The great 'public' schools. First American secondary schools modeled after English. schools should, by means of the endowment, be open to rich and poor alike, because of the great increase in expenses, necessary and unnecessary, there are now not many opportunities for any one in the lower classes of society to attend a grammar school. Similarly, a distinction has come to be drawn between 'grammar' and 'public' schools, although it is not a very clear one. In general, a 'public school' has a more aristocratic and wealthier patronage. Nine 'great public schools' were recognized by the Clarendon Commission in 1864,Winchester (Fig. 17), Eton, St. Paul's, Shrewsbury, Westminster, Rugby, Harrow, Merchant Taylors', and Charterhouse; but several other old schools and a number of the stronger foundations of Victoria's reign are generally admitted, and many others claim the dignity of the name that would not be considered eligible outside of the immediate locality. The 'Grammar' Schools in the American Colonies.It was after these 'grammar' schools of the mother country that the first secondary schools in America were modeled and named. In many instances the fathers of the colonies, such as Edward Hopkins, William Penn, and Roger Williams, had been educated in the grammar schools of England, and naturally sought to model the institutions in their new home after them as nearly as the different conditions would permit. The Boston Latin (Grammar) School was founded as early as 1635 (Fig. 23), and other towns of Massachusetts,-Charlestown, Ipswich, Salem, Dorchester, Newbury, Cambridge, and Roxbury, also before long established grammar schools. Similarly, towns of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the other colo nies, had in many cases founded grammar schools before the close of the century. Moreover, the legislatures of Massachusetts (1647) and Connecticut (1650) soon ordered that a 'grammar' school be established in every town having one hundred families. The American grammar schools, like their prototypes, were secondary and sustained no real relation to the elementary schools. They were mostly intended to fit pupils for college, although sometimes the college had not yet been established, and thus to furnish a preliminary step to preparation for the Christian ministry. Hence their course consisted chiefly in reading the classics and the New Testament, and used among its texts Lily's Grammar and the Colloquies of Corderius. And while the hold of formal humanism upon secondary education was somewhat relaxed during the subsequent stages of the 'academy' and the 'high school,' the formal classical training was considered the only means of a liberal education until well into the nineteenth century. this life. The Aim and Institutions of Humanistic Education.It can now be seen how far the ideals of humanism had departed from those of the medieval period. The 'otherworldly' aim, the monastic isolation, and the scholastic discussions had given way to the interests of this life, Interests of personal and social development, and a study of the classics. In the North the movement took on rather a different color from what it did in the peninsula that gave it birth. While Northern humanism was narrower in not concerning itself so much with self-culture, personal expression, and the various opportunities of life, it had a wider vision through interesting itself in society as a whole and in endeavoring to advance morality and More social religion. It was democratic and social in its trend, where and moral in the North, and Italian humanism was more aristocratic and individual. more individ ual in Italy. Organization, content, methods. and effect. In Italy the chief educational institutions resulting from the humanistic movement were the schools that arose at the brilliant courts of the city tyrants. These institutions were sometimes connected with the universities, and gradually the universities themselves were forced to admit the new learning to the curriculum. In the North a number of new institutions-Hieronymian schools, princes' schools, gymnasiums, and grammar schools—were developed from humanism, and the existing institutions soon showed the influence of the movement, but all of them stressed moral and religious studies, as well as classical. Everywhere the curriculum of the humanistic foundations consisted mostly in the mastery of Latin and Greek, but in the North the renewal of Greek meant also a study of the New and Old Testaments and the Church Fathers. Where the Italian Renaissance re-created the liberal education of Plato and Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian, the movement in its Northern spread found in the classical revival a means of moral and religious training. But just as humanism in Italy by the beginning of the sixteenth century had degenerated into mere Ciceronianism, so the humanistic education in the North, after about a century of development, began to grow narrow, hard, and fixed. By the middle of the sixteenth century the spirit of criticism, investigation, and intellectual activity had begun to abate, and by the opening of the seventeenth humanism had been completely formalized. In the study of the classics all emphasis was placed upon grammar, linguistics, and style; form was preferred to content; and |