Committee of Ten

Background

To understand the controversy over the general principles enunciated by Eliot, it is necessary to know something about the situation of secondary education in the 1890s. It was in this period that public high schools were for the first time overshadowing private academies, which had been established beginning in the late 18th century and then, by the hundreds, all over the country to serve youth—mostly but not exclusively boys—who had a need for study beyond that available in local common schools. Academies were highly responsive to market demand, and many initially focused on courses useful for young men planning business careers or young women planning to teach for a few years. Eventually, however, some academies came to specialize in preparation for college and evolved into what now are called “independent schools.”

In a number of cities, the common school had divided over the course of the 19th century into a [Page 187]primary or elementary school, which, in theory, all children attended, and a grammar school, corresponding roughly to Grades 5 through 8, enrolling those pupils most motivated to continue their studies or whose families could spare them from gainful employment. The public high school was a third level, yet more selective, and offering qualification as a primary-school teacher or as an office clerk. In Providence, Rhode Island, for example, about 10% of the boys and 15% of the girls reached high school in 1880, though far fewer graduated. There had been controversies and a number of court cases challenging the use of public funds intended for the common school in support of secondary schools, which few youth attended, at a high cost per pupil, but by 1890 the high school was well established and had spread from the cities to towns across the North and West, though not yet so extensively in the South.

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