Latin Grammar School

English Articles of Latin Grammar School

A private secondary school developed in England that originally took boys of nine or ten years of age for four to seven years of preparation for college. The first school founded in the American colonies was the Boston Latin School, which opened on April 13, 1635. Latin grammar schools, or, more simply, grammar schools, accepted only boys who could read and knew English grammar and basic mathematics and whose parents could afford the tuition. The Latin school curriculum focused on Latin grammar, but also included study of Greek and some history, geography, geometry, algebra and trigonometry.

The Latin school eventually proved too costly and impractical for life in an expanding frontier nation, and it was replaced by the academy, which offered a broader curriculum. Boston Latin, however, remained one of New England’s most renowned schools, eventually helping to educate some of the foremost American colonialists, including BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.Boston Latin is now a public school with a conventional public school curriculum.