Our school is named after Henry David Thoreau. The property on which the school is located is Camp Thoreau, a children's summer camp. It is also our year round home. What is more, the property is an old family farm which we try to keep in production.

Henry David Thoreau taught school himself for a few years. I would like to think that he might have approved of some of the things that we have done here, although I know he would disapprove of the folly of owning a property of this size. Thoreau believed that owning a farm is a type of slavery.

Thoreau left behind some good advice for writers of books: "The writer," he said "does not make books out of books, but he has been there in person." Hence this record of the four years in which I directed the Thoreau School.