Lexington Academy

Who attended?

Students were mostly middle class; typically, their parents owned land but were not of incredible wealth.

Perhaps surprising to some, many of these academies were coeducational. At some institutions, more women attended than men!

Despite the seemingly progressive stance on coeducation, current research suggests that there were no people of color represented at the Lexington Academy. It is possible that as the Lexington Historical Society uncovers more names of Black residents and people of color who lived in Lexington during this time, we might gain additional insight into the demographics of the school.

What can documents tell us?

Lexington Historical Society owns a collection of historical documents that gives us insight into the daily life and operations of one of these institutions that grew out of the academy movement, the Lexington Academy, located just off the historic Lexington Battle Green in the town center.

The Founding of Lexington Academy

On February 18th, 1822, the Governor of Massachusetts, John Brooks, approved an Act of the Legislature to establish Lexington Academy, outlining its aim of “promoting religion and morality, and for the education of youth in such of the liberal arts and sciences as the trustees for the time being shall direct.”

The act gave a Board of Trustees authority to govern the institution, many of whom were local prominent men whose children also attended. Some of whose names might be recognizable as those who had families on the Lexington Green on April, 19th, 1775.

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What can this page of the tuition ledger tell us?

Tuition required: Attendance cost $4.50 or $5.50 for the eleven-week quarter. While existing Academy documents do not explain the dollar difference in tuition price, many academies charged different fees depending on the courses taken.

Tuition Exception: William Munroe “paid by taking care of school house.”

Episodic Attendance: Many students did not attend for the full eleven weeks, and did not attend terms sequentially. Students were required to balance their schooling with seasonal work, requiring nineteenth-century academies to be flexible.

Incidentals: Next to Nathan Simonds’s name is written, “1 desk lid” and next to that of Nath. Green, “1 pane glass broken—paid.”

Rules and Regulations

What rules did students have to abide by at the Lexington Academy? This 1829 document from the last few years of the school’s existence gives us some insight into some of its values and priorities. 

What about these rules surprises you? What might look similar to school rules today?

Rewards of Merit

What motivates(ed) you in school? Good grades? Praise from a teacher? Approval from classmates?

Elizabeth Whitcomb, listed as a student at the Lexington Academy at the same time that this award was granted, appears to have earned this paper token through “diligence and good behavior.”

These Rewards of Merit were commonly found in both 19th century schools and academies alike as a way to provide an incentive for good behavior using positive reinforcement.

Areas of Study

While it is unclear exactly what students studied at Lexington Academy, English and history books owned by one of the Academy’s earliest students and daughter of a Trustee, Elmira Reed, give us insight into at least two subjects taught at the school.

Although areas of instruction varied widely, many local academies taught both classical studies, offering Latin and Greek, as well as English studies, which included a curriculum of arithmetic, geography, English grammar, and literature.

Boarding

Unlike boarding academies that we might think of today, students did not reside on the Lexington Academy premises. Instead, students stayed with local families. This 1823 broadside (the 18th and 19th-century equivalent to a poster, announcing events to the public) notes where the Academy’s students resided within Lexington. 

This type of boarding allowed the academies to be integrated within the local community. Bringing together students of similar age form a wide region also helped create important social networks.

Post-Academy Life

A small selection of the boys who attended the Academy continued on to study at colleges, including Theodore Parker (1810-1860), who graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1836. Parker later became a prominent Unitarian minister and important figure in the Transcendentalist and abolitionist movements. 

The girls had fewer options, as the nation’s first women’s college, Wesleyan College in Georgia, would not open until 1836. 

 Aside from marriage, one of the only opportunities available to educated women during this time was to work teach school. 

One such Lexington Academy student, Abby Ann Muzzey, would later become a school teacher at one of Lexington’s local schools for younger children.