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Hyde School Survivors released 69 police reports from Hyde Bath from 2017-2021. There's a kid begging police to be taken to jail, various assaults, and rape. Apparently 11 cases were not included because they still have open investigations.

It's the first link in the link tree: https://linktr.ee/hydesurvivors

Analysis: Is Joe Gauld's educational philosophy what the world needs?

Remember some years ago a movement called Buchmanism: a lot of people getting together in a room and confessing their sins of omission and commission - a kind of alcoholics anonymous on a grape juice jag? The whole thing got retitled Moral Rearmament (MRA) and a tennis player named Bunny Austin made headlines by advocating world changing through life changing, the slogan of Frank Buchman himself.

Well, something of this kind is now used as part of a system of growth through courage which has been put together by a man named Joe Gauld, headmaster of the Hyde School in Bath, an institution not primarily interested in studies but in a system which Gauld says builds character and develops each student's "unique potential."

Gauld, according to his own account, began Hyde School with students who had very little academic talent and many behavioral problems. At that time he introduced a series of procedures which survive today though Hyde is now on its feet.

One of the school's methods of achieving the results they claim consists of class meetings - seminars they call them, though there is nothing remotely academic about the assemblies - at which students and adults alike describe and discuss their shortcomings. I attended a Junior Class seminar.
When the entire class and four or five faculty members were assembled, the faculty leader nodded to one student, who began a semi-articulate account of his sins: failure to relate to people, immaturity, lack of the qualities (unspecified) required of a senior at Hyde.

"I can't see you as a Hyde senior next year," one faculty member remarked, apparently intending his failure of vision to be a reproof. The boy's classmates echoed the statement, and avowed that they had seen signs of the shortcomings the young man had confessed to, though specifics were lacking:

"I feel, you know, that you've been different, you know; that you haven't, you know, quite..."

A girl identified as the accused's sister chimed in: "That's it; you don't treat me as a person; you don't seem to even notice me, and at home I feel... " At this point her tears made her totally inarticulate.

The young man now, with much verbal agony, acknowledged the logic of the several charges made against him and declared himself reformed, aware of his inadequacies, and firm in his resolve to amend his life. He was let off the hook.

After some other confessions in which almost identical "problems" were discussed in almost identical language, attention centered on a boy with a delicate and rather frightened face.

He too confessed to immaturity, and was promptly reminded by his classmates of other faults: stubbornness, excessive intellectuality - "You think too much," they told him - and reticence - "You don't relate to others," was their way of phrasing it.

Many voices from around the room joined in the chorus, faculty as well as students; the young man leaned forward and his eyes glistened perceptibly even behind his glasses. He had little to say of or for himself, and his taciturnity seemed to his accusers one more sign of intransigence.

Suddenly a faculty wife turned on him and said, "Aren't you a Jew?"

Two other students took up this new tack, one saying: "That's it; it's his background he hasn't learned to cope with. He should be a sophomore; he's not mature enough to be a Hyde senior next year."

Presently, despite the young man's protestations that he did not want to be put back to the sophomore class, a vote was suggested, a forest of hands was raised, and the boy was no longer a junior. "How do you feel now?" asked the faculty leader.

The student could manage no reply. He got up, walked from the room, and attempted to shut the sliding door behind him; it stuck.

John Henry Martin, chairman of the National Panel on High Schools and Adolescent Education, in a letter about Hyde School, wrote that a class meeting of the kind I witnessed "could become cruelly abusive of individuals or turn into a pseudo religious public confessional. In fact," his letter, written in 1972, continued, "it is neither." Martin did not say whether he had a chance to talk individually, as I did, with a student who had been subjected to this kind of treatment

After the meeting broke up, I asked the faculty member who had been in charge whether the school had a consulting psychiatrist or if any faculty member present had had psychiatric or psychological training. He said no; that years of working with students were the best guide and provided the knowhow to manipulate the emotions of youngsters. Later I was told that the school had indeed consulted psychiatrists, though just how or in what capacity was not divulged.

During the meeting, several references were made to the "Junior Thing," a phrase which meant something to everyone present except me. I asked what it was.

It seems that in the course of last year the entire Junior Class staged a rebellion because, as one of them put it, they wanted to say the hell with the whole thing. Whether this is an intermediate stage in the process of character development was not explained. What happened was this.

In the middle of one night the juniors all got up, and lured from their beds, by false stories, the Leadership School (a small group of seniors chosen for responsibility), the juniors bound them, and locked them up. Then they proceeded to defy the authority not only of the seniors but of the faculty as well.

The Director of Hyde School, Edward Legg, unaccustomed to coping with so much unique potential all at once, suspended the entire Junior Class, instituted what the kids referred to as martial law, dispatched the juniors to their rooms in disgrace, and then one by one readmitted them to the school - when they had repudiated their behavior and recommitted themselves to conformity. This was the group that sat in judgment on one of their classmates and demoted him for immaturity.

Group therapy is, of course, not new; it has been used in a variety of ways besides Moral Rearmament; for seriously disturbed teen-agers, and for prisoners.

A few weeks ago a man from a prison where such therapy is practiced was interviewed on TV:
"You learn how to judge what they think is right and what they think is wrong," he said, "and you play right along with them." Confessions and commitments are relatively easy to obtain where there is the constant threat of martial law, even the kind of martial law that a school can impose.

Class seminars and martial law are not the only methods of character instruction at Hyde School.
One girl had to shovel a pile of sand to a spot a few feet away and then shovel it back again. Other students deemed potentially unique are persuaded to reform and conform by digging ditches; one young man I saw undergoing this form of development had dug himself in up to his chest.

Tough treatment is the rule at Hyde. The headmaster, who writes a weekly newspaper column, described in one of his articles a Russian schoolmaster, Makarenko, whose struggle "is an inspiration for Hyde School's goal of changing American education." The article goes on to tell how the Russian struck a student, not once but three times, knocking the boy against a stove and then picking him up and hitting him again until the young man whimpered. "Makarenko, Gauld writes, "had a commitment to help these kids, but he faced a hostile educational bureaucracy whose naive let-the-child-express-himself philosophy would constantly harass his efforts." At Hyde there is a certain amount of slapping, and kids get thrown into ponds, but I did not see or hear anything worse than a girl thrown into a pond by some other students. As she fought and kicked and shrieked, four students took her by the arms and legs, swung her out over the water, and dropped her in.

"I'm safe with you," the student I was talking with told me; "they won't grab me here." Then he added, "I'd fight them. I'm agile; I got away by jumping a fence."

"I hadn't cried for nine years before I came to Hyde," one student said. "I'm worried about next year (it was late May when we talked together) but I'll make it. I'm going to work hard at my wrestling."

So much for the Makarenko ideal. As for the Russian's "hostile educational bureaucracy." the leaders of Hyde School feel the same kind of antipathy toward American educators, or as the headmaster calls them, "the educational mafia," which he holds responsible for the ''other system," that is, everything un-Hyde. Simplification is one of the headmaster's talents, allowing him to lump together the whole of American education - public day schools, private boarding schools, girls' seminaries, co-education on the Putney model, free schools, open classroom schools, Montessori schools - in a single category, the "other system."

"Our system," Gauld writes, "will necessarily transform child development today into a new system." And again, "We cannot effect this change through the present system of education; It has no philosophy ..." Nevertheless, Gauld is working hard to spread his gospel through pilot projects modeled on Hyde in places as far removed as Illinois, Long Island, New York, and Westbrook, Maine.

Westbrook Superintendent Harold Hickey, who was asked by Commissioner Carroll McGary to look at Hyde, said, "I'm willing to look and talk but I've got a lot of questions to ask. Character building is fine, commitment is fine, but we've all been doing it for years."

Character building is fine if fine character is what you build. How does anybody know?
If a teenager is publicly humiliated, does this build his character? Does it build the character of other students who are encouraged to take part in such a show?

A friend of mine, an Army doctor who wanted to be sent overseas, went to parachute jump school. He told me that any man who refused to bail out of the plane was made to stand in the middle of the parade ground while the entire company marched past. As they came up to him, each man would turn and say, "You dirty yellow coward."

The products of such a school must be disciplined, conformist, trained to perform a particular (usually a distasteful) task with efficiency and dispatch. Such training is not a matter of building character but of influencing behavior. There is certainly a considerable effect upon a person's character but whether this effect is coarsening or humanizing depends on factors which the training does not take into account.

All that is required of a parachute trooper at the critical moment when his behavior matters is not character but a gut feeling; that's all that is required of a trained dog, and, interestingly enough, Hyde School's director uses an analogy of training dogs to describe part of the process at Hyde. When you ask Hyde School's leaders to explain the core of their philosophy, they say, "It's a gut feeling."

I found myself very much interested in Hyde School's philosophy and methods, particularly because, through Commissioner McGary's influence, there seemed a possibility that they might be adapted for use in public schools here in Maine. Consequently, I looked forward to my interview with Joe Gauld; like Harold Hickey, I had a lot of questions to ask.

It isn't easy to ask Joe Gauld questions. He boasts that he reads very little and learns more easily from people than from the printed page, so that questions about educational theory get short answers. Besides, he is almost aggressively anti-intellectual. "Adults are products of an educational system that only plugs them into intellectual solutions," he retorts. In the quintet of qualities to which Hyde is committed ("Why did you pick those five?" I asked; "wouldn't another five have done as well?" "Sure," answered Director Legg) the only remotely intellectual quality is curiosity.

It's also difficult to ask Gauld questions because he is himself terribly sensitive to criticism - curious in a school where open criticism openly arrived at is the ideal for which the students must undergo emotional and verbal agonies at regulated intervals. And, finally, it's difficult to ask him questions because he thinks with the pit of his stomach. You have to feel it, he says; you have to believe. Questions to him mean doubts; doubts mean unbelief; and there is no room and no hospitality at Hyde for the unbeliever.

What I wanted to ask Gauld was what he meant by a phrase he uses constantly in writing about his methods: "unique potential." "Every human being is endowed with a unique potential. The purpose of life comes alive in its development." (from "An Operational Philosophy of Hyde School").

"In education, any practice of parent, teacher, school, community, or even the individual himself (no one has the right to abuse to potential) should ultimately be measured by the sacredness of unique potential." (from The Hyde School National Commitment, October 15,1973).

I was particularly puzzled because in all I had seen and read of Hyde there seemed to be a contradiction: on the one hand, they believed in and were prepared to use force to exact conformity on the part of every student; on the other, they professed to believe in "unique potential," which seemed to mean individual talent; and to want to discover and develop in each student this quality.

When I pressed Gauld on the point, he clammed up; then suddenly he leaped to his feet and shouted to the school's director, Ed Legg, "I don't want this man to write an article about the school. 1 don't want him to talk to any more students or any more faculty members." And he bolted from the room.

With the headmaster gone, I tried my question on Director Legg: "What do you mean by 'unique potential?'"
"It's a gut feeling," said Legg.

There are at Hyde all the regular school activities of classes and sports and extracurricular activities, but almost everywhere the system obtrudes itself. It is not the quiet, well-oiled machinery that functions almost imperceptibly at most established preparatory schools; there's a self-consciousness to much of what the students should do naturally; there's a great eagerness to talk, and talk to a stranger - each time I went there I had to break away because the kids wanted to go on talking at me. And the headmaster himself talks incessantly about Hyde, answering questions that nobody has asked about his experience, his background, his work.

What I missed most in the school was a good, honest, open laugh. Eager, intense, nice young people they were, as all young people are. But they didn't see that their gut feelings and their unique potential and their Buchmanite maunderings were comical, and the faculty didn't understand it either. They didn't see that they themselves and the world around them are funny. Worst of all, they didn't see that the whole serious business can be fun.

by J.B. Satterthwaite

Photography for Joe Gauld stories by Tom Jones

Maine Times  1974-08-02: Vol 6 Iss 44
https://archive.org/details/sim_maine-times_1974-08-02_6_44/

Continued from post...

Actually, Hyde found its most effective vehicle almost accidentally. Hyde, in patriotic fashion, wanted to do something special for the Bicentennial celebration and come up with its own original play to depict the pioneer spirit of the founding of America.   

Within two years, America's Spirit had grown into a full-fledged curriculum for Hyde, which Legg believes is very unique.

At Hyde, a student is required to participate in the America's Spirit curriculum, which includes singing and dancing. Legg, who writes the scripts, designed a five-stage growth process through which students must pass to reach the Hyde standard for personal development.

Academic study are important parts of the America's Spirit program, but traditional public school grading is not done. Success at Hyde is measured more by character growth. Students are given two sets of grades: one for academic performance and one for personal growth. Diplomas are withheld from students who do not grow enough.

Through their own students, Gauld and Legg found that America's Spirit could provide a "learning and growing opportunity" for people of all ages. The 1977 summer school production of Johnny Appleseed by Bath public school kids and the recent Reiche School play, Marie of Maine (both produced with the leadership of Hyde) indicated, even critics agree, that the musical production vehicle can challenge children in a positive manner.

And Hyde has found itself as an educational innovator in an area the public schools are the weakest, the arts.

Still, most public schools in Maine are not ready to turn over the regular school time to Hyde-created programs. There has always been a strong feeling in Maine that private and public schools shouldn't mix. Also, the public-school emphasis now is not on the arts but on the basics. "Parents want their tax dollars working and judge schools by how well their children can read, write and cipher, not how well they can dance and sing," said Haggett.

ED LEGG is a Texan by birth and trained as a lawyer. He was director at Hyde before he was named headmaster in the fall of 1975 after Gauld resigned to take over the national commitment drive. "I know ultimately that this community (Hyde) will come through and will become the model school, offering a re-spiritualization of the country, and beyond that, of all people," he said. When Legg took over, Hyde was at a crossroads.

Gauld had opened the school in 1966 in an old mansion. It was not easy to attract students because Hyde's unusual approach to education was untested. Gauld decided to recruit misfits, who hadn't been able to make it in school anywhere else. "There were a lot of affluent suburban kids with a maid complex," said Legg.

In Hyde's early years, the school quickly earned a reputation for "barbaric" treatment of students, recalled Legg. Students who disobeyed the strict rules of behavior at Hyde were given "heavy thinking-time punishments," which translated into pointless physical labor, such as digging dirt pits six feet by six feet and filling them up. Some students were spanked by Gauld or thrown into the campus pond or made to wear signs describing their personal growth failures. There were runaways and dropouts [and sometimes] fights broke out after sports games between Hyde and public-school students.

To make things worse, Gauld couldn't squeeze the kind of commitment he wanted from the students' families. It was his belief that the entire family had to support the Hyde philosophy, or it wouldn't take with the student. Lack of interest by parents also resulted in critical fundraising problems, which eventually led Gauld to turn over the job of headmaster to Legg.

Legg admits now that the school spent so much time trying to tame its unruly student body and worrying about financing that its national commitment goals got lost.

"We realized it was a choice between picking up every stray dog in the neighborhood or developing this model of education," Legg said. A fire in the mansion deliberately set by one of. the students made the Hyde administration more certain that it had to attract a different kind of student.

Hyde went out looking for "doers," said Legg; students drawn, not forced, to Hyde's philosophy. Acceptance was based largely upon the "quality of family commitment" to Hyde; the school didn't bother with those parents and students who weren't interested in giving until it hurt, personally and financially.

Initially the Hyde student body dropped from 200 to 160, as the campus ridded itself of the uncommitted and the losers. Fortunately for Hyde, their new direction came at a time when it was popular for adults to be "born again" to a cause.

Dr. Greg Carbone, a veterinarian in Arlington, Virginia, who is director of Hyde's fund-raising chores, commented: "Adolescents have dreams. The one thing the school says is to go ahead with your dreams. I found at middle-age the same thing happens about dreams. I needed a commitment to fulfill my potential and I have done things with Hyde I didn't think I could do before. So have a lot of parents." Carbone became instrumental in developing the new Family Learning Center, and parents now put pressure on parents for money, so the administration doesn't have to.

"We are founding a better way, and we can do no less than Jefferson: pledging our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."- Joe Gauld

Until Legg become headmaster, Hyde had not done much community action work. Audrey Alexander said she had often looked across the street and longed to have some kind of cooperative program between older and younger students.

Hyde students first began to work at Fisher aiding teachers, tutoring and teaching physical education in the fall of 1975. In the spring, Hyde and Fisher sponsored a field day, and the response from students and faculty was so great the two schools began expiring the possibility of funding a summer' program and a regular fall program.

"Community action seemed the way Hyde wanted to go to reach their goals," said Alexander. "and they went out wholeheartedly with us. Of course. Hyde never does anything halfway on parents for money, so the administration doesn't have to.

We are founding a better way, and we can do no less than Jefferson: pledging our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
Joe Gauld

Until Legg become headmaster, Hyde had not done much community action work. Audrey Alexander said she had often looked across the street and longed to have some kind of cooperative program between older and younger students.

Hyde students first began to work at Fisher aiding teachers, tutoring and teaching physical education in the fall of 1975. In the spring, Hyde and Fisher sponsored a field day, and the response from students and faculty was so great the two schools began expiring the possibility of funding a summer program and a regular fall program.

"Community action seemed the way Hyde wanted to go to reach their goals," said Alexander. "and they went out wholeheartedly with us. Of course. Hyde never does anything halfway. It's all or nothing."

The application for federal education funds for the planned program was too late, so Hyde took the idea to the city school principals, suggesting that the Fisher-Hyde cooperative venture be expanded throughout the public school system. High school students could go through a leadership training course at Hyde, Legg said. Ultimately, he said, senior citizens could be included.

Superintendent of schools Clifford Tinkham turned down the Hyde proposal, saying the city didn't have funds for such a program.

Undaunted, Hyde financed its own modest summer school program in 1976 with 45 elementary school children in cooperation with Fisher School, and everyone agreed at the end of the summer that the program was worth pursuing. Meanwhile, Hyde applied for federal funds and money from the Braitmeyer Foundation in Boston but was turned down. In both cases, the primary reason for rejection was that there was not enough evidence of support from the local public-school administration.

It was at that point that underlying tensions between city officials and Hyde began to become visible. Alexander cooled to Hyde because Hyde students failed to keep their commitments to Fisher students during the joint fall program. The Hyde students wouldn't show up because America's Spirit rehearsals were called unexpectedly, she said. "The school had begun to revolve around the play," she said, and communications between the two schools fell short.

Alexander had basically pulled out of much involvement when the second summer school program rolled around in 1977. Hyde asked the school board for a token $1,000 to support an extra teacher because Hyde had been swamped with 140 applications from children to enroll. Superintendent Tinkham was opposed. He told the Portland Press Herald, "I don't want the public school system to be used by Hyde school. I have a gut feeling that this is the case. I question from whence you come and what is your motivation . . . and I'm not sure it's good for the city of Bath."

Over the objections of Tinkham, the school board approved the $1,000. Last summer, the program was expanded to include performing arts, and the children put on Johnny Appleseed... In the fall, Hyde developed a proposal again for federal education funds, and the school board refused to support it.
School board chairwoman Haggett said the board turned them down because "it was the wrong funding mechanism," but it was clear that the board wasn't interested in helping Hyde. "It made Hyde quite angry and serious problems developed between us.' The standoff led to Gauld's calling of the January meeting.

"It boiled down to feeling pushed around by Hyde or doing what we thought the taxpayers and citizens wanted us to do," [said] Haggett.

"Joe Gauld thought that because parents supported the summer programs, they would support a full-year program. But parents said, 'Watch out for Hyde.'"

Most of the education at Hyde comes from America's Spirit today, said Haggett. "Joe Gauld thinks that more than three hours in the classroom is a waste of time. Hyde is not strong on traditional kinds of learning.

"He wants to take the kids apart and put them back together again. I don't see how it can work when you only have the kids for a few hours a day. Total change the way Hyde wants to do it can be done only when you have the children 24 hours a day like Hyde, and the total commitment of the school board, teachers and administration. But I don't see that as the public school Goals," said Haggett

"Joe is a visionary. We need that kind of brain working," said Haggett,"but we won't be run over like a bulldozer. The problem is they think they can run things better than anyone else. And they are always going overboard in whatever they do.

"Since they are experimental, if something doesn't work out, they can change direction overnight," she said, ''but it won't work in a public-school setting."

Legg is defensive about rejection by Bath school officials. He claims it happened because Hyde is a threat to the school establishment. He likes to call educators who don't agree with him "unprofessional." And he says Hyde's critics are more interested in controlling students and the system than in education.

"The future of education in the country for all towns lies in public-private cooperation," said Legg. He was more specific in his letter of implication for the job of superintendent.

"I propose we integrate our educational resources of businessmen, senior citizens, parents, teachers, students and such unique institutions is the Bath Marine Museum, the Bath Performing Arts Center, and of course, Hyde School...

"I believe that putting together such an education center and industry in Bath would become within the next 20 years on operation equivalent to the Bath Iron Works.

"It would be the finest education in the country for our children and for our families and it would attract the finest teachers in America to our community. It would serve as a tremendous inducement to bring top people into the Bath area in all professions since this educational opportunity would be available for their children.

"It would [certainly] increase property values, and it would significantly reduce unemployment. as well as generate an influx of new income." Legg said.

"Because part of my proposal would be to create an America's Spirit humanities program for all the children of Bath, 1 believe that together with the Bath Performing Arts Center, we could, make Bath the cultural center of northern New England. To bring the excitement of America's Spirit into our whole community would be an extraordinary accomplishment."

Legg also said the private-public involvement would open the way to reproducing the "finest athletic teams in the area and reduce juvenile crime significantly. This of course could be accomplished without large new outlays of capital because it would bring the impressive athletic facilities at Hyde directly into the community."

The board had no response to Legg's proposal.

Alexander said she is all for innovation in education and has criticized the staidness of the public school system for years. "It's not responding to needs. But If America 's Spirit were applied in the elementary grades, you ultimately may lose a lot of kids along the way."

Legg is hoping to prove all of his critics wrong with the Reiche School program. Hyde invited itself to Reiche this year and put on America's Spirit. The play was such a hit that students and teachers were interested in how they could do a similar production.

"My husband is not keen about the school. He thinks they are demented..." Mimi Lee

Reiche principal Richard McGarvey said he was told to be cautious about Hyde because they were out "to recruit, a word I heard quite often. I was also told they are aggressive, high pressured but decided to go along with them. By far it's the best thing we've done for our students."

"There was a quality of what we got that surpassed anything we could have done in house. During literature classes, Hyde students came to work, on a play with us." The project became Mazie of Maine, the story of Maine native Mazie Grunwald in the 1800s. "We reached a feeling part of the children we had not. been able to tap before," said McGarvey, ?and we found that our philosophy or expectations of kids was about the same,? that they be respectful, responsible, disciplined, good mannered and expects to start programs with the junior and high schools in Portland.

Referring back to the problem with Bath schools, Legg said, "anyone who has very strong vested interests in wanting the public school system to remain unchanged, we are in confrontation with. We are a direct threat because we can show that our way works in a public setting.

"Hundreds of those in the public school system, committed teachers and principals all over the country, should be tremendously excited over what we are doing because teachers have been reduced to being a traffic cop. A dot of those people had their careers linked to something that hasn't worked as well as they had hoped. We have developed a better widget for them."

For now, Hyde is about to embark on a busy summer touring season with the new Roots and Wings version of America's Spirit. Hyde will return to the Circle-In-The-Square Theater in New York for the third year, and the Kennedy Performing Arts Center for the second year. There will be numerous showings in Maine too.

Expansion of on-campus facilities also has priority. A new $400,000 dormitory is planned as well as expansion of the student union and gym. Tuition has increased to $6,900 per year to cover the rising cost of operating Hyde.

Another major project off-campus is development of. a Family Learning Center in Beverly, Mass., and a local PTA program "that really works." Hyde is also loyally working on a "model" to integrate older generations into the community. "There should be day care in public schools and senior centers in school facilities. Rut people are not even thinking about these things," complained Legg. "Teachers are more interested in union concerns and the school administration is interested in how to negotiate with the unions. They are thinking of vested interests, not the interests of the students and community."

The Hyde Concept

HYDE is a different educational experience from the regular public school. Students are accepted because they are achievers and want to be leaders. Character building, not academic achievement, is the most important daily ambition of a Hyde student.

Character building at Hyde is done in different ways. In years past, when the student body was composed largely of students who had not fit in elsewhere, it was accomplished through physical punishment, personal humiliation and strenuous group sensitivity sessions. Today, because the student has been upgraded, there is not as much need for force and authoritarianism; the students, according to administrators, are willing to be led and believe in the Hyde principles.

The traditional academic curriculum is used to challenge a student's intellectual potential, potential being a key word. Community action work, sports and the America's Spirit curriculum are used to teach the students how to reach their overall potential by doing. At almost every - turn, a student is. required to write about his experiences, analyze them and verbalize about the typical routine at Hyde is similar to that in the public schools in which there are college preparatory classes in chemistry, physics, math, political science, history and English. But there are also blocks of time for working with younger elementary school students, in nursing homes or researching a new theme for America's Spirit.

Hyde students are graded on their academic work and their character growth. Personal growth marks are given by a student's peers at encounter sessions. Students who have reached their "unique potential" are awarded a high school diploma. Those who didn't do so well are given a certificate and may return for a diploma later if they can prove to the school they have met the Hyde standards for personal excellence. Hyde is accredited and chartered both for academics and character growth by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

by Phyllis Austin
Photography by Tom Jones
June 1978

https://archive.org/details/sim_maine-times_1978-06-16_10_37/

Continued:

Because Hyde was a new, untried school, Gauld couldn't attract the best students who wanted to go to prestige prep schools in order to get into prestige colleges. So, he asked high school counselors to give him their difficult students. This led to Hyde's being labeled a place for rich kids in trouble.

"The tough ones were really the best to test your concepts," he said. "And they were hard-nosed. Most of the first student body numbering 57 came from troubled families, had flunked out of other schools, had been in scrapes with the law, had spent time in psychiatric hospitals or had just never tried to get anything out of school." While a number of the Hyde students still are problem children, the type of students enrolled has broadened considerably since the beginning.

From the beginning, admission to Hyde was based on the student's sincerity and desire rather than on academic achievement.

"If you bet on character development, you're betting on an attribute and effort rather than on a specific ability," says Gauld. "An individual must like him or herself and laugh at shortcomings. No one should be hung up on whether they are succeeding or falling. They may be failing because they've tackled too big a task."

At Hyde, past school records are never consulted unless the child or parents make a special request. Enrollment is approved or turned down after a grueling interview with the potential student, parents and a teacher.

Getting through the interview, however, can be too much for some students' mettle. Gauld told about one interview in a Sunday Telegram column:

"Sally was sent to me for an interview as sort of a last resort. The Hyde approach seems generally successful, so we were often thought of in difficult cases, and Silly's was a beaut. She had taken complete command of her house and on the side had done in several psychiatrists.

"The Hyde interview is an in-depth session that requires both the students and their parents to take a deep look at themselves and their attitudes. Sally quickly showed she wanted none of that. The teacher had to drag Sally and her parents into my office.

"After several questions, she made the same clear to me. And when I tried to turn my attention to Sally's mother to tell her what she ought to do about that, Sally made it dear she didn't want that either.

"Sally, your remarks insult me, your parents and teenagers. I have a high regard for 16-year-olds, and you are going to act like one in my presence. I don't let little brats like you insult them with your six-year-old behavior in my presence.

"Listen, Sally, I'm not your parents, and I'm telling you either change your attitude around me, or I will jam it down your throat!'

"She left in a huff, slamming things around, while startled visitors looked on. But she was shocked when she found me right behind her.

"The next hour would have done justice to the Keystone Cops. I would get her apology, but she was so used to winning, she couldn't resist getting in the last word.

"During this battle, we had crawled in and out of her family's car twice (I got in before she could lock it). I slapped her three times in response to her screaming at me and chased her once around the grounds when she tried to get away from me.

"We ended up at the Duck Pond, and in her raging frustration, she let go with a well-turned obscenity."

With that, I picked her up, while her arms flailed away, and said with what little breath I had left, 'You either apologize or you're going into the pond.'

"She knew I meant it and finally relented."

Sally never went to Hyde, and her mother complained to Gauld later that he used "extreme" methods.

Of course, all students going to Hyde don't go through that kind of experience, but Gauld said they must understand they're responsible for their actions.

Unless they accept it, Gauld said it would be impossible for Hyde to give the student body such a strong voice in running the school.

Students help teachers decide on courses of study, the dress code, hair length, when to wear blue jeans and discipline for rules-breakers; responsibilities which Gauld believes continuously demand strength of character.

Hyde takes responsibility one step further. Seniors must rank their own graduation awards according to how they feel they have developed as a person rather than according to their class marks. (Gauld contends that if a student has met the requirements for a Hyde diploma, he or she is usually prepared-academically as a byproduct and has little trouble in college.)

At year's end (or if a student is expelled) parents are told they can have their full tuition payment back if they are not satisfied that going to Hyde benefited their child. So far, there have been no takers for that offer, Gauld said.

Hyde doesn't let go upon a student's graduation. Attempts are made to keep up with each other to find out how they're doing. If a student is judged not to have lived up to Hyde's values, the school may ask for its diploma back.

There are others than parents who have shown their approval of the Gauld-Hyde regimen. Foundations and friends have contributed some $1 million in funds to keep Hyde going over the past eight years.

The school has grown from an enrollment of 57 during the fall of 1966 to 170 this fall. It was accredited in 1970 by the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.

Tuition, which started at $2,600, has risen to $4,150 but that hasn't seemed to dampen the interest of parents who want to send their children there. Gauld says there's a waiting list of students who want to get into Hyde.

Thirty to 40 of the students are on scholarships but the others pay the full room and board price. Most of the scholarship students are blacks and Puerto Ricans.

Opening up Hyde to more minority groups through scholarships is something Gauld says he's committed to. More girls are also attending Hyde than ever before. Initially only boys boarded at Hyde. Now the ratio is 105 boys and 45 girls.

Along with the student body, the campus facilities have also grown. A $170,000 classroom wing has been added to the remodeled court. And covered courts have just opened in Brunswick, nine miles away by a four-lane highway.

But Gauld is an avid tennis player and even that has become a sometimes point of controversy. Gauld is known for getting quite angry with himself on the court and says he gets furious "because I've never conquered a tennis swing." Gauld has had partners walk off the court because of his tantrums, "but my opponents especially have been sensitive to my problems, as well as the kids."

"I understand my actions better after reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull," he said.
"Some people think it's a competitive thing, which is logical. I want to win, sure. But that's not what is at stake for me."

Gauld also says he's been delving into Zen Buddhism to understand how to control himself on the tennis court.

"I can't leave tennis alone," he said. "How do you accept things in life you feel you ought to be able to do and can't?"

Although Gauld knows he must still work at his character development on the court. It's partly due to his drive and won't-take-no-for-an-answer attitude that has gotten Hyde where it is today.

It has attracted Important men to look at Hyde, take an interest in and sit on its board of trustees, among them U.S. Sen. Edmund S. Muskle (D-Maine), Bath Iron Works vice president William E. Haggett and Robert Porteous, Jr., president of Porteous Mitchell & Braun Co.

Others on the board are John Chandler, Jr., of Boston, vice president of the National Association of Independent Schools; Duane D. Fitzgerald of Bath, a partner in the law firm of Fitzgerald and Donovan; David S. Knight of Marblehead, Mass., president of Massachusetts Machine Shop, Inc.; Stephen F. Leon, a consultant from South Harpswell; Leonard C. Mulligan of Bath, president of the Gibbons Oil Co.; Donald A. Spear, a Bath attorney; Philip J. Woodward of Winchester, Mass., a partner in Haussermann, Davison & Shattuck; Charles McKee, vice president of Casco Bank & Trust Co., Brunswick; G. William Fleming, president, Fleming Associates, Inc., Westport, Conn.; and Robert A.G. Monks of Cape Elizabeth.

With Hyde well on its way, Gauld has relinquished the reins of control over the day-to-day activities at the school. He remains in name headmaster, but it's Ed Legg who directs Hyde.

Gauld is Hyde's resident guru, serving as sort of a spiritual advisor who rides shotgun over the operational philosophy of the school.

One of his most important tasks is working with state educators who have shown an interest in developing pilot character development programs based on the Hyde experience [for] Maine's public schools.

At the behest of Gauld), state education commissioner Dr. Carroll McGary visited Hyde last January and went away convinced that Hyde had something good to offer public schools.

He talked to some school superintendents, and three (from Bath, Westbrook, and SAD 9 in Farmington) have been considering an experimental program for this fall. However, no decisions have been made yet.

McGary said, "My general reaction to Hyde is that it has developed an atmosphere where students can really understand their teachers care and come up with a successful system of parent commitment."

The commissioner said he questions some of Hyde's methods, especially in physically roughing up the students, "but there is a group of kids that has shown that it works for them."

To some former Hyde teachers, the prospect of letting Gauld's ideas and techniques loose in the public school system is tantamount to suicide.

One of those critical of Gauld's theories is Gerald Herlihy, director of the University of Maine at Orono's Onward program. Herlihy taught at Hyde during the first three years of its existence.

Ray Fisher of Freeport, who was a student of Gauld's and the first teacher hired by him for Hyde, said he feels Gauld is "so wrapped up in creating a model for education, it's at the expense of the kids.

"It's a big ego-trip, and the demands he places on the faculty are unbelievable; 24 hours a day," he said.

Fisher and Herlihy left Hyde because they disagreed with Gauld's character development approach, which they say feeds on the personal weakness of each student.

?Joe and I had a fierce personality conflict," said Herlihy, whose stormy relationship with Gauld resulted in his being fired several times by the headmaster.

"Joe has to dominate everyone. His approach is to find out a person's weakness. He grabs onto that, and no matter what type of progress a student makes, Joe always goes back to that weakness. He strips a person psychologically and gains control over them. Then he manipulates them to his values," said Herlihy.

The interview for student applicants is a prime example of that, Herlihy said. "Joe psychs out the dynamics between the children and their parents at these interviews and then goes after that kid. The kid is overwhelmed that a teacher would go to all that trouble. He or she eventually gives in."

Herlihy was initially impressed with Hyde when he went there in 1966 after several years of teaching in New York schools with Fisher.

"At first we were all pulling together to get the school going," he remembered. "Then it became clear Gauld wanted to control each of us, and if he couldn't, we were in trouble."

Herlihy said he and Gauld had numerous shouting matches over Hyde's philosophy and hypocrisy and that at the end of his tenure there, Gauld restricted his activities and his contact with the kids "because - he couldn't control me." He left in 1969 to direct Orono's Onward program, which recruits low-income students.

When Fisher was a student at New Hampton, Gauld was his coach in three sports. "He really impressed me favorably," Fisher remembers. "Although he seemed scatterbrained, he appeared to really be interested in kids.

"He struck me as a master statistician and manipulator as a coach. Helping kids was as much an ego trip for him as anything," he said.

In 1965 Fisher and his family were looking for somewhere else to locate, when Gauld called him ''out of the blue" and offered him a job at Berwick Academy. Fisher accepted. When Gauld left Berwick, Fisher followed.

"We teachers did everything the first year; taught, coached and counseled," Fisher said. "We had all our meals at school and lived on the back end of the campus."

Soon his opinion of Gauld changed drastically. "I began to see him as a master at propaganda... some sort of God who wanted those kids to embrace his beliefs."

One of the final incidents which influenced Fisher to leave Hyde was Gauld's refusal to permit the Bath

Brunswick Committee for Racial Undemanding (of which Fisher was a member) to meet on the Hyde campus in 1969. "Gauld said it was too controversial. It was the height of his hypocrisy," he said. Fisher now leaches at ML Ararat High School in Topsham.

Ed Legg, who was friends with Fisher and Herlihy and is described by them as "the company man," disagrees with their assessments of Gauld.

"He's probably the most dynamic, energetic individual I've ever met. Probably for me and most of us around here, he is a man of incredible conscience. He really cares about people, and though he tends to be impulsive at times, it's because he gets so deeply involved in things," said Legg, 31, a University of Texas Law School graduate, former political Worker and veteran of the civil rights and student movements.

Gauld has changed from "being a pretty conservative guy except for his educational philosophy to a true homebred American radical with an open mind," Legg said.

As for Hyde's approach to education, Legg said, "we're trying to radically change the educational philosophy in this country... so a different approach is necessary."   

by Phyllis Austin
Maine Times - Joe Gauld Presents His Educational Philosophy to the World
Original: https://archive.org/details/mt-02-aug-1974-1/
08-02-1974

Hyde tries to improve its credibility by attempting to pass off founder Joe Gauld's son in law, Don Macmillan, as a "clinician" in a promotional brochure:

In the following excerpt entitled "A View of Hyde School? From a Clinician?s Point of View" Don Macmillan writes about the primary ways in which Hyde differs from typical therapeutic boarding schools in how it handles students with cognitive, behavioral, and psychological diagnoses, such as ADD, ADHD, substance abuse, depression, anorexia, oppositional defiance disorder (ODD), etc.:

"[Therapeutic boarding schools] tend to embody a problem-solving paradigm in which diagnosed deficits are remedied. Rather than remedy deficits, Hyde seeks to build upon strengths. Hyde offers a holistic approach to personal and family growth that has often proved to coincidentally help many teenagers with issues pertaining to a given diagnosis."

So, rather than REMEDY any issues, Hyde essentially pretends that children's individual challenges and diagnoses don't exist, and so they blame, shame, ostracize, isolate, and punish children who fail to miraculously overcome them. Hyde mandates that students participate in counseling-style groups called "discovery groups" where student and multi-family therapy-type sessions are facilitated by faculty members with almost no or absolutely no training in therapy, mental health care, psychology, or social work, and all participants are pressured to divulge their darkest demons.

When Don writes about a "holistic" approach, we surmise that he is referring to Hyde's cult-like system of mandatory conformity and punishments, a distorted reality in which students and staff are required to master and use a rather simplistic, jingoistic, doctrinaire, and patronizing package of cliches and Hyde-isms to explain everything that occurs at the school. We assume that he is referring to Hyde's manufactured structure where misery or conformity are the only two options, where no licensed therapists, psychologists, or family counselors have ever been employed to help children (and also their families) through the above challenges. Over the last 15 years or so, Hyde has occasionally had one single social worker on staff.

In essence: Hyde chooses to ignore all evidence-based methods and professionals in relevant fields in favor of simply making everything they do up.

"Hyde offers a holistic approach to personal and family growth that has often proved to coincidentally help many teenagers with issues pertaining to a given diagnosis."
                                                                 -*clinician* Don Macmillan

Yes, the husband of Joe Gauld's daughter, Don Macmillan did obtain a master's degree in counseling from Antioch University with a concentration in drug and alcohol counseling. However, there is no evidence that we can find in any state he would have worked in - Connecticut, Maine, or his current state of Minnesota, that he ever obtained a LICENSE to practice any kind of mental health care.

To obtain a LICENSE to practice mental health care, one must generally complete thousands of hours of counseling patients under the supervision of licensed therapists; a process that takes several years. Once licensed, a health care practitioner is overseen by a board of professionals to ensure they are following scientific and ethical standards, and clients/patients may file formal complaints. Having a LICENSE means that a clinician is held ACCOUNTABLE by a group of professionals for their actions.  It's been observed, of course, that the family who runs Hyde has never been keen on having any outside accountability for themselves, even though their marketing materials and scripted pitches may suggest differently.

A clinician is a professional health care provider who works directly with patients in their field of expertise. Can anyone explain how Hyde gets away with representing the son in law of the school's founder, who possesses very little proper training and no licensure, who as far as we know has never worked with children in any sort of medical setting, and who is accountable to no licensing board, as a "clinician"?



Original fb post: https://www.facebook.com/hydeschoolsurvivors/photos/a.109515974590751/210599737815707

From one Hyde survivor, in response: And listen, as someone who went to school for counseling, got my masters, went through the whole supervision process, and got licensed, I can confidently say that graduate programs usually prepare counseling trainees pretty well for careers as therapists. I had a pretty good grasp on my job during my period of supervision, pre-license. But it doesn't mean I was able to just ignore ethics and practice on my own. On top of that, Don is one of those people with a counseling degree who is DEFINITELY not ready for independent practice upon graduation. I truly don't understand how anyone could finish 6+ years of school, plus internship, and still think that Hyde practices were in any way therapeutic or beneficial to children. It just blows my mind.

Former Hyde student Mary Yoder charged for involvement in partner's abuse, murder of her child

Mary attended Hyde School Bath campus 2010-2013 and Woodstock 2013-2014. She reportedly experienced a lot of trauma there, as she explained in two tiktoks she made a few months ago:
1. https://www.tiktok.com/@frenchfriied/video/6935997172332727558
2. https://www.tiktok.com/@frenchfriied/video/6936002632695794950

Video news coverage of Judah Morgan's murder by his father Alan Morgan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8nO79a2sTk

There is a hashtag trending surrounding this case - #JusticeforJudah
UPDATE: Mother, father facing charges related to 4-year-old son's death:
https://wsbt.com/news/local/la-porte-county-man-charged-with-murder-in-4-year-old-sons-murder

A graphic and disturbing history of abuse. That's what is detailed in court documents as a father and now mother are both charged in the death of a 4-year-old boy.

We've been following this tragedy since early Monday morning of a LaPorte County boy found dead.

Formal charges were just filed today against the boy's mother, Mary Yoder.

Yoder faces 4 charges, including 2 counts of neglect of a dependent -- one of those counts resulting in death.

The boy's father, Alan Morgan, faces 7 counts, including murder and five counts of neglect of a dependent.

Both are in the LaPorte County Jail right now.

We are choosing not to report many of these details. We're only reporting that prosecutors say Alan Morgan tortured and beat his son over potty training.

According to the court documents, his mother knew about it.

Court documents indicated police found 4-year-old Judah Morgan dead early Monday morning.

"Received a second 911 phone call from the mother, Mary Yoder, stating Alan Might flee as he had lost his temper and hurt the child and was scared and did not know what to do."

After police arrived at the house they found Judah with no pulse and cool to the touch.

Three other children were also found in the home, ages 7, 2, and 1, but police state that no adults were inside the home.

After several hours of searching, Alan Morgan, Judah's father, was found and taken into custody Monday.

In the documents, Yoder told police she, "last saw Judah in the basement on Saturday the 9th, which was when she left the house on her way to the hospital to give birth."

Yoder was taken into custody Monday afternoon.

Court records show, "Mary made admissions that she was aware of what Alan was doing to Judah, however she said she was afraid of Alan and could not stop him."

Mary also allegedly admitted she would send Judah to the basement as punishment.

Today we talked to relatives on the phone. They told me the other children are now staying with family members.

As for the child that Mary just gave birth to, relatives told me that the child was placed for adoption.

Prosecutors have already filed a motion to seek Life without Parole if Alan Morgan is convicted.

______________________________
4-year-old homicide victim was bound by tape, frequently kept naked in basement, courts say
Anna Ortiz , Sarah Reese Oct 12, 2021 Updated Oct 14, 2021
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/4-year-old-homicide-victim-was-bound-by-tape-frequently-kept-naked-in-basement-courts/article_1db63592-6d39-5353-a957-28d926516621.html

LAPORTE ? Before his death, 4-year-old Judah Morgan was repeatedly bound with duct tape, confined in a dark basement for days at a time, beaten and starved, according to court records.

Police documented the alleged abuse in charging documents filed Tuesday against Judah's father, Alan D. Morgan.

Morgan, 28, was taken into custody Monday, hours after LaPorte County sheriff's police found Judah unresponsive in a bedroom at the family's home in the 3100 block of East County Road 875 South in Hamlet. His vehicle was recovered in Knox, records state.

Judah's mother, Mary E. Yoder, 26, was charged Wednesday with two felony counts of neglect of a dependent and misdemeanor counts of cruelty to an animal and failure to make a report.

Judah was found naked, covered in a blanket and had bruises "all over his body," LaPorte Circuit Court records state. He was unresponsive and had bruises and red marks on his face and head.

A woman and Yoder, who was not home because she left Saturday to give birth to the couple's fifth child, each called 911 early Monday to report Judah was hurt, court records state.

Yoder also told dispatchers Morgan lost his temper and hurt the child and might flee, according to court documents.

Police entered the home through an unlocked door, found Judah unresponsive and removed three other children from the home.

Online court records did not yet list whether Morgan has entered pleas to charges of murder, five felony counts of neglect of a dependent and misdemeanor cruelty to an animal.

Cousin: DCS failed Judah
Judah's cousin, Jenna Hullett, said Judah was removed from the custody of his parents after he was born and placed in her home by the Indiana Department of Child Services in October 2017.

She raised him as her own child until a court ordered he be returned to his parents' custody in April, she said.

"He was a bright, happy, energetic little boy," Hullett said. "He was loving. He cared about everybody."

Hullett, who is Morgan's cousin, said she was speaking out, because she blames the Department of Child Services for failing to protect Judah.

"I want awareness, and I want justice for Judah," she said. "And, I want DCS held accountable, just as much as the so-called parents here."

A Department of Child Services spokeswoman said DCS provides information to the courts but does not make placement decisions. She declined further comment, citing Indiana confidentiality laws.

Hullett said Judah was placed with her family after DCS intervened because of allegations Morgan had abused one of Judah's older siblings.

Department employees visited Hullett's Starke County home once a month to check on Judah's welfare and told her several times during the nearly four years she cared for the boy that she would eventually be granted custody, she said.

She attempted to warn the department that Judah told her Morgan hurt him during visits and that the boy was afraid of his father, she said.

She alleged a DCS manager apologized to her in June 2020, because the department had planned to file a termination of parental rights against Morgan and Judah's mother but someone "dropped the ball."

"He said all he could do was say he was sorry," Hullett said.

Hullett said DCS told her Judah would be placed with his parents for a "six-month trial visit" and that the department would regularly check on the child.

"If anything happened, if they messed up, I was supposed to get Judah back," she said.

Morgan was arrested in August on a felony charge of resisting arrest and misdemeanor operating while intoxicated and possession of marijuana charges, records show.

Hullett said she reached out to a case worker to ask if Morgan's arrest would affect Judah's placement.

"They told me, essentially, it was none of my business," she said.

Hullett said if DCS had filed to terminate parental rights, Judah would still be alive.

"He would be happy and healthy and his natural loving self," she said.

Instead, Hullett was preparing Wednesday to view the body of the boy she loved like her own child, she said.

Police make grim discovery
LaPorte County sheriff's police found Judah's body about 2:45 a.m. Monday, after responding to a report of an unconscious child, they said.

No one answered the door, so deputies entered the home when they found it unlocked.

After removing the surviving children from the home, police obtained a search warrant and discovered the home "in disarray, with clothing, garbage, rotting food and animal fecal matter strewn about," court records state.

Deputies noticed "a strong, pungent odor of urine and rotting food" inside. A cord and key-style lock were attached to the refrigerator, preventing anyone from opening it.

Police found an emaciated dog in a 3-by-2-foot cage, which had matted fur and urine and fecal matter in the bottom of it, records state.

As officers descended to the basement, they found it was cold and dark with no working lights.

Several pieces of duct tape were found in the basement, some of which was stuck to the wall and some of which appeared to make a small circle on the floor.

Duct tape was found stuck to a fluffy blanket, which smelled or urine, and a toddler-sized pair of sweatpants also smelled of urine, records state.

Police found a cable and two small pipes near other items found in the basement, according to court documents.

A small infant-style toilet had urine and feces in it.

 Boy suffered multitude of injuries in weeks and days before his homicide, doctor testifies
Mother's story didn't add up, police say
Police interviewed Judah's mother, Yoder, who said the boy was repeatedly sent to the basement "for punishment for not being potty trained like the other victims in the house," records state.

Hullett said Judah was potty trained at 2 years old, and she gave the infant-style toilet to Morgan and the children's mother to use for one of Judah's younger siblings.

The mother also claimed she was afraid of Morgan, but tried to stop him from abusing Judah by telling him "that's enough" and "leave him alone," records state.

The mother told police lights in the basement were shut off on purpose as a scare tactic, and food was also withheld from Judah, according to the documents.

The mother said Morgan bound Judah with duct tape and typically forced him to go to the basement naked. There was nowhere to sleep in the basement, but Judah was given a fluffy blanket, records state.

The mother told police Judah was sent to the basement about three times a week, and Morgan would grab him by the neck and carry him downstairs if he didn't go, records state.

The mother said she last saw her 4-year-old son Saturday in the basement when she left to give birth to another child. She denied abusing Judah herself but said she "could've put a stop to this but didn't," documents state.

Police interviewed the other children, who said they saw their mother and father force Judah into the basement, records state. They described hearing yelling and hitting noises coming from the basement and said Morgan would tape Judah's arms behind his back.

A relative told police the family had a birthday party for one of the children Sunday. Morgan told relatives Judah was at a friend of his mother's, records state.

One of Judah's siblings told police that Judah actually "was in the basement where he normally is" while they had cake during the birthday party, records state.

An autopsy showed Judah died from blunt force trauma to the head, which caused a massive subdural hematoma, records show.


Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Detective Sgt. Brett Swanson by calling or texting 219-363-9623.

Alan Morgan
Arrest Date: Oct. 11, 2021

Arresting Agency: LaPorte County Sheriff's Office

Offense Description: Murder; Neglect of a Dependent; Resisting Law Enforcement

Class: Felonies

Age: 28

Residence: LaPorte