Secondary and Higher Education to the 1860s

Before the mid nineteenth century the concept of elementary and secondary schooling as sequential stages of education was undeveloped. In England and Wales it was usual to distinguish rather between ‘middle-class’ schooling (for the better-off) and ‘elementary’ schooling (for the working classes). In Scotland the tradition was for common schools not distinguished by level of instruction. Historians, however, have customarily used the term ‘secondary’ to refer to schooling of children from age 10 or so, as well as to the education of the middle and upper classes generally, and that convention is followed here.