with Black Duck, a ship borrowed from the Forbes family––and the curriculum incorporated a nautical science component. The 1920 school catalogue, an admissions brochure of sorts, trumpeted the merits of the marine program. “The cutter drills, the sailing of small boats, and the cruising are most valuable experiences for any boy to have––especially in view of the timely preparedness of present-day problems when international bar-
14 TABOR TODAY | Spring 2021
Athletics were a recurring motif in Tabor’s own early travel programs. All-A-Taut-O, a book published by the Trustees in 1936, includes various accounts of the “friendly competitions” that Tabor boys participated in around the world: soccer in Costa Rica and Guatemala, basketball in Mexico and Puerto Rico, baseball and tennis in France and Germany, and rowing at England’s Henley Royal Regatta. Given this background, it’s not surprising that athletics were a critical part of the ISF’s first overseas trip in 1928. On July 7, the SS Adriatic steamed out of New York Harbor. Among the passengers were 21 students, including four from Tabor. Lillard was the head chaperone. Eight days later, they disembarked in Liverpool and spent a day in London before cross-
