In his The Autocrat at
the Breakfast Table, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: "The world's great
men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great
men." The Rev. Seymour St. John, D.D., (1912-2006) proved the
exception to this rule. A gifted scholar, vigorous teacher, intrepid
administrator, passionate athlete, and devoted man of the cloth, Seymour was also – as virtually all who knew him agree – a
wonderfully gifted individual and, in the final analysis, a truly great man.
The profound impact of St. John upon on an entire generation of students during his
tenure at Choate – later Choate Rosemary Hall - cannot be overstated. St. John assembled one of the finest faculties in the world,
expanded the school's infrastructure and constituency, and cemented Choate's
place in the forefront of northeastern preparatory schools.
Seymour's friends included I.M. Pei, Jack Kennedy, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Douglas Dillon, Paul Mellon, George H.W. Bush, and playwright Edward
Albee. St. John's uncle, Charles Seymour, was President of Yale (from which
Seymour graduated Phi Beta Kappa); his mother a Greek scholar; his father the
longtime Headmaster of Choate before Seymour's tenure.
Seymour St. John
distinguished himself as a naval officer in Europe
during World War II. He won a battle star for his participation in D-Day.
Later on, he was instrumental in reinvigorating ravaged continental shipping and
fishing ports, and otherwise worked to bring order to the abject chaos that was
postwar Europe.
Ranging in terrain from
Wallingfort, Ct. to Haversham, RI, Jupiter Island, Florida, and the far corners of the world, this superb
biography, based on private papers held by Seymour's widow Marie L. St. John, chronicles the story of a
brilliant and vital man whose life was a blessing not only to himself, but to
all whom he encountered.
