Although I was never a student of Varvakeio, and although I had the fortune to experience the "golden era" of a Gymnasium that has also passed into history, that of the Second Men's Gymnasium of Athens, the reputation of the great Model School had certainly not left me untouched. Friends from my teenage years who were sitting in the Varvakeio classrooms showed us, through their stories and their lively presence, what it meant in those years to be a student at Varvakeio School: how difficult it was to be admitted through strict entrance exams; how demanding attendance was in front of the grandes nomes of professors whom we others learned about as authors of school books; how many substantial elements of education and morality a graduate had to continue their studies and pursue their life.
And all this in a public school, which affirmed exactly what is inconceivable to us today, the high level that public free education can achieve, provided that the right organizational conditions are met with the passion to provide from the teachers and the desire for knowledge from the students.
This characteristic was what made Varvakeio not only a center of true knowledge but also a model of meritocracy. You entered there because you deserved it and you could, not because your parents were powerful or rich. And you had guaranteed your placement not because it was guaranteed by the favor of some "caste," as in other so-called "good" schools and colleges, but because society needed your skills. At a time when Greeks were not all equal not only before the law but also in life itself, the students of Varvakeio were all equal before their School and their educators, whether we are talking about offspring of the upper middle class or children of workers.
(From the Publisher's Note)
