Private Schools

Connecticut is renowned for its excellent private secondary schools. Several of them have been chronicled.

Davis, Thomas P., Jr. Chronicles of Hopkins Grammar School, Containing a Life of the Founder Together with School Records and Reminiscenses Covering 275 Years. New Haven: Quinnipiak Press, 1998. Davis was an instructor of history at Hopkins, the nation's oldest prep school. The book includes an appendix of old bills and other interesting items, and a good index.

Loomis, Israel F. "Bacon Academy: its Founder and Some Account of its Service." Connecticut Quarterly 2(April, 1896)1:121-39. A long account of what is now the public high school in Colchester. Good photos of the Academy as it appeared about 1896.

Ricketts, Rowland, Jr. "The Tisdale School in Lebanon." CHS Bulletin 34(0ctober, 1969)4:101-05. Tisdale was master of the "subscription school" from 1749 to 1786.

St. John, George. Forty Years at School. New York: Holt, 1959. By the headmaster of Choate, who served there from 1908 to 1949.

Weaver, Glenn. "America's First 'Junior College': The Episcopal Academy of Connecticut." CHS Bulletin 27(January, 1962)1:11-21. The establishment of Cheshire Academy in 1795. See also Weaver’s "Mementoes of the Episcopal Academy of Connecticut" in Historiographer 18(December, 1956).

Whitlock, Reverdy. "William Huntington Russell and the Collegiate and Commercial Institute." Journal of the NHCHS 18(December, 1969)4:183-89.

Women's education is a subject of considerable interest, and Connecticut women were pioneers in the field. The "Biographies" section of this bibliography should be consulted for Bronson Alcott, Catherine Beecher, Prudence Crandall, and Emma Hart Willard. Relevant articles:

Choate, (Mrs.) Washington, ed. "Memoirs of a Connecticut Patriot: Life Story of James Morris as told in his Own Manuscript...." Connecticut Magazine 9(1907)3:449-55.  Morris (1752-1820) tells of his Revolutionary War experiences, but of greater interest is his experience as head of a school in South Farms, now the town of Morris. He opened his school to girls, but town opposition made his Life miserable.

Colucci, Nicholas Dominic. "Connecticut Academies for Females, 1800-1865." Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut, 1969.

Myers, Minor, Jr. "Wadawanuck Young Ladies’ Institute: Connecticut's First Women's College." Historical Footnotes of the Stonington Historical Society.  November, 1978. See under "Women," below.

Palmer, Charles Ray. "An Almost Forgotten New Haven Institution." Papers of the NHCHS 8(1914):20-35. This is the story of The Young Ladies' Institute, on Worcester Square, established in 1829 by Ethan Alien Andrews. It was perhaps unique in that it aspired to give an education nearly equal to that provided by colleges for men, at a time when there were no colleges for women in the United States. It closed in 1834.

Vanderpoel, Emily Noyes. Chronicles of a Pioneer School from 1792 to 1833, Being a History of Miss Sarah Pierce and her Litchfield School. Cambridge: University Press, 1903. Also Emily Noyes, More Chronicles of a Pioneer School, 1793 to 1833. New York: Cadmus Book Shop, 1927.

See also Mrs. Henry Wallerstein's piece deploring the lack of collegiate education for women in 1899. You find it by looking in our index Catholic education, highly controversial during the nineteenth century, is now well established in Connecticut. A number of historians have dealt with it:

Heffernan, Arthur J. A History of Catholic Education in Connecticut. Catholic University of America Educational Research Monographs 10(January, 1937)1. This is a published doctoral dissertation that covers the beginnings to 1937. Catholic education is defined as "not only the organized educational system under diocesan auspices but also the individual efforts of Catholic teachers who engaged in education in the early days as a private enterprise." (from the Preface) It is 186 pages.

Mason, Mary Paul. Church-State Relationships in Education in Connecticut, 1633-1953. Catholic University of America Educational Research Monographs 17(October, 1953)6. Full scholarly apparatus; 300 pages. Includes a good discussion of legal, political, and constitutional issues from a Catholic viewpoint, "Training for democracy has been so robbed of its genuine meaning that education in America is all too frequently mixed with indoctrination in secularism." (p. vii) It "is not in a wall of separation but in a spirit of cooperation that one finds the solution of the perennial problem of the harmonious exercise of those rights in education which belong inalienably to Family, Church and State." (p. 300)

Purcell, Richard J. "Some Early Teachers in Connecticut." Catholic Education Review 32(1934):332-38. Purcell discusses some Irish, not necessarily Catholic, teachers in eighteenth-century Connecticut and goes on to describe the earliest efforts at Catholic education.