Passage5

Questions 21 to 25 are based on the. Foll wing passage.

The three main types of secondary education in the US have been provided by the Latin grammar school, the academy, and the public high school. The first of these was a colonial institution. It began in New England with the establishment in 1635 of the Boston Free Latin School. The curriculum consisted mainly of the classical languages, and the purpose of this kind of school was the preparation of boys for college, where most of them would be fitted for the ministry.

The academy began in the early 1750s with Benjamin Franklin's school in Philadelphia. It extended generally to about the middle of the nineteenth century, except in the southern states where the public high school was late in developing and where the academy continued to be a principal means of secondary education even after 1900. The academy was coeducational, meaning open to girls as well as to boys, and it provided a wider curriculum than the Latin grammar school had furnished. It was designed not only as a preparation for college but also for practical life in commercial and business activities. Although its wide educational values were evident and are recognized as important contributions to secondary education in the country, the academy was never considered a public institution as the public high school has come to be.

The public high school had its origin in Massachusetts in 1821 when the English Classical School was established in Boston. In 1827, that state enacted the first state- wide public high- school law in the US. By 1840, there were perhaps a dozen public high schools in Massachusetts and many in other eastern states; by 1850, they were also to be found in many other states.

Just as the curriculum of the academy grew out of that of the Latin grammar school, so the curriculum of the public high school developed out of that of the academy. The public high school in the US is the repudiation (声讨) of the aristocratic and selective principle of the European educational tradition. Since 1890, enrollments in secondary schools, mainly public high schools, have practically doubled in the US every ten years.

 What does the passage mainly discuss?