Oxford Academy 1792-1896 : the private years of a New York State academy

Abstract

The academy was the prevalent form of secondary education in the Nation during the nineteenth century, until its decline near the end of the century in favor of public high school. The study of the academy has been neglected. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors which contributed to the rise and fall of Oxford Academy, a private academy of New York State which was founded in 1792 and merged with the local public district schools in 1896, and to compare these factors with those of the academy movement in general. As a result of this study it was concluded that the rise of Oxford Academy paralleled the academy movement. Oxford Academy, like many of her sister academies, was founded to satisfy a felt need for secondary education by the leaders of the community. This study suggests that the academy movement was a creation of the middle classes to offer means for advancement of their children in a growing and industrializing society. The academy with its practical and vocational curriculum was ideally suited to meet the needs of the emerging merchantile class. The decline of Oxford Academy occurred because the local public School Board failed to respond to the need to repair the public schools of the community, and in consequence, the leaders of the community consolidated the Academy with the public schools. Although the demise of Oxford Academy can be tied to the neglect of the public schools, the underlying motive for consolidation may have been due to fiscal reasons. The leaders of the community may have supported the Union Free School as a means to provide secondary education at the lowest possible cost. Perhaps, the citizens of Oxford, New York, supported the theory of universal free education, regardless of socioeconomic status. The academies failed because they were not free to all since tuition was charged. The public high schools became the dominant school at the end of the nineteenth century because the middle classes saw the need to support them, as they did the academies at the beginning of the century.