History
The school was founded by charter of Philip and Mary in 1555. The oldest sections of the school were built in 1567, formerly referred to as the "big school" and is now used as the school library. South End Site became the model for Boston Latin School which was the first school in what was to become the United States of America. The school still retains the Latin motto 'Floreat Bostona' (May Boston Flourish). This motto also forms the title of the official school song, written by Dr G.E. Pattenden, headmaster from 1850–1887, which he referred to as 'my school hymn'. The song is still sung at official school occasions such as Prizegiving, Charter Day and Beastmart, and is generally fondly remembered by Old Boys of the school.
In the 1960s when under Holland County Council Education Committee, it was a voluntary controlled school with around 500 boys, 550 by the 1970s, and 600 by the 1990s. The school had a CCF.
In recent years girls have been admitted to the sixth form for the first time. There were 597 pupils on roll as at April 2008, including 170 in the sixth form. The school has been awarded Technology College and Sports specialist status.
Read more about this topic: Boston Grammar School
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.””
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)