Boston Freedom Trail

6. Boston Latin School

Boston, MA

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Even if you’re not a history buff, who can’t recall a couple of tall tales about Ben Franklin? Many picture him with kite string in hand, sporting round glasses, ready for that famous lightning strike. You won’t be disappointed, as his likeness is immortalized here. But, why is his statue here? After all, Ben Franklin was a resident of Pennsylvania, not Massachusetts. The answer is, that Ben Franklin attended school here as a boy, a school that happens to be the first public school in America, and the oldest school in America! His statue marks its original location. Puritan Settlers founded the school on April 23, 1635 in the home of Schoolmaster Philemon Pormont. Establishment of the school was due in great measure to the influence of the Reverend John Cotton, who sought to create in the New World a school like the Free Grammar School of Boston, England, in which Latin and Greek were taught. The school offered free education to boys, whether poor or rich, while girls attended private schools at home. The town allocated public funds to support the school. Classes were held at Philemon ‘s home before the original wooden schoolhouse was completed in 1645. The first class sizes were small- in the single figures. The original wooden school building was demolished in 1745 to expand the King’s Chapel. When the establishment was later moved to School Street and renamed Boston Latin, founding fathers like Ben Franklin and his classmates John Hancock and Samuel Adams attended as students. Franklin was also born in Boston in 1706, one block away on 17 Milk Street, across from the Old South Meeting House. Five signers of the Declaration of Independence attended Boston Latin: Ben Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, and William Hooper. Of the five, only four graduated. Ben Franklin and Louis Farrakhan are two of the school’s most notable dropouts. The school also produced four Harvard presidents and four Massachusetts Governors. The school was modeled after the Boston Grammar School located in Lincolnshire, England, from where many of Boston’s first settlers originated. Some claim that Harvard College, founded a year later in 1636, was created for Boston Latin’s first graduates. Whether or not this is true, Boston Latin has been a top feeder school for Harvard, and nearly 99% of its graduates are accepted into a university. The first female graduate was Helen Magill White in 1877, also the first American woman to earn a doctorate. Shortly after Helen’s graduation, the Girl’s Latin school was founded. Girls were admitted to Boston Latin in 1972. Boston Latin is now located near Fenway Park, and still teaches the “dead language” of Latin it is named after. US News and World Report has consistently ranked Boston Latin as one of the top High Schools in the US. http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/freedom-trail/benjamin-franklin-statue.shtml#sthash.tiFabZUK.dpuf http://www.bls.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=206116&type=d