This book provides a detailed history and analysis of the grammar schools of England, from their origins in the Middle Ages to their decline in the early 20th century. Foster Watson explores the educational, social, and cultural significance of these institutions, as well as the controversies surrounding their curriculum, administration, and governance. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of education and the social and cultural history of England. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

First published in 1968. At the time when the English Grammar Schools were most flourishing, namely the 17th century, they subserved a practical national aim. Puritan England, by no means concerned with the teaching of the Classics per se, looked to the Grammar Schools for that subsidiary help which the study of Latin, Greek and Hebrew afforded to the intensive study of the Scriptures and pietas literata. The question this study looks at is related to the loss of these classic subjects in Secondary schools and therefore to measure in the long-run, the value of our new ‘Secondary’ Schools relatively to the old Grammar Schools—rather than the comprehensiveness of the list of subjects included in the new curricula.