Kindling a Fire “The Founding Fathers”

By Cincinnati Country Day Head of School Rob Zimmerman ‘98

This year represents a major milestone for Cincinnati Country Day School: one hundred years ago this fall, CCDS opened its doors to its first students. As we reflect on a century of excellence, with countless fond memories and thousands of alumni lives transformed, it is humbling to realize that this legacy started with a mere 55 students and five intrepid faculty.

But the origins of that momentous September day are actually found in the spring of 1926. In fact, it was one hundred years ago this May that the school’s founding fathers first established a committee to create a new school in Indian Hill.

Where did this innovative idea come from? What noble instinct animated those founders? Well, it was golf, of course.

Readers who know me personally may suspect special pleading or self-interest in making this connection, but I’m afraid it’s true; one cannot tell the story of Country Day without telling the story of golf in Indian Hill. In fact, the opening of Country Day in the fall of 1926 only happened thanks to the founding of another organization in the fall of 1925 – the Camargo Club.

In the early 1920s, Indian Hill remained a mostly remote, pastoral hilltop sparsely populated with old farms. But prominent Cincinnatians were beginning to build summer homes and country estates to escape from the hot, crowded city. These village pioneers were part of the Camargo Realty Company, which sought to shape Indian Hill into the next great real estate development in the Cincinnati region.

To do so, the Camargo founders recognized that they needed at least two things: recreation and education. First, they needed a country club with golf, polo, tennis, dining and other leisure pursuits to attract future residents.

Second, they needed a first-rate school to educate the children of those new residents of Indian Hill. So, in the fall of 1925, a group of members of the Cincinnati Country Club in Hyde Park officially founded the Camargo Club to serve as the main attraction for the small village we now know as Indian Hill.

Next, five men, all of them Camargo founders, set about solving the second issue: a school. Today, their names remain familiar to residents of this neighborhood: Chatfield, Fleischmann, Rowe, Emery, and Black. In recent years, many of their descendants have attended and led the school their forefathers founded.

But in the spring of 1926, Cincinnati Country Day School remained just an idea, and its founders were still in research and development mode. William H. Chatfield, our founding board chair, spent the early part of 1926 visiting exemplary institutions around the country – comparing practices and pedagogies, hunting for a headmaster, and sketching an educational philosophy fit for a leading school. 

As the society pages of the Cincinnati Enquirer described the vision at the time:

Cincinnati now asks for similar privileges [that other cities enjoy]: that of consigning its sons to their study and play under ideal conditions of fresh air and up-to-date instruction where these elements are so aptly and ably coordinated as to make sportsmanlike, sturdy and manly students of these citizens of the future.(Yes, they were only male students in those days.)

Meanwhile, the founders needed not just an instructional program and an educational leader in the fall of 1925; they needed a campus. Again, the Camargo connection came through – this time with acreage directly north of their newly founded golf club. And again, the Enquirer supplies the memorable summary: “About 20 acres are thus made available in a most salubrious and delightful location…”

While the prose style of today’s press may not match the florid turns of phrase from the Enquirer one hundred years ago, the paper’s description from the days of yore still recognizably fits the same school of today. Country Day has never left the “salubrious and delightful location” on Given Road and has, in fact, gradually expanded the size of its campus. CCDS boys and girls (girls first came along in the 1950s) still enjoy “study and play under ideal conditions of fresh air and up-to-date instruction” where students become “citizens of the future.”

And the golf course? It’s still across the street. And like Country Day, Camargo has continued to be a nationally recognized center of excellence in its field. In that sense, our centennial is not merely a calendar fact. It is evidence of something sturdier – the way a community can create institutions that outlast the fashions of any one decade.

As for what happened after those heady months in the spring of 1926, consider this the first chapter. Throughout this centennial year, I’ll continue to explore our history with readers. For now, it’s enough to remember that Country Day began the way many lasting institutions began: with a bold vision, the right people, and just a little bit of golf.