ABSTRACT
The diverse systems of schooling which exist in modern Europe share the characteristic of strict stratification according to age and curriculum. For the average parent, learning beyond the basics of religion and literacy for a son was an unthinkable luxury. Boys who did attend a 'secondary' school probably went to one of the thousands of Latin or vernacular grammar schools dotted across Europe. In the fifteenth century in Western Europe, Latin was taught principally in clerical schools. From the early sixteenth century new and more secular institutions modelled on Italian civic academies began to make their presence felt: the French municipal colleges and the German Furstenschulen. In the countries of Western Europe, Latin was the premier language of post-elementary education. The national literacy campaigns of the early modern period appear extremely impressive, especially those of the eighteenth century. Educational provision was expanded and subjected to an unprecedented measure of control.
