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Yes that would have been common for students to knowledge for students from upper class families who would be applying to Harvard. I don’t know how much of that
by tnecniv 3y ago
Yes that would have been common for students to knowledge for students from upper class families who would be applying to Harvard. I don’t know how much of that was taught in public schools at the time, but an education in the classics was considered foundational knowledge due to their (continuing) influence on Western culture. You would likely be reading a lot of Latin in your curriculum — even if you were not a classics scholar due to it being an international lingua Franca for so long.
In England, “grammar schools” were originally schools that emphasized Latin grammar as part of the curriculum.
- gregw2 3y agoThese old schools in America were originally founded to train ministers for whom knowing Latin and Greek (and Hebrew) to interpret early versions of the Christian scriptures was important so they could have a clearer understanding of the original meanings of the texts. Later, Greek/latin became about secular classical writings. The secularists took over and split the schools so the ministerial teaching occurred in separate “divinity schools”/seminaries. For some specific background on Harvard origins: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_University https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_Universit...