Kindling a Fire: “Happy Birthday, Country Day!”

By Cincinnati Country Day Head of School Rob Zimmerman ‘98

It’s official: Cincinnati Country Day School is 100 years old!

On September 28, 1926, Country Day opened its doors to its first students – all 50 of them. On that day 100 years ago, there was no sprawling 60-acre campus, no makerspace, no Lower School House system, no state championship banners, no laptops, and certainly no artificial intelligence. There was only a small, temporary building with fewer than ten faculty members embarking on a new educational experiment in then-rural Indian Hill.

A century later, much has changed; in fact, almost everything has changed. Country Day has grown from a small school for boys into a bustling community of 850 students of all genders, backgrounds, and origins. The campus has expanded many times over. Our curriculum now includes subjects and technologies that would have seemed like science fiction in 1926.

As we celebrate our centennial, with special projects, time capsules, a commemorative book, expanded Homecoming festivities, and gala events, we have naturally spent a great deal of time reflecting on how different the school (and the world) used to be.

And yet the more interesting question may not be how much has changed, but rather what has endured. What common threads are wound through the 100 years of Country Day’s existence? Here are four of the most important:

• Teachers who know and nurture students – Education has always been deeply relational, no matter what technologies are being touted at any given moment in history. In the 1920s, educators sought to respond to a world changed by radio and cars; today we worry about smartphones and AI. But across 100 years, Country Day has always viewed the unique relationship between a teacher and a student as foundational to growth and learning. No matter what, children learn best when they are known, nurtured, and inspired by mentors who care about them on an individual level.

• A sense of place – Country Day has always prioritized a place-based education. In fact, our setting was one of our defining features from the very start. The very idea of a “country day” school was that students would benefit from space, fresh air, movement, nature, and a little distance from the noise of the city. Over the decades, that sense of place has only deepened. Our campus remains an important component of our students’ education and daily experience. And today, in an increasingly isolated world, our natural setting is not just good for the mind and body; it connects people in one community that’s good for the soul.

• Development of the whole child – In the early days, the school’s leaders bluntly declared that “the purpose of the school is to develop character.” They sought “the well-rounded development” including “hardihood and self-reliance.” Or, as one contemporary English headmaster put it, the school sought to develop boys who would be “acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.” These days, character education is no less important. Our Lower School House system instills our five character virtues on a daily basis, and leadership programs in the middle and upper schools foster life skills. As important, athletics and arts remain vitally important to developing well-rounded students prepared for success in life.  

• Change itself – It’s cliché to say that the only constant is change, but it has been true at Country Day. To honor our tradition and legacy, Country Day has had to continually evolve to meet the needs of a changing world. Like our own country as it celebrates its 250^th birthday, we have often grown in order to become a more perfect version of our founding dream.

This, perhaps, is the great lesson of our centennial: Not everything old is good simply because it is old; not everything new is good simply because it is new. The task is to know the difference – to separate the time-tested from the merely nostalgic, and the true innovation from the mere trend.

Given how much has changed in the past century, it is impossible to know exactly what awaits in the next one. But this much seems clear: The best way to honor a living tradition is not to preserve it in amber; it is to carry forward what still serves students well, while having the courage to change what must be changed. That is what Country Day has done for 100 years. And that is why, a century later, the school’s founding dream still feels very much alive.