II. FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE CIVIL WAR.

THE EARLY ACADEMIES.

The new institution seems to have been influenced to some extent in its earlier beginnings by parallel movements in western Europe, and particularly by the establishment of the so-called academies of the nonconformist sects in England. The "Log College" of William Tennent in Pennsylvania was an early foreshadowing of this type. The first school to be regularly incorporated as an academy seems to have been that established at Philadelphia, chiefly through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin, which grew ultimately into the University of Pennsylvania. It received its first charter in 1753. Other institutions bearing the title academy were established in the Middle and Southern States before or during the Revolutionary war.

The winning of independence, the establishment of the new State governments, and the formation of a National Government under the Federal Constitution were events of capital importance in our educational as well as our political history. So far as secondary education is concerned, the earlier years of our national life were marked by a great upgrowth of schools of the academy type. An influential movement in New England was initiated by the founding of the two Phillips academies, one at Andover, Mass., and the other at Exeter, N. H., in the later years of the Revolutionary war. This type of school proved equally well adapted to the very different social and economic conditions of the Southern States, and as the new west was opened up, the masters of academies followed hard after the pioneer woodsman and the pioneer preacher.

THE ACADEMY TYPE.

The type was indeed protean, but some of its more usual characteristics may be indicated in a few words. An academy was generally a secondary school, incorporated by the State but managed by a self-perpetuating board of trustees. Sometimes it was under the immediate patronage of a religious sect, but more commonly it was “nonsectarian." It was a school sometimes for boys, sometimes for girls, and sometimes coeducational. Often, but not always, it was a boarding school. Sometimes an academy, so called, was taught by a single teacher. A well-developed school of this type, however, was equipped with two or more teachers, who divided the subjects of instruction among them so as to secure some degree of specialization. The studies of the academies will be noted further on.

SOME OF THE EARLIER ACADEMIES.

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA. Liberty Hall Academy, incorporated 1777. It began as a classical school 1767, and was for a time known as Queen's College. In 1784 it became Salisbury Academy. SMITH. Op. cit., pp. 32-36.

[Mr. SMITH mentions twenty-four other academies and "seminaries" incorporated after this in North Carolina, before the close of the eighteenth century.]

CALVERT COUNTY, MARYLAND. Lower Marlboro Academy, incorporated 1778, when it became the successor of the old Free School. It had existed for some time as a private school. From 1798 to 1821 it was merged in Charlotte Hall,

STEINER. Maryland, p. 39 fr.

SOMERSET COUNTY, MARYLAND. Washington Academy, incorporated 1779. It had been maintained by several joint proprietors since 1767.

STEINER. Loc. cit.

ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS. Phillips Academy, opened 1778, incorporated 1780, still flourishing.
HAMMOND, REV. C. Phillips Academy at Andover.

In [BARNARD'S] American Journal of Education, v. 30, pp. 669-776.

TAYLOR, REV. JOHN L. A memoir of His Honor, Samuel Phillips, LL. D. Boston, 1856, pp. 11+391.

NORTH FAIRFIELD, CONNECTICUT. The Staples Free School, incorporated 1781.

STEINER. Connecticut, p. 49.

EXETER, NEW HAMPSHIRE, Phillips Academy, incorporated 1781, opened 1783, still flourishing.
BELL, CHARLES H. Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, a historical sketch. Exeter,
[N. H.], 1883, pp. 104.

CUNNINGHAM, FRANK H. Familiar sketches of the Phillips Exeter Academy and surroundings.
Boston, 1883, pp. 14+360.

SOUTH BYFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS. Dummer Academy, opened as Dummer School 1763, incorporated 1782, still in operation.

CLEAVELAND, NEHEMIAH.

The first century of Dummer Academy. . . . Boston, 1865, pp. 71+43. WASHINGTON COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA (NOW IN TENNESSEE). Martin Academy, incorporated by the legislature of North Carolina 1783. It became Washington College in 1795.

SMITH. Op. cit., p. 43.

GERMANTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA. Germantown Public School, established 1760, incorporated 1784. Now known as Germantown Academy, in Philadelphia.

TRAVIS, WILLIAM. History of Germantown Academy. . . . Philadelphia, 1882, pp. 64. PLAINFIELD, CONNECTICUT. Plainfield Academy, organized 1770, incorporated 1784.

STEINER. Connecticut, p. 49.

LEICESTER, MASSACHUSETTS. Leicester Academy, incorporated and opened 1784.

WASHBURN, EMORY. Brief sketch of the history of Leicester Academy. Boston, 1855, pp. 7+158. HINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS. Derby School, incorporated under this name 1784, reincorporated as Derby Academy 1797, opened 1785, still in operation.

WALTON, GEORGE A. Report on academies, in Fortieth annual report of the [Massachusetts]
Board of Education (pp. 174-347), p. 176.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA. Protestant Episcopal Academy, founded 1785, incorporated 1787.
WICKERSHAM. Op. cit., pp. 98, 379, and 484.

EAST HAMPTON, NEW YORK. Clinton Academy, incorporated 1787, closed about 1881.

HOUGH, FRANKLIN B. Historical and statistical record of the University of the State of New York. (Albany, 1885), pp. 413 and 604.

FLATBUSH, NEW YORK. Erasmus Hall, incorporated 1787 (now Erasmus High School, Brooklyn). GUNNISON, WALTER B. Erasmus Hall. In The Brooklyn Teacher, v. 1, pp. 1-2, March, 1897.

PITTSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA. Pittsburg Academy, incorporated 1787.

WICKERSHAM. Op. cit., p. 379.

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY. Newark Academy, incorporated 1792, still flourishing.

MURRAY, DAVID. History of education in New Jersey. Washington, 1899 (pp. 344), pp. 27 and 74. GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS. Lawrence Academy, incorporated 1793, still in operation.

The jubilee of Lawrence Academy. New York, 1855, pp. 76.

[Mr. WALTON'S Report mentions in all sixteen academies which were incorporated in Massachusetts in the last two decades of the eighteenth century, besides Phillips Andover, 1780. Two of these had been merged into public high schools and six had been discontinued.]

OXFORD, NEW YORK. Oxford Academy, opened 1792, incorporated 1794.

KINGSTON, NEW YORK. Kingston Academy, incorporated 1795. It is said that the school had been established in 1774.

HOUGH. Op. cit., pp. 356, 416, and 650.

[Mr. HouGH's list contains the names of seventeen academies incorporated in New York in the last two decades of the eighteenth century. Seven of these had been discontinued, two had been merged in public high schools, and one had been merged in Hamilton College.]

YORK, PENNSYLVANIA. York Academy, incorporated 1799. It had previously existed as an academy of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

WICKERSHAM. Op. cit., pp. 99, 379.

[Mr. WICKERSHAM mentions eleven academies which were incorporated in Pensylvania in the last two decades of the eighteenth century.]

NEW SCHOOL SYSTEMS.

The academies were privately managed institutions charged with responsibility for public education of secondary grade. Some of the older grammar schools still survived, but the most of them either died or were transformed into institutions of the newer type. When the National Government was formed, it did not assume direction of educational affairs, but it did much in the way of subsidizing educational systems in the several States by grants of public lands. New State systems of education soon appeared. In some instances these systems took little account of secondary schools. There were, however, a few cases in which secondary schools seem to have received the chief consideration. In such cases we find State support and supervision, usually of a very fragmentary and imperfect kind, exercised over schools of the privately managed academy type. The system was public, secular, civil; its component members were private institutions, for the most part intensely religious in character, sometimes under ecclesiastical control. One of the new forms of State organization showed unmistakable evidence of French influence. This was the territorial university, which embraced in one comprehensive administrative system the whole provision for the higher grades

of education within the bounds of a given State. This scheme was carried into effect in the University of the State of New York, and traces of its influence are observable in the educational history of Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Maryland, and a few other States. In the most of the States the legislatures merely subsidized privately managed academies with donations of land or of money, and charged them with providing for the educational needs of the people, with only loose provision or no provision at all for superintending the administration of those endowments. Such was the procedure in Maine, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and several other States, the several systems of which present a rich diversity of detail along with a general similarity of drift and purpose. Massachusetts continued her old provision for Latin grammar schools in the several towns, but relieved from the operation of the law all towns having less than two hundred families. Parallel with this provision for grammar schools she undertook the subsidizing by grants of public lands of a goodly number of academies, each of which was intended to provide educational facilities for a scattered population of some twenty-five or thirty thousand people.

STUDIES PURSUED IN THE ACADEMIES.

The academies were intended to offer instruction in a wider range of subjects than the old grammar schools. They were not primarily schools preparatory to college, but were intended to meet the growing desire for an education of a more advanced character than that of the elementary or district schools on the part of many young people who were not destined for the learned professions and had no expectation of going to college. This, however, tells only half of the story, for even from the beginning a large proportion of the academies also took over from the earlier schools, with but little change, the classical course which prepared the student for college. We have already noted the general movement of college-admission requirements down to the close of the eighteenth century, when the main business of preparing boys for college was passing over to the academies. In a hundred and sixty years four slight changes had taken place. The requirement of ability to speak in Latin had been relaxed, the requirement in Greek had been somewhat advanced, arithmetic had been added, and in general the requirements were coming to be expressed in more specific, quantitative terms. Latin, Greek, and arithmetic were still the only subjects required for admission to American colleges. During the half century next following a slow but steady change was going on, which consisted mainly of an increase in the amount of work definitely prescribed within the three subjects already named and the addition of new subjects. Geography was first required at Harvard in 1807, English grammar at Princeton in 1819, algebra at Harvard in 1820, geometry at Harvard in 1824, and ancient history at both Harvard and Michigan in 1847. a

The course of instruction on the classical side of the academies, as in the old grammar schools, was arranged to meet these requirements. The additional studies which were offered in the academies were, some of them, such as had been taught in a more advanced way in the colleges. Some of them were such as had not been commonly taught in either the grammar schools or the colleges. Studies in English, algebra, geometry, and ancient history, after being introduced into the academies, were added by the colleges, as we have seen, to their admission requirements. Certain branches of natural science, modern languages, the history of the United States, and some forms of applied mathematics, as navigation and surveying, were among the other subjects taught in various academies. Commercial branches, too, were sometimes taught, especially bookkeeping. Much interest was aroused in

a This list, from Doctor Broome's monograph, takes account only of the requirement for admission to the standard classical course in six of the leading institutions of the country.

courses of instruction based upon certain books of a formative sort-such as Mason on Self-knowledge and Watts's Improvement of the Mind.

Some of the newer studies were pursued by students who came to school for brief periods only, but in time they came to be pretty generally organized into collateral curriculums, parallel with the classical course already described. These parallel courses at the first were intended for students whose schooling could not be continued beyond the academy.

Studies pursued in the academies of New York in the early years of the nineteenth century. [This table is given in Hough, op. cit., p. 421.]

Vergil, arithmetic, and exercises in reading and making Latin, continued.
Valpey's Greek Grammar.

Roman history; Cicero's select orations.

"Delectus;" Dalzel's Collectanea Græca Minora.

Greek Testament; English grammar; declamation.

Third year:

The same Latin and Greek authors reviewed.

English grammar and declamation, continued.

Sallust; algebra.

Exercises in Latin and English translations.
Composition.

Fourth year (parallel with the first year of college):

Collectanea Graeca Minora.

Horace; Livy; parts of Terence.

Excerpta Latina, "or such Latin and Greek authors as may best comport with the student's future destination."

Algebra; geometry; elements of ancient history.

Adam's Roman Antiquities, etc.

II. English Department.

First year:

English grammar, including exercises in reading, in parsing and analyzing, and in the correction of bad English.

Punctuation; prosody; arithmetic; geography.

Algebra through simple equations.

ED 1903-36

Second year:

English grammar, continued; geometry.

Plane trigonometry and its application to heights and distances.

Mensuration of surfaces and solids.

Elements of ancient history.

Logic; rhetoric; English composition.
Declamation and forensic exercises.

Third year:

Surveying; navigation.

Elements of chemistry and natural philosophy, with experiments.
Elements of modern history, particularly of the United States.

Moral and political philosophy.

English composition, forensics, and declamation, continued.

[It was required of a candidate for admission to the English department that he be at least 12 years of age; that he have learned to read and spell well; that he be familiar with arithmetic through simple proportion, with the exception of fractions, and with Murray's English Grammar through syntax, and that he be able to parse simple English sentences. It is probable that boys were admitted to the classical department at an earlier age, for we know that the standard minimum age for admission to college about this time was 14. The courses are taken, with slight changes of arrangement, from Bell, Phillips Exeter Academy, appendix, pages 93-94.]

INFLUENCE OF THE ACADEMIES.

The academies cultivated a vigorous nationalism through instruction in American history, and raised up an intelligent constituency for the makers of our earlier literature. They gave instruction to many who afterwards became teachers in the elementary schools, and so prepared the way for the "Educational revival" in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. They were forerunners of the normal schools. They offered a field for early experiment in coeducation and in an advanced grade of separate education for women. In them was developed an early form of "nonsectarian" instruction, and in this, as well as in various other ways, they bridged the passage to the modern secular public high school.

SPECIAL MOVEMENTS.

While the academy movement was at its height there arose as variants from the academy type certain special schools and groups of schools which have been of considerable significance in our educational history. The "manual labor schools" ran their interesting career in the twenties and thirties of the nineteenth century. The United States Military Academy at West Point, established in 1802, was the model of numerous military schools, some of which have flourished to the present day. With the growth of cities came the growth of well-equipped private day schools and other urban schools of advanced grade under the management of privately constituted boards of trustees. Various religious bodies engaged actively in the promotion of secondary education. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century numerous Roman Catholic schools were established, chiefly under the control of religious orders, and modeled after similar schools in Europe. A beginning was made in the establishment of Episcopalian schools, which showed in some measure the influence of the English public schools. Other denominations established many schools, among them the Methodists, who, in their several conferences, manifested a deep interest in such undertakings. The German gymnasium and real-schule came to be known in this country through important reports and translations, and exercised an influence upon our educational ideals if not upon our educational organization.