Boston Latin School - History

History

The school's first class was in single figures, but it now has 2,400 pupils drawn from all parts of Boston. It has produced four Harvard presidents, four Massachusetts governors, and five signers of the United States Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin and Louis Farrakhan are among its well-known dropouts.

The school was modeled after Boston Grammar School in Lincolnshire, UK, from where many of Boston's original settlers derived. Current students assert with pride that Harvard College, founded a year later in 1636, was created for Boston Latin's first graduates. Whether or not that is true, Boston Latin has been a top feeder school for Harvard, and has consistently sent large numbers of students to Harvard, recently averaging about twenty-five students per year. More than 99% of Boston Latin's approximately 400 annual graduates are accepted by at least one four-year college. Latin School admitted only male students and hired only male teachers from its founding in 1635. The school's first female student was not until the 19th century. Helen Magill White was the school's first female graduate and first American woman to earn a Doctorate. However, soon after White's graduation in 1877, Girls' Latin School was founded. For nearly a century, all qualified female students would attend the all-girls institution. It was not until 1972 that Boston Latin would admit its first co-educational class.

Female teachers predated female students at Latin. In 1967 the school appointed Marie Frisardi Cleary and Juanita Ponte as the first two women in its academic faculty.

Cornelia Kelley, the school's first female Headmaster, served from 1998 to her retirement in 2007, after which Lynne Mooney Teta was selected to become the school's 28th Headmaster. Mooney Teta is a 1986 graduate of Boston Latin, and was formerly an Assistant Headmaster at the school.