Grammar school

A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented selective secondary school.
The original purpose of medieval grammar schools was the teaching of Latin. Over time the curriculum was broadened, first to include Ancient Greek, and later English and other European languages, natural sciences, mathematics, history, geography, art and other subjects. In the late Victorian era, grammar schools were reorganised to provide secondary education throughout England and Wales; Scotland had developed a different system. Grammar schools of these types were also established in British territories overseas, where they have evolved in different ways.
Grammar schools became one of the three tiers of the Tripartite System of state-funded secondary education operating in England and Wales from the mid-1940s to the late 1960s, and continue as such in Northern Ireland. After most local education authorities moved to non-selective comprehensive schools in the 1960s and 1970s, some grammar schools became fully independent schools and charged fees, while most others were abolished or became comprehensive. In both cases, some of these schools kept "grammar school" in their names. More recently, a number of state grammar schools, still retaining their selective intake, gained academy status are thus independent of the local education authority. Some LEAs retain forms of the Tripartite System and a few grammar schools survive in otherwise comprehensive areas. Some of the remaining grammar schools can trace their histories to before the 15th century.

History

Medieval grammar schools

Although the term scolae grammaticales was not widely used until the 14th century, the earliest such schools appeared from the sixth century, e.g. the King's School, Canterbury, the King's School, Rochester and St Peter's School, York
The schools were attached to cathedrals and monasteries, teaching Latin – the language of the church – to future priests and monks. Other subjects required for religious work were occasionally added, including music and verse, astronomy and mathematics and law.
With the foundation of the ancient universities from the late 12th century, grammar schools became the entry point to a liberal arts education, with Latin seen as the foundation of the trivium. Pupils were usually educated in grammar schools up to the age of 14, after which they would look to universities and the church for further study. Of the three first schools independent of the church – Winchester College, Oswestry School and Eton College – Winchester and Eton were feeder schools to Oxford and Cambridge universities respectively. There is a mention of a grammar school at Shrewsbury in a court case of 1439. They were boarding schools, so they could educate pupils from anywhere in the nation.

Early modern grammar schools

An example of an early grammar school, founded by an early modern borough corporation unconnected with church, or university, is Bridgnorth Grammar School, founded in 1503 by Bridgnorth Borough Corporation.
During the English Reformation in the 16th century, most cathedral schools were closed and replaced by new foundations funded from the dissolution of the monasteries. For example, the oldest extant schools in Wales – Christ College, Brecon and the Friars School, Bangor – were established on the sites of former Dominican monasteries. King Edward VI made an important contribution to grammar schools, founding a series of schools during his reign. A few grammar schools were also established in the name of Queen Mary and then of Queen Elizabeth I. King James I founded a series of "Royal Schools" in Ulster, beginning with The Royal School, Armagh. In theory these schools were open to all and offered free tuition to those who could not pay fees; however, few poor children attended school, because their labour was economically valuable to their families.
In the Scottish Reformation schools such as the Choir School of Glasgow Cathedral and the Grammar School of the Church of Edinburgh passed from church control to burgh councils, and the burghs also founded new schools. With the increased emphasis on studying the scriptures after the Reformation, many schools added Greek and, in a few cases, Hebrew. The teaching of these languages was hampered by a shortage of non-Latin type and of teachers fluent in the languages.
During the 16th and 17th centuries the establishment of grammar schools became a common act of charity by nobles, wealthy merchants and religious guilds; for example The Crypt School, Gloucester, founded by John and Joan Cook in 1539, Sir Roger Manwood's School, founded in 1563 by Sandwich jurist Roger Manwood, and Spalding Grammar School, founded by John Gamlyn and John Blanche in 1588. Many of these are still commemorated in annual "Founder's Day" services and ceremonies at surviving schools. The usual pattern was to create an endowment to pay the wages of a master to instruct local boys in Latin and sometimes Greek without charge.
The school day typically ran from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a two-hour break for lunch; in winter, school started at 7 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. Most of the day was spent in the rote learning of Latin. To encourage fluency, some schoolmasters recommended punishing any pupil who spoke in English. The younger boys learned the parts of speech and Latin words in the first year, learned to construct Latin sentences in the second year, and began translating English–Latin and Latin–English passages in the third year. By the end of their studies at age 14, they would be quite familiar with the great Latin authors, and with Latin drama and rhetoric. Other skills, such as arithmetic and handwriting, were taught in odd moments or by travelling specialist teachers such as scriveners.

Grammar schools in the 18th and 19th centuries

In 1755 Samuel Johnson's Dictionary defined a grammar school as a school in which the learned languages are grammatically taught;
However, by this time demand for these languages had fallen greatly. A new commercial class required modern languages and commercial subjects. Most grammar schools founded in the 18th century also taught arithmetic and English. In Scotland, the burgh councils updated the curricula of their schools so that Scotland no longer has grammar schools in any of the senses discussed here, though some, such as Aberdeen Grammar School, retain the name.
In England, urban middle-class pressure for a commercial curriculum was often supported by the school's trustees, but resisted by the schoolmaster, supported by the terms of the original endowment. Very few schools were able to obtain special acts of Parliament to change their statutes; examples are the Macclesfield Grammar School Act 1774 and the Bolton Grammar School Act 1788. Such a dispute between the trustees and master of Leeds Grammar School led to a celebrated case in the Court of Chancery. After 10 years, Lord Eldon, then Lord Chancellor, ruled in 1805, "There is no authority for thus changing the nature of the Charity, and filling a School intended for the purpose of teaching Greek and Latin with Scholars learning the German and French languages, mathematics, and anything except Greek and Latin." Although he offered a compromise by which some subjects might be added to a classical core, the ruling set a restrictive precedent for grammar schools across England; they seemed to be in terminal decline. However it should be borne in mind that the decline of the grammar schools in England and Wales was not uniform and that until the foundation of St Bees Clerical College, in 1817, and St David's College Lampeter, in 1828, specialist grammar schools in the north-west of England and South Wales were in effect providing tertiary education to men in their late teens and early twenties, which enabled them to be ordained as Anglican clergymen without going to university.

Victorian-era grammar schools

The 19th century saw a series of reforms to grammar schools, culminating in the Endowed Schools Act 1869. Grammar schools were reinvented as academically oriented secondary schools following literary or scientific curricula, while often retaining classical subjects.
The Grammar Schools Act 1840 made it lawful to apply the income of grammar schools to purposes other than those defined in the original endowment eg. teaching of classical languages. Such change however to the intentions of the original endowment required application to and consent of a court of law. In mid C19 therefore, some schools started reorganising themselves along the lines of Thomas Arnold's reforms at Rugby School, and also the spread of the railways supported the success of new boarding schools, teaching a broader curriculum, such as Marlborough, Epsom and Framlingham.
The first girls' schools targeted at university entrance were North London Collegiate School and Cheltenham Ladies' College. Academically orientated girls' secondary schools were established in the latter part of C19. In locations with an older boys' grammar school they would often be named a "high school". Examples of the latter are Manchester High School for Girls and King Edward VI High School for Girls.
Following the Clarendon Commission, which led to the Public Schools Act 1868 which restructured the trusts of nine leading schools, the Taunton Commission was appointed to examine the remaining 782 endowed grammar schools. The commission reported that the distribution of schools did not match the current population, and that provision varied greatly in quality, with provision for girls being particularly limited. The Taunton Commission's report of 1868 proposed the creation of a national system of secondary education by restructuring the endowments of these schools for modern purposes. The result was the Endowed Schools Act 1869, which created the Endowed Schools Commission with extensive powers over endowments of individual schools. It was said that the commission "could turn a boys' school in Northumberland into a girls' school in Cornwall". Across England and Wales schools endowed to offer free classical instruction to boys were remodelled as fee-paying schools teaching broad curricula to boys or girls.
In the late Victorian era there was a great emphasis on the importance of self-improvement. Many schools established at that time emulated the great public schools, copying their curriculum, ethos and ambitions, and some took or maintained the title "grammar school" for historical reasons.
Under the Free Place Regulations of 1907, an increased grant was made available to secondary schools that provided at least 25 percent of their places as free scholarships for students from public elementary schools. Grammar schools thus emerged as one part of the highly varied education system of England and Wales before 1944.