Boston Latin Academy - History

History

Boston Latin Academy (BLA) was founded on November 27, 1877 as Girls' Latin School (GLS). The founding of the school was the result of citizen and parent participation and the intention to give college preparatory training for girls. A plan to admit girls to Public Latin School was formed by an executive committee of the Massachusetts Society for the University Education of Women. Three visionary and driving members of this executive committee, Emily Talbot, Florence Cushing and Annie Fields, deserve much of the credit for the school's founding. Henry Durant, president of Wellesley College, and one of the most brilliant legal minds in Boston, was also greatly instrumental in outlining the legal route for the school to be established. A petition with a thousand signatures was presented to the School Board in September 1877. The board referred the question to the subcommittee on high schools. Meanwhile Emily Talbot met with the headmaster of Public Latin School and asked that her daughter and another girl be admitted. Although Headmaster Moses Merrill was willing to teach the girls, he thought it best to wait for the subcommittee's decision. Ultimately the subcommittee recommended that a separate Latin School for girls be established.

Girls’ Latin School opened on West Newton Street in Boston’s South End on February 12, 1878. The school had only thirty-seven pupils in its three classes. The first thirty-seven students were divided according to aptitude into three classes; the Sixth, Fifth and Third class. The first graduating class in 1880 included Alice M. Mills, Charlotte W. Rogers, Vida D. Scudder, Mary L. Mason, Alice S. Rollins and Miriam S. Witherspoon; all six were accepted to Smith College.

In 1888, Abbie Farwell Brown, Sybil Collar and Virginia Holbrook decided to found a school newspaper. The name Jabberwock was picked from a list Abbie Farwell Brown submitted. It was taken from “Jabberwocky”, the famous nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll in “Through the Looking Glass”. They wrote to Lewis Carroll in London and received back a handwritten letter giving them permission to use the name. The Jabberwock is one of the oldest school newspapers in the United States.

The number of students grew each year. When the number of students exceeded 350 in 1898, the school committee moved the first four classes to a building in Copley Square vacated by the Chauncy Hall School while the fifth and sixth remained in the old building. In 1907, Girls’ Latin School moved into a brand new building, shared with Normal School located on Huntington Avenue in the Fenway.

The school remained there until 1955, when Teachers’ College expanded, forcing Girls’ Latin School to relocate to the former Dorchester High School for Girls building located in Codman Square.

In 1972, boys were admitted for the first time to Girls’ Latin School. The school name was changed in 1975 and the first graduating class of Boston Latin Academy was in 1977.

In 1981, Latin Academy moved back into the Fenway area, this time to Ipswich Street, across from Fenway Park. It remained there until the summer of 1991, when it moved back again, this time to its present location in the former Roxbury Memorial and Boston Technical High School building, located on Townsend St. in Roxbury.

Although Latin Academy works to create a nurturing environment, a great number of students transfer out due to the difficulty of the courses. 94% of its graduating students go on to attend four-year colleges. In 2010 Boston Latin Academy received a Silver Medal as one of the top public high schools in the nation by US News and World Report.