John C. Corlette

The above is an extract from The Muscles of Friendship – a valedictory speech by Jocelin Winthrop Young, Founding Director of Round Square, on the occasion of his retirement, October 1992 (made at Bishop's College School, Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada).

A tribute to Corlette: "John Corlette of Aiglon...was our most powerful personality and he was the only one to own his own school. He was urging expansion and development long before I felt we were ready for it. He insisted that there must be an association journal but it was not until 1982 that the enthusiasm and driving energy of Margaret Sittler got “Echo” going. John was an original and this showed itself in his creation Aiglon and its most characteristic custom: the morning Meditation. He collected art and had a weakness for Jaguars (petrol driven). He was a master of publicity and used this much to the benefit of his school. During the first American conference at Athenian in 1972, Aiglon gave a reception in San Francisco and a very fine film of the school was shown with a commentary by the best of the BBC announcers. It began with the camera swinging through the arc of mountains between Aiguille Verte and the Dent du Midi. Then it swept down into the Rhone valley and one saw the distant road zigzagging up towards Villars. A small object driving up the road grew into a familiar streamline shape and the voice of the BBC chimed in: “John Corlette had a dream”. There was a chortle of joy from the assembled Heads, which John took in good part."

The following extracts from a speech given by Corlette at Aiglon's end-of-term ceremony in July 1973 help illustrate his vision for the school. At the time of delivering this address, the school had expanded to nearly 300 students and had introduced co-education. However, the precepts that guided the early years of the school were still present 25 years after its foundation in 1949.

In 1949 Corlette opened his school in Chesières, the same village where he had gone to school as a teenager.

Corlette studied Philosophy, Politics, Economics and History at Exeter College, then left to practice architecture, he then returned to complete his degree in 1943. Finding that he had an interest in education, he taught at the College at South Leigh and Gordonstoun which he left due to a disagreement with its founder Kurt Hahn.

John Hubert Christian Corlette (1911-1977) was an English architect and the founder of Aiglon College in Switzerland. Prior to founding Aiglon, Corlette was a teacher at Gordonstoun, a private school in Scotland, and he included some of that school's educational ideas in the formation of Aiglon.

Corlette, born John Hubert Christian Corlette on 21 June 1911, was the son of Australian architect Major Hubert Christian Corlette OBE and his wife, Florence Gwynedd Davies-Berrington.