"Foxcroft has set a standard distinctive in girls' education. No other school is quite like it in all the world. It has given hundreds of girls not only intellectual training, but aims and ideals that only a school of simplicity and sound training can give. Foxcroft standards—discipline, a will to work, intellectual and moral honesty—have given the girls a sense of honor and of the joy of life that have been clearly reflected through their lives."
—Charlotte Haxall Noland
Charlotte Haxall Noland founded Foxcroft School in 1914, at the age of 32. She dreamed that her own school would be one that "girls would want to come to and hate to leave because they loved it." From the beginning, Miss Charlotte's highest aim and Foxcroft's greatest responsibility has been to educate the whole student. Her efforts to instill high purpose, integrity, leadership, understanding, and a sense of joy in students guides Foxcroft even today. Foxcroft is a transforming experience and shapes the loyalty of today's students and of nine decades of Foxcroft alumnae.


At age seventy-two and with forty years behind her as the Founder and President of the School, Miss Charlotte handed over the reigns to then Academic Head Van Santvoord Merle-Smith who became the second Head of School in 1955. Together with Bertha Adkins and Alexander Uhle, the third and fourth heads respectively, he worked to see the building of a new Orchard Dormitory, the Englehard Activities Building and the McConnell Stable and Riding Hall. With the school overseen by professional administrators and the Board of Trustees, Miss Charlotte was free to divide her energies between school and personal interests. She traveled throughout the world where she was recognized as one of America’s foremost educators and in 1961 retired to Florida. She died July 9, 1969 in Florida and is buried at the Foxcroft Cemetery.

In 1929 Miss Charlotte wrote these words about the future of the School that she loved so well. “Believing with my very soul that anything worked for, wanted and loved, as I have loved Foxcroft, should not die, I have tried to arrange that Foxcroft should go down the ages as a great school. This can only be done by your effort. You have never failed me in life; I know you will not fail me now. It can be done and you can do it. The love and loyalty for the place, which you should have if I have succeeded in my life work, will make the school go. Keep up with the times. Don’t be narrow. Have two rules: hard, good work and much fun. Pile up traditions and remember, ‘With God, all things are possible.’ On, on with Foxcroft. Dare not let her die. In spirit if not in body, I am always standing by.”
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