14. Arch Day

Founder Helen Parkhurst adapted Dalton’s Arch Day tradition from a Chinese ritual she saw on a trip to Asia. Arch Day represents the transition onward for all who pass through it.

Arch Day and the symbol of an arch evoke memories and related thoughts about the lovely ritual at each school year’s end.

It represented and still represents transition onward — to the next grade, to college, to the wider world, or other schooling for boys at 8th grade of yore. Now it also seems especially fitting for the transition and for going forth from Dalton’s first hundred years to the next and from a fine yet changing past, to an unfolding future.

The arch — any arch — with connotations of Arch Day seems a meaningful symbol of our many individual journeys and of binding the past with the present and of going forward. I’m not sure if Arch Day was included from the very beginning of Dalton but it has been ongoing since at least 1947-1948 when I entered Dalton. The symbol of an arch and the continuity of Arch Day as a “signature piece” contribute to thoughts of Dalton’s history, present and future.

Thus, Arch Day and many arches (even those in neighboring Central Park) invite you to look and move beyond without certainty of what is on the other side. You are coming from somewhere, stopping for a pause, and moving forth. I think of Arch Day as a bridging ceremony connecting meaningful parts of the past with hopes for the future while holding the present as you and Dalton walk through.
—Jane Levenson ’57