ABSTRACT
So far little attention has been paid to the transition from secondary school to college. Never an easy passage and always the subject of faculty debate, it did not reach the stage of professional discussion till the end of the nineteenth century, when it managed to hold public attention for a score or more years. Ever since colonial times there had been considerable diversity in the way boys prepared for college. Some came up through the Latin grammar school, others through its successor, the academy. Still others tutored, often under some clergyman. Rare individuals like John Muir at a much later time were self-taught. 1 Diversity of preparation presented no particular difficulties in early times, when a candidate’s proficiency was tested in relatively few subjects, generally the staples of Latin and Greek.
