THE PERIOD FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR TO THE CIVIL WAR.
1. The Founding of Academies.— As we ap proach the Revolutionary period, we find new social conditions giving rise to a new order of schools. With the growth of sectarian differ ences there appeared a decided tendency to ward the separation of governmental from ec clesiastical affairs and thus the position of edu cational institutions was disturbed This change lessened the prestige of colonial systems of edu cation among the adherents of the religious de nominations and a growing distrust of the col leges appeared among those who were most in accord with the secularizing tendency of the time. The old grammar schools were weakened by these influences and in their stead there grew up a new type of secondary school, com monly known as the academy.
Both the name and the character of the new institution were suggested by precedents in Eng land, where the Dissenters were excluded from grammar schools and universities. In the lat ter part of the 17th century the non-conformist bodies first established °academies," schools in the main secondary, which, however, undertook to prepare candidates for the non-conformist ministry. The fame of these English acade mies seems to have influenced the thought of the American colonists in the matter of public edu cation; first the strong theological bent of their English prototypes reappeared in the new Amer ican schools; and then the resemblance was more obvious in the wide range of studies of fered, for the English academy had been more practical and technical than the university. But the American academies soon came to have a well-defined character of their own, apart from any conscious imitation of English models.
In 1726, a school for classical and theologi cal studies was established by a Presbyterian minister at Neshaminy, in Pennsylvania. It was commonly known as the °Log College,* as its home was a building made of logs. This school in the wilderness was the centre of deep and widespread interest in classical studies as well as in the religious life. It sent out large
numbers of zealous pastors and teachers, who established elog colleges* all over the highlands of the middle and southern colonies. The Neshaminy Log College itself was later in corporated with what is now Princeton Uni versity. Through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin, a school was established at Philadel phia, legally incorporated as an academy in 1753, and probably the first institution in Amer ica formally designated by that title. It was under the control of a self-perpetuating board of trustees. A fund raised by private subscrip tion for its establishment and maintenance was supplemented by a grant from the' city treasury and by tuition fees, which were re mitted in the case of those unable to pay. This academy organized in three departments or schools; namely, the Latin, the English and the mathematical, put little stress on the theological .element and much on English' language and lit erature and the mathematical sciences. The school ultimately developed into the University of Pennsylvania. Within two. or three decades after the founding of this school at Philadel phia, a number of schools somewhat similar in character, and some of them bearing the name academy, were established in the middle and southern colonies. In New England the two Phillips academies, one at Andover in Massa chusetts and the other at Exeter in New Hamp shire, were incorporated in 1780 and 1781, re spectively. The influence of these two schools extended to remote States, especially in the growing West; and they still rank among the strongest and most influential secondary schools. The academy movement begun in Revolutionary times grew apace even down to the period of the Civil War. More than 150 were incorporated in Massachusetts alone between 1780 and 1865. Dexter in his Hi story of Education in the United States' tabulates 6,085 academies in the United States in 1850, employing 12,260 teach ers and giving instruction to 263,096 pupils.