From G. William Domhoff's `Who Rules America?"--Part 4

In his classic book of U.S. power structure research, Who Rules America?, G.William Domhoff wrote the following in reference to institutional classism and the U.S. private school system:

"A person is considered to be a member of the upper class if he has attended any one of the private preparatory schools listed below:

Asheville (Asheville, N.C.)
Buckley (New York, N.Y.)
Choate (Wallingford, Conn.)
Cranbrook (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.)
Deerfield (Deerfield, Mass.)
Episcopal High (Alexandria, Va.)
Groton (Groton, Mass.)
Hill (Pottstown, Pa.)
Hotchkiss (Lakeville, Conn.)
Kent (Kent, Conn.)
Lake Forest (Lake Forest, Ill.)
Lawrenceville (Lawrenceville, N.J.)
Loomis (Windsor, Conn.)
Middlesex (Concord, Mass.)
Milton (Milton, Mass.)
Pomfret (Pomfret, Conn.)
Portsmouth Priory (Portsmouth, R.I.)
St. Andrew's (Middletown, Del.)
St. George's (Newport, R.I.)
St. Mark's (Southborough, Mass.)
St. Paul's (Concord, N.H.)
Shattuck (Faribault, Minn.)
Webb (Bell Buckle, Tenn.)
Woodberry Forest (Woodberry Forest, Va.)

"According to Baltzell, exclusive private schools are an even better index to upper-class status than the Social Register...

"...Exeter and Andover have been excluded from the list because of their large minority of scholarship students..."

From G.William Domhoff's `Who Rules America?"--Part 3

In his classic book of U.S. power structure research, Who Rules America?, G.William Domhoff wrote the following in reference to the political role that the U.S. private school system plays in U.S. society:

"The attainment of upper-class status is perhaps slightly less...self-conscious for the children of the newly-arrived rich. Most important, the child is sent to a private school. To be able to afford this is `proof,' so to speak, to the hereditary members of the upper class that the upstart has arrived financially, for private schooling is a very expensive proposition. Tuition is often only the beginning; travel expense, room and board, and, occasionally, sheltering a horse can raise the cost...Then, too, being admitted to a private school often `proves' that one is `well connected,' for it sometimes takes recommendations from alumni and friends of the school to be admitted. Attendance at one of the exclusive private schools automatically guarantees that the child will mingle with upper-class children. For one thing, his name is on the school's enrollment list, which will be circumspectly revealed to the nearby private schools for the opposite sex, as well as to social secretaries and dancing classes. This results in invitations to the schools' social functions, to dancing classes, and to...parties. At the school itself the child learns upper-class values, upper-class manners, and most of all upper-class speech, one of the most telltale signs of class and regional origin. From private school attendance it is but a short hop to the...social gatherings of school acquaintances; the result is usually intermarriage into the hereditary upper class...."

From G. William Domhoff's `Who Rules America?'--Part 2

In his classic book of U.S. power structure research, Who Rules America?, G.William Domhoff wrote the following in reference to the political role that the U.S. private school system plays in U.S. society:

"The most prestigious of the private schools...are probably Groton, St. Paul's, and St. Mark's, but Choate, Hotchkiss, and St. Andrew's are not far behind. Descendants of 65 of the 87 great American fortunes studied by Myers attended either Groton, St. Paul's, or St. Mark's between 1890 and 1949. The best known of the schools, however, are Phillips Exeter and Phillips Andover, which have a greater number of scholarship students and a sizable minority of rich Jewish students. Other leading schools...include St. George's, Kent, Taft, Middlesex, and Deerfield in New England; Lawrenceville in New Jersey; Hill in Pennsylvania; Shattuck in Minnesota; and Episcopal High and Woodberry Forest in Virginia.

"...A study by Kavaler based upon interviews with upper-class women from all over the country led to a list of 130 private schools for young men and young ladies of the upper class. While this list is not perfect, leaving off such important schools as Berkshire, Salisbury, and Scarborough, it is valuable...

"...A spokesman for an association of private schools claims that 99 per cent of the female graduates of such school now continue their education...The 1965 graduates of Lawrenceville went on to the following schools in large numbers: Harvard, 14; Princeton, 10; Yale, 8;...Brown, 5; Cornell, 5;...Columbia, 4;...Penn, 4; Stanford,4..."

From G. William Domhoff's `Who Rules America?'--Part 1

In his classic book of U.S. power structure research, Who Rules America?, G.William Domhoff wrote the following in reference to the political role that the U.S. private school system plays in U.S. society:

"Underlying the American upper class are a set of social institutions which are its backbone,--private schools, elite univesities...The private school is an excellent starting point, for its rise to importance was coincident with the late-ninetenth-century development of the national upper class. Baltzell emphasizes that at that time the proper school replaced the family as the chief socializing agent of the upper class: `The New England boarding school and the fashionable Eastern university became upper-class surrogate families on almost a national scale'. Educating the big-city rich from all over the country is only one of the functions of the private schools. They serve several other purposes as well. First, they are a proving ground where new-rich-old-rich antagonisms are smoothed over and the children of the new rich are gracefully assimilated. Then too, they are the main avenue by which upper-class children from smaller towns become acquainted with their counterparts from all over the country. Perhaps equally important is the fact that the schools assimilate...members of other classes, for such assimilation is important to social stability. Sweenzy calls the private schools `recruiters for the ruling class, sucking upwards...elements of the lower classes and performing the double function of infusing new brains into the ruling class and weakening the political leadership of the working class.' Indeed, many private schools employ persons to search out...members of the lower classes..."

From C.Wright Mills' `The Power Elite'--Part 10

In his classic book, The Power Elite, sociologist C.Wright Mills wrote the following in reference to the U.S. prep school educational system:

"Within and between the upper-class families as well as their firms and offices, there are the schoolboy friendships and the prep schools and the college clubs, and later the key social and political clubs. And, in all these houses and organizations, there are the men who will later--or at the time of meeting--operate in the diverse higher circles of modern society.

"The exclusive schools and clubs and resorts of the upper social classes are not exclusive merely because their members are snobs. Such locales and associations have a real part in building the upper-class character, and more than that, the connections to which they naturally lead help to link one higher circle with another.

"So the distinguished law student, after prep school and Harvard, is `clerk' to a Supreme Court judge, then a corporation lawyer, then in the diplomatic service, then in the law firm again. In each of these spheres, he meets and knows men of his own kind, and, as a kind of continuum, there are the old family friends and the schoolboy chums, the dinners at the club, and each year of his life the summer resorts. In each of these circles in which he moves, he acquires and exercises a confidence in his own ability to judge, to decide, and in this confidence he is supported by his ready access to the experience and sensibility of those who are his social peers and who act with decision in each of the important institutions and areas of public life. One does not turn one's back on a man whose presence is accepted in such circles, even under most trying circumstances. All over the top of the nation, he is`in,' his appearance, a certificate of social position; his voice and manner, a badge of proper training, his associates, proof at once of their acceptance and of his stereotyped discernment."

From C.Wright Mills' `The Power Elite'--Part 9

In his classic book, The Power Elite, sociologist C.Wright Mills wrote the following in reference to the U.S. prep school educational system:

"...The prep schools for boys are usually within a convenient range of boarding schools for girls of similar age, and several times a year the students from each are thrown together for chaperoned occasions. There are, in addition, the sisters of the other boys and the brothers of the other girls. And for those attending the more exclusive...colleges, there are formally arranged visits and parties--in short, dating patterns--established between them. On the college level, the exclusive schools become components of a broadened marriage market, which brings into dating relation the children of the upper social classes of the nation...

"Accordingly, in the inner circles of the upper classes, the most impersonal problems of the largest and most important institutions are fused with the sentiments and worries of small, closed, intimate groups. This is one very important meaning of the upper-class family and of the upper-class school: `background' is one way in which, on the basiss of intimate association, the activities of an upper class may be tacitly co-ordinated. It is also important because in such circles, adolescent boys and girls are exposed to the table conversations of decision-makers, and thus have bred into them the informal skills and pretensions of decision-makers; in short, they imbibe what is called `judgment.' Without conscious effort, they absorb the aspiration to be--if not the conviction that they are--The Ones Who Decide..."

From C.Wright Mills' `The Power Elite'--Part 8

In his classic book, The Power Elite, sociologist C.Wright Mills wrote the following in reference to the U.S. prep school educational system:

"Harvard or Yale or Princeton is not enough. It is the really exclusive prep school that counts, for that determines which of the `two Harvards' one attends. The clubs and cliques of college are usually composed of carry-overs of association and name made in the lower levels at the proper schools; one's friends at Harvard are friends made at prep school. That is why in the upper social classes, it does not by itself mean much merely to have a degree from an Ivy League college. That is assumed: the point is not Harvard, but which Harvard? By Harvard, one means Porcellian, Fly, or A.D.: by Yale, one means Zeta Psi or Fence or Delta Kappa Epsilon; by Princeton, Cottage, Tiger, Cap and Gown, or Ivy. It is the prestige of a properly certified secondary education followed by a proper club in a proper Ivy League college that is the standard admission ticket to the world of urban clubs and parties in any major city of the nation. To the prestige of the voice and manner, constructed in such schools, local loyalties bow, for that experience is a major clue to the nation-wide upper class that is homogeneous and self-conscious..."