Belmont School for Boys attracted the state's elite

It was the dream of Professor William T. Reid. He had been president of the University of California at Berkeley. He was a graduate of Harvard University and had also been principal of Boys’ High School in San Francisco. He had a vision for the proper education of boys along the lines of British prep schools. The school was open to boys ages 9 through high school at a fee of $900 or $750 per year depending on if you were in the upper or lower school level.

At first Reid could only handle an enrollment of 25 students in his cramped boarding school. By 1889 he acquired more than 29 acres of land and built new buildings. The schooner "Ruby” unloaded 50,000 feet of lumber at the wharf in Belmont for the construction. The contract for plumbing and gas work was at a cost of $2,650. An innovation of the school was a sewer system that emptied into the Bay. Local households could hook up to the system for a fee. As was fitting for such a prestigious establishment, fine gymnasium facilities and an indoor swimming pool were added.

Reid’s belief was that "the best social, scholarly and disciplinary results” would be reached if the students were kept in small numbers so they would be under close supervision. Reid used a cottage system to obtain the best combination of this close supervision and the stimulation of healthy rivalry and diversity of large classes. Each dormitory building consisted of around 40 boys with a teacher and his wife in a quasi-family setting. The boys were grouped with others of "like capacity or attainments.”

The stated aims of the school included: "to strengthen moral courage and to give such attention to systematic physical culture as shall contribute to good health and a vigorous physical development.” Belmont did not pretend to deal successfully with "bad boys,” and was admittedly intolerant of them. Any demonstrated unruly, vicious or vulgar disposition resulted in a demand for immediate withdrawal. This was not a place to send your troubled youth.

In 1892, reportedly 72 percent of the students were planning to attend universities such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cornell, MIT or UC Berkeley. The school boasted that none of its students had ever been refused admission to the university of his choice. The Belmont School merged with the Hopkins Academy of Oakland in 1893, and William Reid remained headmaster. A listing of the instructors tells us that among the usual subjects taught were Latin and Greek.

Reid retired in 1918 and his son William Jr. took over. Without the drive of the founder, however, the Belmont School for Boys declined. It was purchased by the Catholic archdiocese, but they couldn’t succeed in making a Catholic boys’ prep school financially self-sufficient. In 1932 they turned the school over to the Sisters of Mercy who renamed it St. Joseph’s Military Academy.

At St. Joseph’s, the boys wore military-style uniforms made of wool with Buster Brown belts and puttees over their shoes. Former students still remember the hot uniforms on warm days and the itchy feeling of the wool against their skin.

Finally, in 1952, the school was made the parish school for the Immaculate Heart Church, which now stands on part of the property. Some of the original Reid buildings are still there.

Rediscovering the Peninsula appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal. For more information on this or related topics, visit the San Mateo County History Museum, 2200 Broadway, Redwood City.