The History of Country Day Schools
What is a country day school anyway?
As the name suggests, two of the original motivations for a country day school were a healthy location and the benefit of students returning home each evening.
The Country
William Starr Myers begins his pamphlet Country Schools for City Boys with enthusiasm: “’Back to the country,’ is the cry of the advocates of one of our sanest philanthropic movements. To free thousands of our best citizens from the unwholesome and harmful influences of crowded houses, poor light, and bad air, and to restore them to the open field, free from unnatural restraints, and the blessing of God’s sunshine, are objects worthy of the best efforts of the American people” (7).
Frances K. Carey, the founder of the Gilman Country School in Baltimore in 1897, the first of such schools in the country and others active in the early years in country day movement in the eastern United States were interested in establishing a school in the country, but close to the city, so that boys (and eventually girls) could enjoy the healthful qualities of days spent in the country. They were also concerned about how boys were spending their afternoons, perhaps “dawdling or loafing” while in the country school they could devote their afternoons to “vigorous play” on athletic fields or in a gymnasium. (Myers 13). Mr. Myers claimed that any “American boy with good red blood in his veins” would delight in the variety of physical activities such a location could offer. Teachers, or masters as they were called, were expected to direct or join in the activities of the boys in this afternoon period (Myers 13).
The Concept of “Day”
The boys who were the first students in the day schools were to spend the day in school in the country but return home at night. Their day would begin at 9:00 and end about 5:30, and they would be served a hot meal at noon.
A sample schedule reveals the early philosophy in its structure:
| Daily Schedule | |
|---|---|
| 9am | Roll call; prayers; announcements |
| 9:15 to 11:15am | Recitation and study |
| 11:15 to 11:30am | Recess, with bread and milk |
| 1:30pm | Dinner |
| 2:15pm | Change to athletic clothes |
| 2:30-4:00pm | Athletics |
| 4:00 to 4:30pm | Bath and change to regular clothes |
| 4:30 to 5:30pm | Study |
| 5:30 to 6:00pm | Detention (Myers 12) |
Founders were convinced that a country day school could offer the advantage of an education like that of a boarding school without the disadvantage of sending boys away from home so that during the critical years of their lives (between 10 and 18) they would continue to “build up and strengthen lasting bonds” with their families (Carey 7).
Quality
The day school would offer college preparatory classes (not really considered the job of the public school of the day) like that of the boarding school without the necessity of leaving home and community. The small classes, the single purpose, and the better instruction would make the boys eligible like those from boarding schools for the best colleges. At the same time, each boy would be receiving a “far more effective training in responsibility than could be provided in what at best must be regarded as the artificial conditions of boarding school life.” (Carey 6)
Summary of the Advantages
“But for the great majority of the boys who are eventually going to college, the Country School is better than either [the public school or the boarding school], because it can do what neither the public school nor the boarding school can do—it can give the boy the finest scholastic preparation for college, in ideal surroundings, under the best of influences, at a minimum cost, without separating him from his family.” (Carey 8)
“In conclusion, it should be repeated that the country schools offer the advantages of boarding schools without the necessary separation from the parents. The best influences of a home are never supplied by a boarding school. . . . Finally, the school that keeps a boy in the open, with plenty of fresh air and room for healthful play and away from the streets, the matinees, and moving-picture shows, or perhaps from really harmful diversions, needs no further excuse for its being.” (Myers 21)
Lancaster’s Decision to Become a Country Day School
When the Shippen School and Franklin Academy merged and were moving to Hamilton road in 1946, its founders embraced the now well-established, thirty-year tradition of the country day school. Robert Iglehart, who became Headmaster in 1946, endorsed the board’s decision with enthusiasm: “The country day plan fosters not alone the respected academic curriculum of a college preparation but proposes that a full and balanced program of physical education, or organized play, be made an integral part of pupils’ group experience. . . The soundness of the theory has been attested by its warm support where it has been applied honestly and with vigour” ( Gardner 23). So we became one more member of an honored tradition, a tradition that we still embrace some sixty years later.
Works Cited
Carey, Frances K. The first Country Day School. Baltimore: The Country Day School
Association, 1926.
Gardner, Anne Downey. Tales Told Out of School: An Informal History of the Lancaster
Country Day School and The Shippen School. Lancaster: Lancaster Country Day School, 1983.
Myers, William Starr. “Country Schools for City Boys.” United States Bureau of
Education Bulletin, No. 9, 480. Washington Government Printing Office, 1912.
