In Brunswick, Maine.
For an alphabetical index of the New England College series of pieces, click here.
Some of the best American schools are to be found in remote Maine, and Bowdoin (pronounced ‘Boh-din’) is very much a study in excellence. There are 1,800 undergraduates here in a school dating from 1839. A healthy endowment helps see to it that the school is maintained in pristine condition.
If distinction it be, then Bowdoin is distinguished as being the first college we have visited without a disfiguringly ugly modern building. Even the later additions here are beautifully integrated and the school’s building committee is to be congratulated. Bowdoin is one of the highest ranked liberal arts colleges in the nation despite its relatively modest size.
The Hatch Science Library.
Though glass and steel, the exquisite Peter Buck Center for Health and Fitness fits its surroundings perfectly.
The perfectly proportioned Bowdoin Chapel anchors the Quad.
Alumnus Robert E. Peary, class of 1877, led the first successful expedition to the North Pole in 1908, and hence the school’s mascot is the polar bear.
Eschewing the more commonly found stained glass, Bowdoin’s Chapel favors murals.
The Hubbard Hall and Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum is also on the Quad.
The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is opposite the Chapel and is simply one of the finest small art museums we have visited. Pride of place is given to Mary Cassatt’s impressionist masterpiece ‘The Barefoot Child‘. Cassatt, the impressionist from Pennsylvania, can hold her own with the greatest French masters.
Studying on the steps of the Art Museum.
Winston enters the Art Museum through the side entrance.
Gibson Hall
Wild sundial.
The Hawthorne-Longfellow library. The writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, both graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1825.
The Studzinski Recital Hall.
Distinguished alumni, in addition to those named above, include Reed Hastings (Netflix), Ken Chenault (AmEx), President Franklin Pierce, hedgie Stanley Druckenmiller, Alfred Kinsey and Joan Benoit (Olympic gold in the marathon).