Character Of The Academies ( Originally Published 1907 ) THE
academy was the institution for secondary education wrought out
by the American people in the first half century of their
independence, and it was the dominant institution of its class
for at least another half century. It appeared under different
names and in different forms, and its character changed as time
went on. In its varied developments, it contributed largely to
the making of American civilization. The nature of this
contribution and of the institution which made it must now be
considered a little more particularly. To begin with, some
differences between the academy and the grammar school, and the
social conditions out of which they respectively arose, should
be mentioned. The early grammar-school-and-college system, as
was pointed out, be-longed to a society in which there was a
conscious cleavage between higher and lower classes. In the
revolutionary period there was a strong tendency toward
democracy. Yet the democracy with which the p