ABSTRACT
Since the consolidation of preparatory schools was due to the development of close relationships between them and the public schools, they consequently followed the latter’s ethos and learned from their mistakes. Unsuitable sites, poor sanitation and the slow awareness of hygiene and other prophylactics to avoid outbreaks of fever and other epidemics that cursed private schools, constrained their early growth and prosperity. Health considerations, as an insurance against deaths of pupils, were so strong amongst preparatory school principals during the nineteenth century that some private preparatory school owners, realizing the vulnerability of young boys to infectious diseases, actively specialized in looking after boys in delicate health. Epidemics continued to dog preparatory schools well into the twentieth century, often decimating inter-school sports fixture lists and sometimes closing schools. But since the discovery of penicillin and other antibiotics, infectious diseases in schools are no longer regarded as a scourge.
