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.
Early years
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.
As a teenager, Corlette attended Stowe School, in Buckinghamshire, England. Because of ill health, he was advised to find a healthier environment, and it was recommended that he attend a school in Switzerland where the high altitude and drier air might assist his recovery; this is how he came to go to school in the alpine village of Chesières, Villars-sur-Ollon.
University life and early employment
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.
Founding of Aiglon College
In 1949 Corlette opened his school in Chesières, the same village where he had gone to school as a teenager.
Like his mentor Kurt Hahn, Corlette wrote no books to guide future generations in the creation of a curriculum. His speeches, like those of Hahn's, guide the reader away from a focus on curriculum and textbooks and toward the use of philosophy and environment to improve "the whole man.”
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.