By Kara Steere

​The 2022-2023 school year marks 80 years since Beulah Hepburn Emmet (Mrs. Emmet, as she was known to the community) opened the doors to High Mowing School (HMS) in the midst of World War II.

In the decades since, her vision for a Waldorf school has expanded to become a thriving pre K-12 school.

The Story of Mrs. Emmet

Mrs. Emmet found Rudolf Steiner’s work through a Edgewood School colleague who was one of the original teachers at the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany.

As Beulah and Robert Emmet’s family began to grow, she was drawn to a farm in Wilton, New Hampshire: “It lies off the beaten track,” Mrs. Emmet wrote in Farm to School, “but not too far. It is on the top of a hill, but not too high. […] At the top of the rise swings a wide welcoming circle of brown buildings crowning the top of the hill—the end of the journey. Not too far, not too high—but high enough for breadth of view and far enough for perspective on a busy world and a frantic struggle to get somewhere.”

It was, for Mrs. Emmet, the right spot for her new school, and work began to transform this summer residence.

There were many logistical and bureaucratic obstacles to overcome in those early years. Not the least of which being told that a woman could not open a school (“I found that a bit arbitrary,” Mrs. Emmet said) as well as the wartime building moratorium.

Still, Mrs. Emmet and her colleagues persevered and were able to open the doors to 53 kindergarten through high school students in 1942; and by 1944, the school had already received its initial accreditation. She had succeeded in creating a school inspired by Rudolf Steiner.

“We hope to help the students to think,” Mrs. Emmet said. “The feeling world cannot be taught directly. … We try to touch it in two ways—in the classroom by appealing to the imagination—the picture part of the mind which is always warmed with feeling.

If the imagination can be caught, the memory is brought alive. This is done by offering realities not abstractions, by painting characters in words not merely dates and battles. Or in science, giving the experiment first and then the definition.

The second way is through the arts—the creative side, be it painting, eurythmy, music, ceramics, drama. There the student is involved from the inside out and has a feeling of being, of belonging.”

In the following years, HMS maintained its trajectory of growth. However, as other Waldorf schools rightfully developed; High Mowing’s enrollment was affected, leading to the decision to focus only on grades 9-12.

In 1970, a major fire destroyed the Emmet house, Chapel, faculty housing, classrooms, and the infirmary. HMS persevered largely through the strength of Mrs. Emmet’s personality and her generous financial support.

Mrs. Emmet died in 1978, and a period of uncertainty ensued. As is often the case in challenging times, the faculty looked to Steiner’s wisdom.

They recalled his principle to “compromise with circumstances but not with your ideals,” and they crafted a way of working with the new types of students and questions coming their way.

From the literal and metamorphic ashes of the fire, the next phase of the school’s evolution was born.

Beginning a K-12 Waldorf Campus

Meanwhile, HMS graduate Ann Pratt was working to create a Waldorf kindergarten and then a full, eight-grade Waldorf school. With the help of the Rudolf Steiner Foundation, Ann’s vision came to life in September 1972 when Pine Hill Waldorf School opened its doors to 19 students in a 19th-century schoolhouse a few miles from High Mowing School.

Pine Hill continued to expand and in 1974, there were 95 children and five grades. A working relationship between Pine Hill and HMS formed: The campuses began to share some teachers, and Pine Hill had become a feeder to the High Mowing high school.

In the following decade, HMS and Pine Hill saw typical experiences of independent schools: There were periods punctuated with financial challenges, lower enrollments, and faculty turnover; as well as phases of enrollment booms and the development of new structures and programs.

A fire destroyed Pine Hill’s main building, though miraculously none of the children’s artwork and main lesson books were harmed. Support poured in from all over the world, and a building specifically designed to be a Waldorf school was planned.

Pine Hiil in progress

In September 1985, Pine Hill opened in its new building across the street from High Mowing — and K-12 Waldorf education was now in one location in Wilton. (In 1988, on the same day the last coat of sealer had been applied on the Pine Hill stage floor, another fire struck.

Through the enthusiasm, resiliency, and generosity of parents, teachers, and friends, the school was again rebuilt, and children and faculty moved into the present building in November 1989.)

In 2016, the connection between the schools grew even stronger when the HMS Board of Trustees unanimously approved Pine Hill’s proposal to unify. In June 2017, in their 45th and 75th anniversary years respectively, Pine Hill and HMS became a unified Early Childhood through Grade 12 Waldorf school. The unification was celebrated during Michaelmas in 2017.

Now 80 years after Mrs. Emmet created High Mowing School and 50 years after Ann Pratt opened the doors for Pine Hill, HMS welcomed more than 350 K-12 students from 18 countries in September 2022 to learn and grow into their full capacities — fulfilling Mrs. Emmet’s vision from 1942..