Boarding Schools - An Evolution

Boarding Schools - An Evolution

The tradition of sending children or teenagers away from home to be educated at a boarding school is a long one, dating back to medieval Europe. Families from the common or peasant class would, if they could afford it, send their sons to be educated by literate clergy members, in the hopes that, having gained the ability to read and write, their sons could grow up to become more than just servants and hand-to-mouth farmers. For families of a more military persuasion, sons were often sent to be educated by accomplished knights who could train them in the arts and battle and horsemanship.

Gradually, more formalized institutions of higher education began to emerge in Europe, the oldest of these being the King’s School in Canterbury, founded in AD 597. Schools of this era greatly valued the study of holy texts, emphasizing godliness above all other virtues to be gained by education. Students were taught calligraphy, and tasked with copying out ancient documents, longhand.
In the United States, education has long been organized around the agricultural calendar. In colonial days, children would attend “field schools” in wintertime, when farm work was less demanding. Soon, population centers and small cities began to organize Latin Grammar Schools, educational institutions that loosely resemble boarding schools present today. These were very strict, formal schools that emphasized the study of classical texts written in Latin and Greek. Graduates of such a school were expected to pursue a future in the clergy, or in teaching.

Soon, as towns and villages became more organized, educated individuals in the community began taking it upon themselves to establish small schools to serve the local populace. English Grammar Schools—more practical and less formal than Latin Grammar Schools—began popping up wherever teachers could be found. These schools focused on preparing students for democratic citizenship, and taught mathematics, English, grammar, geography, rhetoric, and accounting, among others.
Gradually, this very scattershot system of education gave way to more organized, well-endowed academies, which combined the high-minded educational goals of the Latin Grammar Schools with the practicality of English Grammar Schools. Students were usually housed with faculty members or trustees, and expected to live near campus during the entire academic year. In this way, each student would benefit from not only the academic influence of their studies, but from the moral guidance of their teachers and the academy community. This philosophy still resides at the heart of many modern boarding schools.

Even as the public education movement has taken off in the United States, boarding schools have persisted as a private option for parents seeking a way to get their offspring into a more positive, nurturing environment. In addition to academic instruction provided by impassioned instructors, boarding schools can provide students with new conflict resolution skills as they make their way on campus, living more independently and cohabitating with a stranger for the first time in their life. For some students, this is just the sort of new challenge they need to truly blossom as engaged learners and responsible young men and women.