Origin of High School and the High School Diploma

Factual Questions
1

Here’s an interesting question for those of you who know a lot about the history of education.

It appears that Shakespeare’s world included universities that issued Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees. They were not necessarily exactly equivalent to those we have today, but there is a clear historical progression from the Middle Ages down to the present day where we can see the evolution of, say, the Bachelor of Arts degree, what its curriculum includes, what the requirements are for graduation, and what it qualifies a person to do.

  1. What is the origin of what is now known as High School and the High School Diploma (or Equivalency) in the US? Would Mark Twain, Washington Irving, Shakespeare, Chaucer, or the author of Beowulf have had a concept of such an institution or qualification?

Here’s a sample definition of what I mean by a high school diploma or equivalency (my own definition):
“An academic qualification issued to a teenager or other young adult certifying that the person can read, write, use proper grammar, do arithmetic, and/or has a basic understanding of other disciplines to the extent that they are deemed capable of attending a university and/or engaging in other further study and/or beginning employment in such a field as would require such knowledge, even if the curriculum did not exactly match that of a modern American high school curriculum. For example, a qualification that omitted a Laboratory Science requirement, included a mandatory requirement that the student become a qualified choral singer, and whose Physical Education requirement did not involve general physical fitness goals but required that the student qualify on at least one weapon, with the choices being short sword, long sword, longbow, or crossbow, but is otherwise recognizable as approximating what we understand to be a High School Diploma counts.”

  1. What is the origin of the modern 4 year American high school that ends with a diploma? Were there British schools that traditionally lasted four of the candidate’s later teen years and that ended in a High School-like qualification, or was this an American innovation?

  2. If the concept of a high school diploma-like qualification is of more recent origin than degree-granting universities, what was used instead for the purpose of admissions decisions before high school diplomas became common? Was it based on a straight entrance examination (pass or fail), was it based on a series of interviews, was it open enrollment, was it by personal invitation of faculty or alumni only, etc.?

2

Arrrgh! If only you had asked a few years ago. My father, long retired and recently deceased, was a Professor of Education (a Real professor, with Ed.D.) specialising in history of Education.

3

British secondary schools (high schools) do not award diplomas, or anything like them. I think they are a US innovation.

School leaving qualifications in the UK are external; that is to say, pupils sit for, and are assessed in, exams and tests run by external bodies, usually called “examination boards”.

In about 1920 the UK introduced the “School Certificate”, a qualification usually awarded at around the age of 16, and the “Higher School Certificate”, taken at 18. However only students in an academic stream would take these exams. Students who expected to leave school at 18 and progress to work or to trade apprenticeships or the like - the great majority of students, at that time - did not take them, and they left school with no formal qualification. Instead they received a report, written by their teachers, which summarised their attainments, abilities, aptitudes and character.

Universities could treat the Higher School Certificate as a factor in making admission decisions, but they could (and did) also set their own exams, rely on interviews or references, etc.

These certificates were replaced in 1951 with the General Certificate of Education, in which students sat “Ordinary Level” exams at around the age of 16, and “Advanced Level” at age 18. Students might sit six or seven subjects at O-Level, but only 2 or 3 at A-Level. These, again, were only aimed at the academically-oriented minority. Increasingly, the A-Levels formed a larger and larger factor in admission decisions for most universities.

These were supplemented in 1965 with the Certificate of Secondary Education, which for the first time provided a formal national qualification aimed at the less academic students. They were taken at the same age as O-Levels. Initially schools tended to educate towards one or other qualification, with a sharp distinction being observed between more academic “grammar schools”, where students sat O-Levels and in due course A-Levels, and more vocationally-oriented “secondary modern” schools where students sat the CSE.

But over time “comprehensive”schools replaced grammar and secondary modern schools, and it became increasingly for students to sit a combination of exams from the two different systems.

In 1987 the O-Levels and the CSE were merged into the General Certificate of Secondary Education. The A-Levels remain, and they are the principal factor which determines admission to most university degree courses.

4

This doesn’t really contribute to the question, but the public HS I attended claimed to be the second oldest in the US, founded 1838. They don’t give their graduates HS diplomas (except for a few graduates who have qualified under state law, but not under the slightly more restrictive policies of the school) but actual BA degrees. I still have mine somewhere. Of course, no one else recognizes these degrees and they are the equivalent of other HS’s diplomas. The other anomaly is that the big cheese is called “President”, not “Principal”. However, his two assistants had the tile “Vice-principal”. So in 1838 at least, the idea of a HS was pretty new. The oldest public HS was nearly two centuries older.

5

I wonder … German schools have the Abitur = Reifezeugnis, which certifies that the pupil has the skills listed in the OP, and is mature enough to attend university.

No further entrance exams are necessary.

Now, I read an article some time ago (an US newspaper columnist) about how the US school system was purposefully set up to produce not-excellent, but conformist children. One of his points was that the US at the end of the 19th century borrowed from the Prussian school system, but picked the worst parts, and at a time when this system was under heavy criticsm and starting to change in Prussia itself. (A later reform was in the 1950/60s).

So maybe the idea came from there.

6

Until 1883 Norwegian students had to sit for entrance exams, examen artium. At that time the exams were moved to the last pre-university school, the gymnasium, which held the exams and granted a document showing you were qualified for university studies.

7

In the case of the latter three, the answer would ‘no’. (And in the case of the author of Beowulf, it’s not at all obvious that he would even have been familiar with anything that we would recognise as a school.) That’s because pre-modern schools really only taught reading and writing. Although for older boys at better schools, that would have included reading and writing in Latin. The crucial thing about literacy is that if someone is themselves literate, there is no great difficulty in them testing a potential employee. The candidate’s skill, or lack of it, would quickly become obvious.

University admissions were also easy to handle. For many students, it was simply a matter of being able to pay the fees and there was little incentive to turn away thicko posh boys who weren’t going to take a degree anyway. For poorer boys, it was usually a matter of personal recommendation, perhaps from their local clergyman or landowner putting in a word for them with their old college.