Beyond New England

Temperantia
Tue, 14 Feb 2017 22:05:41 +0000

My own sense of the history falls somewhat in between these two perspectives. The oldest schools provided an opportunity for higher education where only rudimentary education was available before. So, in the early years you had schools like Andover that served the children of the educated elite but not necessarily rich. As economic prosperity grew so did educational aspiration and demand for like schools increased so several schools were founded in the mid-1800s to serve that demand and that demand began to grow through the second industrial revolution. Out of the economic boom that followed emerged an aspirational class, robber barons, merchants and industrialists who sought higher education for their children that was not available in public education and, really, the opportunity to have their children hob-nob with the educated and wealthy of the day. Many schools were founded between 1870 and 1920 to meet those demands. These students did not choose to go to boarding school though. The overwhelming majority of those students were SENT to boarding school. And the schools were Spartan and very strict. Many were affiliated with the Episcopal church and sought to instill Puritan values in their students. Their parent’s motives for sending them likely included higher and religious education, important contacts, elitism, etc. Until the mid-50s half or more of the students at these schools fed into Princeton, Harvard and Yale with the balance going to the other Ivies. Theses contacts formed an old-school network that I’d wager served them well in business to the exclusion of those who did not possess the secret hand shake. I think that these schools were both popular because they offered a superior education to what was, generally speaking, publicly available but also the prestige and exclusivity sought by the socially aspirational. And many parents just wanted to outsource their parenting.