Education

He is a very good student.

Education looms large in any consideration of Tom Wolfe. You have to keep in mind that Tom’s Plan, as he describes it on a number of occasions, is to become an academic and also to write books, presumably histories and biographies. He puts in five years getting a doctorate, yet in the end doesn’t use it for the purpose for which it is intended, which is to go on in academia.

For someone whose reputation is as a popular writer, he never speaks down to his readers. Instead, he expects them to keep up. You almost have to wonder how many of the vocabulary words he uses could be published with today’s audience in mind. But we can get to that later.

Tom begins his education at Ginter Park Public School, which he attends from the first through the 6^th grades. He is a good student. He has ``splendid work habits,’’ one teacher writes on his report card, but ``please drill on the multiplication and division tables.’’ And again: ``It is a pleasure to teach Tommy.’’ And in 1941: ``Tommy is an excellent student.’’

His parents enroll him in the elite St. Christopher’s, an all-male Richmond academy that teaches, in the approving phrase of one of Tom’s later Washington & Lee professors, Marshall Fishwick, ``Latin and lineage, math and manners.’’

St. Christopher’s is founded in 1911 by the Reverend Churchill Gibson Chamberlayne as the Chamberlayne School for Boys. In 1920, the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia buys the school and renames it.

Tom always refers back to his six years at St. Christopher’s as the most rigorous part of his education, and it’s not hard to see why. He takes courses in religion, grammar, history, literature, English, Latin, Spanish, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and physics. And with the size of the classes – Tom’s entire Class of 1947 numbers 21 – there’s no place to hide. It’s almost as if the boys are being individually tutored in some subjects.

At St. Christopher’s, Tom apparently also learns how to spread himself thin. He is a big joiner, and by the time he graduates, he has played football, baseball, varsity basketball, serves on the student council, including a stint as chairman, serves as sports editor and then co-editor of the school newspaper, sports editor of the yearbook, and does time on various other societies and committees.

He learns to become confident in his own intellectual ability to scramble and to eke out a win on deadline. The boys are graded monthly, and the reports go home with comments: ``All Tommy’s marks should be above 90,’’ cautions one. On another occasion, ``Tommy was careless in Algebra and Spanish this month.’’ Again: ``He slighted the assignment in History.’’

Is he distracted? Tired? Did he forget to study? No matter. He learns that he can rally. In each of his six years at St. Christopher’s, Tom earns ``Special Distinction’’ certificates suitable for framing, with his yearly average ranging from 90.25 in 1947, the year he graduated, to 95.83 in 1943. His headmaster eventually writes, ``We shall miss Tommy badly. We expect a good record in college.’’

Tom also evidently develops a leisurely, deliberative personal style, a tendency to procrastinate. Tom takes his time. He begins his salutatorian remarks, for example, a day before he delivers them, he tells the New York Times in 2004.

He isn’t, yet, a dandy. His classmates do not vote him best-dressed. The formation of the white-suited boulevardier comes much later. Instead, they vote him ``Most drag,’’ a term I am told approximates a successful and all-around good influence.

And now we say good-bye to Richmond. Or do we?

We do not. Tom loves his years in Richmond. Tom loves his years at St. Christopher’s. Years later, he hosts an annual ``Gotham Dogwood & Pine Needle’’ party at his home in Manhattan, to which he invites all St. Christopher’s alums in or near Manhattan. He serves on the school’s board of directors. He visits at least annually, both to speak and to sign books. He will be buried in Richmond.

So many novelists, it seems, feel an abiding hostility and resentment to their high school and, for that matter, to their home, and to their parents.

Not our Tommy, to be sure.