Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Education/Grammar School
Grammar School
Education began for both boys and girls at the "petty school" level. This level was primarily concerned with literacy. However, "only a minority of families" thought literacy was important and only about thirty percent of men and ten percent of women were considered literate in the middle of the seventeenth century.[1]
The next stage in education, grammar school, was reserved exclusively for boys. Typically, a boy entered at age eight and continued through to age fifteen[2] at which time he was prepared to enter University (if that was the path he chose to take). The focus of Grammar School education was Latin language and literature; boys received training in classical literature and sometimes were also exposed to the modern languages or geography.[3]
Grammar schools could be found in most market towns and students had to pay a tuition in order to attend, although there were sometimes scholarships available that enabled poorer boys to also attend school.[4] Upper class families often would have their sons educated at more prestigious grammar schools or by a tutor at home so that they were not associated too closely with the lower classes.[5] Indeed, gentry parents were suspicious of the very idea of grammar schools because they feared that if education became too widely available, the lower classes would enter the job market in vast numbers and push the gentry out. [6] One Englishman argued in favor of grammar schools, saying that they "furnish the functions both of Church and State... without impeachment to the Rich and Noble, who stand alwaies recommended by their more benign stars whensoever they please to offer themselves to undergo the fatigues of preparation and business".[7]