School

HISTORY

School” comes from the Ancient Greek “skhole”, which meant “leisure or free time”.

Schools in pictographic writing existed in Sumeria around 3300BC.

Only the sons of wealthy ancient Egyptian families went to school. Boys from poor families learned how to become farmers or craftsmen from their fathers while girls were taught how to care for children and cook.

In the city-states of ancient Greece, most education was private, except in Sparta. The education system in Sparta was entirely different, designed to create warriors with complete obedience, courage, and physical perfection. These were the earliest known educational systems in Europe.

At the age of seven, Spartan boys were taken away from their homes to live in school dormitories or military barracks. There they were taught sports, endurance and fighting, and little else, with harsh discipline. Most of the Spartan population was illiterate.

Education in ancient Rome progressed from an informal, familial system of education in the early Republic to a tuition-based system during the late Republic and the Empire.

Relief found in Neumagen near Trier, a teacher & 3 discipuli (c180 AD). By shakko

The first schools in Ancient Rome arose by the middle of the 4th century BC. These schools were concerned with the basic socialization and rudimentary education of young Roman children.

Rome as a republic or an empire never formally instituted a state-sponsored form of elementary education. In no stage of its history did Rome ever legally require its people to be educated on any level.

The Pharisee Simeon ben Shetah ordered in 164BC that all Jewish boys should attend the "house of the book" where they would receive a Jewish education.

The mathematician Heron founded the first College of Technology in Alexandria in 105 BC.

The oldest continuously operating school in the world is The King's School in Canterbury, England. It was founded in AD 597 by Augustine of Canterbury a century after the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West as a medieval cathedral school.

King's School, Canterbury. The inner of Mint Yard, By Ymblanter 

The elite schools of the Aztec Empire, where students studied subjects such as astronomy, engineering, law, medicine and theology were called "Houses of Tears" due to incredibly high standards and chores placed on scholars.

In the later Middle Ages, many big churches, cathedrals and monasteries had schools for boys who wanted to become churchmen. At these schools the boys would learn to speak, read and write in Latin. The boys would also be taught how to study and discuss religious books.

By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it became fairly common for great and rich men to found schools. Some of those founded in England have become famous, like that which Bishop William of Wykeham began at Winchester. Such schools were intended as works of charity, to give a good education to poor boys.

Eton College was founded by King Henry VI of England on September 12, 1440. It was founded to provide education to poor boys and to prepare them for King's College, Cambridge. The college has a long and distinguished history and is known for its academic excellence. A total of 20 UK Prime Ministers have attended the school.

Eton college. Statue of the founder Henry VI in School Yard. By Martin Kraft 

Girls of lower classes first had the opportunity to be educated in 1496. A 22 year old Italian Angela Merici started a school for young girls in her home town and this school was so successful that she was invited to start schools in nearby towns.

The religious education of children was encouraged as a result of the Catholic Counter Reformation in the mid-16th century. The Jesuit order was asked to set up a school in every town in which they had influence.

The first non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe was opened in Frascati, Italy on September 15, 1616. The establishment was opened due to the help of St. Joseph Calasanz, a Spanish Catholic priest who dedicated his life to the education of poor children.

Calasanz founded the Piarist Order (The Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools), which was the first Catholic order primarily dedicated to education.  The Pious Schools expanded and were financially supported by Popes Clement VIII and Paul V.

Religious holiday in Frascati: arrival of St Joseph Calasanz and the image of Our Lady (1823).

The word “schoolboy” was first recorded in 1579; “schoolgirl” arrived in 1658.

The first public school in the United States, Boston Latin School, was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on April 23, 1635.

The Mather School, the oldest public elementary school in North America, was established on May 20, 1639. It is located in the Dorchester region of Boston, Massachusetts and was named after English-born Puritan minister Richard Mather, who settled in Dorchester in 1635.

The first building was a one room schoolhouse and was located on what had been known as "Settlers' Street," near the corner of the present Pleasant and Cottage Streets. In 1798 the town voted to sell the old school and build a new one of brick on Meeting House Hill.

Photo of the oldest School House still standing (in 1913). Wikipedia

Puritan Massachusetts passed the "Old Deluder Satan Act" in 1647. It was so named, as its purpose was to defeat the devil's attempts to keep man through an inability to read the Scriptures. The law required the establishing of schools in towns of 50 or more inhabitants.

The 1665 Five Mile Act in the UK forbade non-conformist ministers from going five miles of a corporate town and from teaching in schools.

Blue Coat schools were charity schools for poor children, whose traditional uniform from the 16th century was a long blue gown. An example of one of the smaller establishments is the Blewcoat School in Caxton Street, Westminster – built in 1709 at the expense of a local brewer and now in use as a National Trust shop.

The first blackboards used in schools were invented in 1714 by Christopher Dock, (1698-1771) a German immigrant schoolmaster, in Skippack, Pennsylvania. He also wrote the first teaching manual published in America.

Students writing on a blackboard in a village school in Laos, 2007

Abbe Charles Michel de L'Epee of Paris founded the first free school for deaf people in 1755. He used a system of gestures, hand signs, and fingerspelling.

The first schoolhouse to be located west of the Allegheny Mountains was built in Schoenbrunn, Ohio in 1773.

Oberlin was the first college in the United States to regularly admit African-American students (1835), and is also the oldest continuously-operating coeducational institution.

The McGuffey Readers are among the top-ten bestselling books of all time having sold 60 million copies. These short stories for young readers have been essential classroom tools in the U.S. since they were published in 1836.

Mary Lyon founded the first woman's college in US, Mt. Holyoke College, in 1837.

The first state funded school specifically established for public teacher education in the United States, the forerunner to today's Framingham State College, opened in Lexington, Massachusetts with three students on July 3, 1839. Cyrus Peirce was its first principal or president. The three young women took an examination which determined they were satisfactorily versed in the subjects taught by the ordinary district school, before being granted admission to this experimental program.

Cyrus Peirce, first president

Robert College of Istanbul, Turkey, the first American educational institution outside the United States, was founded by Christopher Robert, an American philanthropist in 1863.

The state of Mississippi authorized the first state-supported college for women in 1884. It was called the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College.

Homework was considered hugely controversial in the 1800s and early 1900s, when physicians crusaded against it. In 1901, California even banned homework for anyone under the age of 15.

Britain raised its school leaving age to 15 in 1947.

Racial segregation in schools was outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court, on May 17, 1954. Chief Justice Earl Warren said: "The doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

FUN SCHOOL FACTS

In China, the typical school year is 251 days long. In the UK, it is only 190 days. In the U.S, the typical school year is 180 days long.

China has the world’s largest classes with over 50 pupils in the average secondary school class.

Pupils in Shanghai spend more than 14 hours a week doing homework. In the UK it is 4.9 hours.

The biggest school in the world is the City Montessori School in Lucknow, India, whose classrooms hold over 50,000 pupils.

The most expensive school in the world is the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland. It costs $87,000 in tuition fees. The school has 400 students enrolled with 150 teachers.

The deadliest school disaster in America took place in 1937, when a Texas elementary school exploded, killing 295 people.

'Didaskaleinophobia’ is the fear of going to school.

The James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York City has produced five Nobel Prize winners, three US Senators, one Supreme Court Judge and numerous other scientists, artists and entertainers.

Here is a list of songs about school.

Sources Europress Encyclopedia, History World