Founding a school was probably the farthest thing from Sherman Day Thacher’s mind when he came across the country from Connecticut with his ailing brother to the purportedly rejuvenative Ojai Valley in 1887. But he fell in love with this place, his decision to stay made easy by the stunning beauty of the citrus and avocado orchard patchwork, by the steep mountains of the north rim, the purple bluffs of its eastern edge, the heart-stopping sunsets to the west—and by the resourcefulness, openness of mind, and relative informality of these Western folk. When a New England friend asked Mr. Thacher to tutor his son for admission to Yale, he accepted—just as long as the boy could come to Ojai for his lessons. The friend agreed, and Mr. Thacher’s School was begun.

What Sherman Thacher knew of secondary education he had absorbed during his own high school years and during his college experience at Yale—and what he knew was distinctly Eastern, straight out of the New England boarding school tradition: a strict academic schedule, meat-and-potatoes classics taught by dedicated scholar-teachers, seated meals in coat and tie, routine study halls, poetry and singing balanced by baseball and other sports in the afternoons. But while his counterparts in the East were scratching their heads over what to do with the boys during blizzards and mud season, Mr. Thacher wondered only, “Which trail to take the lads on today?” The great outdoors beckoned, and Mr. Thacher answered the call, his boys lined out behind him. In fact, he simply turned the mountains and meadows into a vast classroom without boundaries, one with limitless opportunities for lessons and growth. And the horses? In them he found some of his best teachers.

East meets west in many of the same ways over a century later. Our curriculum, faculty and facilities, programs and college placement are held as models for other schools, both private and public. We continue to find value in formal, family-style meals. The day’s structure includes study halls, dinner bells and check-in, at breakfast and near bedtime. Spirited interscholastic athletic competition thrives.

And yet there’s still, as Mr. Thacher was fond of saying, “something about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a boy”—and, now, girl. Camping trips continue to educate kids in a way that no other activity can. And that part of the Western character that inevitably sets this school apart from Eastern boarding schools still defines our style, as well as our substance: a freshness of perspective, an easy inquisitiveness, a ready resourcefulness, a flexibility of mind.