MFS Honors Accomplished Alumnus

At ’s (MFS) annual "Dinner Among Friends" last Friday, the Moorestown Friends School Alumni Association presented the Alice Paul Merit Award to Robert L. Smith, class of '42. He was recognized for his outstanding contributions as a leader in independent school education, specifically Friends schools; his authorship of A Quaker Book of Wisdom: Life Lessons in Simplicity, Service and Common Sense; and for the exemplary life he has led.

At MFS, Smith was president of his class, a superior student, yearbook editor, varsity soccer captain and basketball player, as well as graduation speaker. His teachers noted his high moral character, good principles and earnest desire to live and work in the service of others. A member of the Stokes family with deep Quaker roots, life presented him with both challenges and opportunities.

After a battle of conscience, torn between his Quaker upbringing and the justice of the cause, he left Harvard to serve in World War II. After three years of active duty, Smith returned to civilian life, spent a year at Haverford College, and worked in Mexico for the American Friends Service Committee. In Mexico, he met Eliza Hamm, and they married in 1948. After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of California Berkeley (A.B. Philosophy), the Smiths sailed to Germany to help establish American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) work camps there.

Smith earned his M.A. and completed all but his dissertation for a Ph.D. in English at Columbia University, while he and his wife had three children. Smith became an administrator at Columbia.

In 1965, Smith started his job as headmaster of Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., the nation’s largest Friends secondary school, a post he held for 13 of the most turbulent years in the 20th century, with Civil Rights, the Vietnam War and Women’s Rights issues in the fore.  

When he retired, it was noted in The Washington Post that he “… had brought the school to much closer (however unofficial) ties with Quakerism. The school has long been one of the most fashionable in the capital with plenty of official families represented … and Smith has emphasized the Quaker virtues of silence, modesty, honesty and plainness.”

His next engagement was as an education adviser in the office of Senator Thomas F. Eagleton. In 1979, he became the executive director of the Council for American Private Education (CAPE) in D.C., which supported the interests of independent education in working with the legislative and administrative branches of the federal government. Smith was a member of several schools’ boards, The Haverford College Corporation, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Following his service at CAPE, Smith wrote A Book of Quaker Wisdom, which was published in 1998. The book has particular appeal to the local Moorestown community in that it paints a portrait of what it was like to be a boy in Moorestown 80 years ago, and reminisces about being at Moorestown Friends School.   

The MFS Alice Paul Merit Award is presented to an alumnus/a of MFS who exhibits one or more of the following criteria: an individual who exemplifies the best qualities of MFS, including honesty, integrity, fairness, a commitment to serve others, and a dedication to equality and justice; one who uses his or her education from MFS or affiliation with MFS and gives of himself or herself to make the world a better place; one who has achieved a standard of excellence in one’s chosen endeavor or field; or one who has made significant contributions to his or her community, whether it is Moorestown or the community in which he or she lives.