page_title: Commonwealth School
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Commonwealth School / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Commonwealth School, 151 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
context_page_description: Commonwealth School is a private high school of about 130 students and 40 faculty members located in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
context_section_description: Charles E. Merrill Jr., son of the founder of Merrill Lynch, and brother of the prominent American poet James Merrill, founded the school in 1957, locating it in Boston's Back Bay to "restore good secondary schooling to the city."  He encouraged Commonwealth students to be "decent, socially responsible, generous people," actively engaged in public affairs.  For some decades after his retirement, Merrill returned to the school once a year to give a speech on a topic of his choice, and his books are on display in the school library alongside those of Commonwealth alumni.
  Merrill insisted that the school have only one rule: "No rollerskating in the halls,"—an exhortation that students should not "...act like a damn fool, but think about your actions and how they affect others."
  Merrill retired in 1981, and his memoir of the first 23 years of the school's history and his experience as headmaster, The Walled Garden, was published the following year.
caption: Commonwealth School
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