Antedating of "Junior High School"

[Baker, John]

Most of the newspaper examples are too brief to be sure what is intended, though it is usually clear that there is a Junior High School involved.  According to http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2691, the first junior high school was authorized in Columbus, Ohio in 1909, which would seem to support Doug's point.  I don't know how reliable that source may be.
 
However, I note that the newspaper examples all seem to be from Ohio (although Doug's 1904 Google Books example is from New York State).  At a minimum, that seems to suggest that "junior high school" was an established term in Ohio in 1909, even if there were aspects of the Columbus approach that were novel.
 
 
John Baker
 

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Douglas G. Wilson
Sent: Sun 1/10/2010 11:02 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Junior High School"



Baker, John wrote:
> Various antedatings of this are available via Access Newspaper Archive, ....
--

Some of these are ambiguous, and I think mos, t or all of the pre-1900
examples refer to something different from what is now called "junior
high school". Some refer to a part of high school, sometimes years 9-10
of 12 (with "senior" for years 11-12), _maybe_ sometimes year 11 of 12
(like "junior class/year" now). Some early instances of "junior high
school" _may_ mean "limited school extending only through grade 10" or
something like that.

At G-books, there is a 1904 example which explicitly refers to years
7-8, similar to the modern sense (although here not obviously involving
a separate school building or administration):

http://tinyurl.com/ycu4e9w

Some of the earlier examples _may_ have the same sense, but I haven't
seen one I'm sure of.

-- Doug Wilson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org <http://www.americandialect.org/> 

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org