A Traditional, Screen-Free, Boarding School for American Boys
America is in a crisis.
The 21st century has brought with it innumerable technological and social developments that have transformed our way of life in the blink of an eye. Education in particular has been caught in the center of this revolution, and the consequences have been disastrous. The decline in attention span, reading comprehension, and writing proficiency are all symptoms of a much greater question. Meriwether Academy seeks to address that question.
What is the purpose
of an education?
This question has been asked for 2,000 years, and was answered pretty consistently until around 100 years ago. The answer was always the cultivation of virtue, instillment of cultural duty, and development of character.
Everyone from Aristotle to Thomas Jefferson was in agreement, and some pretty incredible men came out of that system.
Then the Industrial Revolution happened and everything changed. The human being was put on an assembly line, a cog in a machine, and that framework leeched into our education system as well. The aim was no longer a virtuous human being, it was a good worker. This is the framework 99% of educational institutions are stuck in today, whether they know it or not.
To add to this conundrum, young men are left wandering aimlessly through a world that no longer acknowledges their manhood. They are chastised for their masculinity, expected to act docile to keep the peace, and when a boy shows too much energy he is medicated into a trance. What boy could ever be expected to sit still for 7 hours without revolting? And what are we anyway without a few good revolutionaries from time to time?
“We should not medicate boys so they fit the school; we should change the school to fit the boy.
Leonard Sax · Boys Adrift
An education that works on every part of a young man.
We are an educational institution dedicated to the cultivation of virtuous young men through a rigorous and rewarding program. Our curriculum works on every part of a young man’s character.
He will read and study the great men and works of the Western world.
He will learn how to survive in nature and cultivate the land.
He will train his mind and body to protect himself and those he loves.
“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
Thucydides
Time has taught us that the men must be raised right, or the society collapses. Our mission is to offer the best training in the nation for a young man coming up, to give him all of the tools to endure and succeed after graduating our program, and to do our part in preserving our republic by building good men to lead it.
We thank God for His grace and the opportunity to offer this program, and hope to meet you and your son someday soon.
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it”
A Day at Meriwether
Each day is ordered around study, labor, and the cultivation of body and mind.
Questions From Parents
Why a screen-free campus?
The debate on screens has been settled. Nothing has ever dominated the world so quickly and caused so many disastrous side-effects. Any adult knows the struggles they themselves face regarding technology, and any parent is well aware of how consequential an unhealthy relationship with technology truly is.
Meriwether Academy takes a humanistic approach to our lifestyle on campus. No screens, real books, and pen and paper assignments. This method trains the attention span, reasoning faculties, and creative abilities of our students to set them up for success later in life.
This approach ensures that our students will be developing themselves at the deepest level of their hearts and minds, without the distractions of media and the outside world.
Many parents ask us if they think this will hold their child back or prevent them from adapting to the “real world” after graduating. The barrier to understanding technology has never been lower, developments have made it simple and easy to create and deploy tools on the internet, and your son will have no issue learning these skills during his college years if he chooses to go that route.
What Screens Are Doing to the Developing Mind
A growing body of brain-imaging and cognitive research links heavy childhood screen use to measurable harm
Sources: Cortical thinning and brain structure: National Institutes of Health Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, ~11,800 children (first imaging release of ~4,500 scans); Nature, Translational Psychiatry (2025), screen time, ADHD symptoms, and cortical thickness in 10,116 children. White matter, language & literacy: Hutton et al., JAMA Pediatrics (2020), diffusion-tensor MRI of children ages 3–5 (Cincinnati Children’s, ScreenQ / AAP guidelines). Attention & behavior: PLOS One CHILD birth-cohort study (2,427 preschoolers); Children & Screens / National research summaries. Screen-time averages: Common Sense Census (Media Use by Tweens and Teens; Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight, 2025); usage by age reported via the American Academy of Pediatrics. Guidelines: American Academy of Pediatrics — no screens under 18 months (except video chat), 1 hour/day of high-quality content for ages 2–5, consistent limits thereafter. Figures are drawn from peer-reviewed studies and nationally representative surveys; observational research shows associations and cannot alone establish causation.
Why a single-sex learning environment?
An all-male learning environment is superior for young men as it removes social and emotional distractions inherent in co-ed settings. Boys avoid self-consciousness and the pressure to impress girls, allowing sharper focus and fuller engagement in debate, hands-on work, and competitive problem-solving. This matches male developmental patterns and leads to better concentration, stronger community, and greater intellectual risk-taking.
Beyond academics, it cultivates masculinity, brotherhood, and leadership tailored to how young men build confidence. Co-ed environments often favor female socialization styles, sidelining boys’ preferences for hierarchy and physical camaraderie. All-male settings emphasize discipline and achievement-based self-esteem, producing more self-reliant graduates.
The Decline of All-Boys Schools in America, 1960–2022
Estimated total all-male secondary schools: private and public combined
Sources & methodology: 1960 (~1,350): NCES/NCEA records 2,392 Catholic secondary schools at peak, structurally split ~50/50 boys/girls by religious order (~1,196 all-boys Catholic) plus ~150 independent boys’ prep schools (NAIS data). 1975 (~970): Interpolated from NCEA data showing Catholic secondary schools falling to ~1,690 by 1974–75; applying ~50% boys-school share and accounting for independent school closures. 1985 (~750): NCEA Catholic secondary count of 1,449; Encyclopedia.com documents ~50% were single-sex by 1988, yielding ~360 all-boys Catholic plus ~390 independent all-boys private schools. 1995 (~650): Consistent with NCES PSS trend data and Vanze (2010) as cited by the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM). 2010 (~780): Derived from NCES PSS private school data (~750 private) plus post-2006 Title IX public school expansion (~30 public all-boys). 2016 (~820): Public all-boys schools reached peak of 58 (CRDC via AIBM); private estimated ~762 per NCES PSS trend. 2022 (837): Hard figures: 792 private all-boys (NCES PSS 2021–22) + 45 public all-boys (CRDC, confirmed by AIBM; down from 58 in 2016).