 As a progressive private boarding school for adolescents, Maeder intended that Stockbridge School's educational philosophy be interracial, nondenominational and international.The school was notable for being completely racially integrated from its inception and Maeder made successful efforts to recruit an international student body.To help express Maeder's philosophy, and in light of his experiences as a German refugee and expatriate, the school flew the United Nations flag just below the American flag beginning in 1948, three years after the U.N. came into existence.