A Wish Followed

Nelson ("The Doc") Hume had started the school himself, and for 33 years had been its headmaster. Canterbury School, on a hill above New Milford, Conn., blossomed into a tony Roman Catholic version of Groton and St. Mark's. Its ambition was to turn out Catholic boys for Ivy League colleges, without neglecting their religious training. There were no monks or priests about: Canterbury calls itself the only Catholic prep school in the U.S. run exclusively by laymen. Doc Hume, an imposing, bushy-browed man of booming voice, taught the boys apologetics and Christian ethics and led them in prayers to the "Canterbury saints."

Last May, The Doc invited Walter Francis Sheehan, a Catholic, dean of freshmen and athletic director at Williams College, to tell his boys what college would be like. The Doc was greatly impressed by Sheehan's tall, athletic frame (he was a college basketball star), his straightforward manner, and his common sense. The Doc suggested Sheehan to his trustees as his successor.

A month later, The Doc, 67, was dead of a heart attack. Last week, Canterbury's trustees fulfilled Founder Hume's wish by appointing Walter Sheehan, 37, as Canterbury's second headmaster.

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