Jay Engel, 74; taught students the joys of writing, storytelling

Retirement was a few months away when Jay Engel took a moment to discuss some of what he had learned in 42 years as a teacher at St. Mark's School in Southborough.

"I've discovered over the years the things that I'm good at and the things that I'm less good at," he told St. Mark's Magazine for its spring 2002 issue. "For example, I'm very good at teaching the sentence and, hence, style, because style emanates from the sentence. But I'm not at all proficient or talented at teaching the essay or the paragraph. . . . I'm better at teaching the short story than the novel."

False modesty? Perish the thought.

"I tend to feel excessive humility is as bad as arrogance, and I think one is better off trying to be honest . . . and face up to your shortcomings, your weaknesses, and rejoice and celebrate your strengths," he told the magazine. "There's nothing shameful about being talented in certain fields. And it's probably silly to be regretful about not being talented in other fields."

Mr. Engel, who persuaded famous writers and musicians to visit St. Mark's and took students on trips to Boston and New York City for opera and theater, died Nov. 11 in his Framingham home of myelodysplastic syndrome. He was 74.

With a voice and presence that often listed toward the Shakespearean, "he was one of those people who, when he entered a room, you absolutely knew it," said John Warren, head of school at St. Mark's and a former student of Mr. Engel's. "It was a booming voice with lots of inflection. At 8 o'clock in the morning, there was no way you were going to stay sleepy."

Born in Baltimore, Mr. Engel attended Dartmouth College and switched his major partway through from business to English, said his wife, Diane. After graduating in 1954, he went to Harvard, where he received a master's in teaching in 1956. Mr. Engel traveled and studied in Europe for the next few years before applying for teaching jobs. St. Mark's was his second interview.

"He liked the family feeling and warmth of the place," his wife said.

Invoking the writer Joseph Campbell's admonition to "follow your bliss," she said that her husband "found his bliss and stuck with it; Jay was just absolutely a born teacher."

A former colleague, Laurie Robertson-Lorant, said Mr. Engel was a "fiercely creative" teacher who cleaved to the school like a Mr. Chips character at the turn of the millennium and yet "was always in his own way trying to break out of the insularity of a prep school."

For Mr. Engel, that meant a years-long tug of war with the administration and athletic department. He organized field trips from the Southborough school to cities for immersion in theater, opera, and symphonies and negotiated permission for athletes to come along if they were going the night before a game.

"He was always mischievously trying to break down the power of the athletic establishment," Robertson-Lorant said.

Among the outings he organized was a trip to New York City to see a performance of the Metropolitan Opera. When in Southborough, he never missed a Saturday afternoon broadcast of performances at the Met.

In the classroom, Mr. Engel "was very eager to help kids improve their writing skills, their reading skills, and their analytic thinking skills," Warren said. "When I would receive a paper back from him, there was as much ink from him in his margin notes as there was ink from my writing, and that's because he cared so much about his students."

For several years Mr. Engel taught a storytelling class at St. Mark's, often in his home. A storyteller himself, he performed after retiring in schools, senior centers, coffeehouses, and bookstores.

"I'm quite proud of it," he said of the course in the interview with St. Mark's Magazine. "I'm proud of it for maybe some reasons that are less obvious. I'm proud because so many of the kids who have taken it are just so darn good, and they've discovered their talent."

Instituting a lecture series at St. Mark's, Mr. Engel brought in marquee figures from the arts, such as the poets Stephen Spender and W.H. Auden and the composer Aaron Copland, all of whom stayed at his house. He insisted that along with a lecture or reading at the school, each guest spend some time with students in a relaxed, informal setting.

"Jay left this great spiritual legacy," his wife said. "He was very focused on learning."

Warren said: "Jay Engel was absolutely passionate about his family, his wife, Diane, and his children. And he was absolutely passionate about St. Mark's."

His wife said Spender's poem, "The Truly Great," will be read as part of his memorial service today. The poem begins, "I think continually of those who were truly great," and goes on to describe how they "left the vivid air signed with their honour."

In addition to his wife, Mr. Engel leaves a son, Eric of Ann Arbor, Mich.; two daughters, Karen Marsden of Edmonton, Alberta, and Sarah Syah of Natick; and three grandsons.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. today in the St. Mark's School Chapel.