ABSTRACT
The preceding chapter introduced the people’s college as the defining institution of American mid-nineteenth-century urban middle-class democracy. The urban high school, however, had not been the only public institution devoted to the post-common-school education of American youths. Latin grammar schools, as we know, antedated the common schools. Other public high schools had grown out of local common schools or had once been private academies. These schools, however, had been or had become parts of state systems and had come under state supervision and direction. Though reflecting local needs and aspirations, they had also been intended to prepare their graduates for continuing collegiate study, and their programs and curricula had been designed with the requirements of statewide university systems and private colleges in mind. To use the terminology of the nineteenth century, these high schools were meant to prepare their graduates for college, and the people’s colleges were to prepare their students for “the active life.”
