One hundred and fourteen years ago the committee recommending the establishment of the first public high school in America reported as follows: The mode of education now adopted, and the branches of knowledge that are taught at our English grammar [elementary] schools are not sufficiently extensive nor otherwise calculated to bring the powers of the mind into operation nor to qualify a youth to fill usefully and respectably many of the stations, both public and private, in which he may be placed. A parent who wishes to give a child an education that shall fit him for active life, and shall serve as a foundation for eminence in his profession, whether mercantile or mechanical, is under the necessity of giving him a different education from any which our public schools can now furnish. Hence many children are separated from their parents and sent to private academies in the vicinity, to acquire that instruction which cannot be obtained at the public seminaries [quoted in 3: 252].