St. Mark's School is a coeducational, Episcopal preparatory school, situated on in Southborough, Massachusetts, from Boston. St. Mark's was founded in 1865 as an all-boys school by Joseph Burnett, who developed and marketed Burnett Vanilla Extract. Girls have attended since 1978. St. Mark's is a member of the Independent School League and one of five prep schools known collectively as St. Grottlesex. History St. Mark's is one of the first New England schools founded on the British model, as opposed to academies such as Phillips Academy and Phillips Exeter Academy or entrepreneurial schools such as The Hill School. The school attracted many members of Boston Brahmin and New York Knickerbocker families. Arrival of William Greenough Thayer The school faced initial challenges, including financial difficulties and the instability resulting from employing four different headmasters in its first seventeen years of existence, followed by the appointment of William E. Peck in 1882. Peck was often in conflict with the trustees, until 1894, when he resigned and founded Pomfret School, taking a number of students and teachers with him. It wasn't until the appointment of Headmaster William Greenough Thayer (who had taught for five years at slightly younger athletic archrival Groton School) in 1894 that St. Mark's began to experience stability. Thayer led the school until 1930. News of his pending retirement was reported by Time Magazine in 1929. Thayer's knack for attracting socially well-connected families proved durable. His admissions policy, modeled on that of English Public Schools, prioritized admissions on the basis of when one's parents had “put one's name down”. In practice this led over time to a school dominated by sons of alumni. Girls were not admitted until 1978. St. Mark's social standing did not pass unnoticed in wider America. F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his 1920 novel “This Side of Paradise”, identified St. Mark's as a school which “...recruited from Boston and the Knickerbocker families of New York.” Sports were emphasized. In the early years masters played with boys on the same teams, and the traditional football rivalry with Groton was slowly expanded to include the English game of “fives”, baseball, and other sports. Parkman period With Thayer's retirement in 1930, Headmaster Francis Parkman was chosen to lead the school. Parkman brought the noted poet Richard Eberhart to the school as an English teacher from 1933 to 1941, and W. H. Auden for a brief appointment in 1939. Auden described