Chelsea Academy

“Renaissance in Rappahannock” is eight days away, and it gives me great satisfaction to announce that in honor of that event a donor has promised to match all auction donations and contributions to our “wish list” of items needed for the opening of the school year. So even if you are not attending the auction, please consider making a tax-deductible cash donation towards an item we need—a donation that now will double in value for the school. A list of the furnishings, equipment, and supplies required for the proper outfitting of our new facility can be found on the Development section of our website.

Though vitally important to the success of the school, fundraising must ever take a second place to our work of reflecting on and accomplishing the mission of Chelsea Academy. This means that I am spending a great deal of time in the careful selection of faculty and in curricular planning. As I do so, a couple of lines from T.S. Eliot’s Choruses from The Rock come to mind:

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

With the ever-growing influence of the internet and other technologies that emphasize ephemeral things over the enduring, Eliot’s insight rings no less true today than it did when he wrote it in 1934. In its effort to stand for and defend the “permanent things,” Chelsea Academy is committed to educating its students in the liberal arts, those studies that convey the timeless truths about this world and our place in it. The aim of a liberal arts education is to enable a young person to realize his or her full potential for moral and intellectual growth. At Chelsea Academy, we look forward to furthering our students’ appreciation of both the natural world and the centuries-long tradition of learning and human achievement that still can inspire us today. For it is through these intermediate steps – cultivating a sense of wonder and contemplating the true, the good, and the beautiful – that a person grows in readiness to receive wisdom.

I look forward to seeing many of you at Renaissance in Rappahannock!

Sincerely,

Jonathan D. Brand
Headmaster
Chelsea Academy

Email: jbrand@chelseaacademy.org
Telephone: 540.635.0622