ABSTRACT
We can judge of the vitality of the grammar school as an institution from the eagerness for its plantation in the New England colonies by the English emigrants who had experienced at home the value of a classical training, for it was a common maxim of the 17th century in England: ‘better unborn than untaught.’ The question naturally arises: How is it that, in the 20th century, there is so much adverse criticism and even contempt for the idea of classical studies, amongst the great mass of the people, among successful merchants and manufacturers, as well as among tradesmen and farmers. The 17th century parent was not in better worldly circumstances. The New England colonist had enough to do, without troubling about ‘learning,’ in working his way in a new country, often with Indians to subdue or to conciliate, as well as in exerting efforts incident to tilling the soil, or in the work of other industries. On a priori grounds, the colonist was the most unlikely of men to cry out for grammar schools, and the founding of grammar schools the most unlikely of directions in which the richer men could be expected to spend their spare money, or for which to bequeath their possessions.
