ABSTRACT
The monitorial-type elementary schools described in the previous chapter form a well-defined group; but there were several other kinds of school buildings of the early nineteenth century which cannot be so readily classified. The period from 1800 to 1840 was, in fact, essentially one of transition, in which new pressures were being felt, but had not yet found full expression in well-defined types of school. It is, for example, still premature to make any firm distinction between elementary and secondary schools, 1 or to attempt any clear differentiation at this period between public, grammar and private schools, or even between those which took boarders and those which did not. Certain broad tendencies may be discerned, however, which form the main themes of the following chapter, viz. the growing influence of the commercial middle classes, the greater importance attached to the teaching of modern subjects (which had significant effects on internal school organization), and–on the purely architectural side–the increasing adoption of the Gothic style of building.
