Antedating of "Junior High School"

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

I went to "junior high school" 1952-1955 and "senior high school" in 1956-1958 in the SAME building. The terms were used informally, but the school administration was unitary, and there seemed little of any pedagogical significance to the difference-no more than the difference between "ninth grade" and "tenth grade."
------Original Message------
From: Douglas G. Wilson
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Antedating of "Junior High School"
Sent: Jan 10, 2010 11:02 PM

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

Some of these are ambiguous, and I think most 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

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