ABSTRACT
The public school of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century would have had some difficulty in comprehending how a 'falling rolls' problem could exist. Over the latter half of the nineteenth century, the sixth form moved from being a class supported institution to become one with national significance. With the setting up of local school boards to administer elementary education after the Education Act of 1870, a further confounding category evolved. Nor did the sixth acquire the status of a national institution through widespread expansion of opportunities for participation in it. After the upsurge of new proprietary schools in the 1850s and 1860s, the development of secondary education had been a slow affair, dependent largely on the workings of the Charity Commissioners. The schools were directly responsible for little more than the teaching, since boys were often lodged in private boarding houses and provided for their own recreation.
