After the Harkness Gift: A History of Phillips Exeter Academy since 1930

In 1930, philanthropist Edward S. Harkness bestowed a gift of $5.8 million on Phillips Exeter Academy, expecting to inspire “something revolutionary” in secondary education. The gift enabled the Exeter, New Hampshire, academy to redesign pedagogy and classrooms around distinctive oval “Harkness tables” that could accommodate twelve students plus a teacher and to remake its campus into a residential community. The gift transformed education at the school, but its impact spread well beyond the classroom. Since 1930, principles of free and open inquiry and discussion have come to animate Exeter’s efforts to deal with major challenges and changes, including working with an increasingly diverse community, introducing coeducation, and governing and financing a large, complex institution. After the Harkness Gift demonstrates how one leading independent school adopted a distinctive approach to teaching and learning and then successfully adapted it in the service of continuing institutional change.