Editing Schoolmaster

{{short description|Term for a male school teacher}}
{{for|the Haydn symphony|Symphony No. 55 (Haydn)}} 
{{Other uses|School Master (disambiguation){{!}}School Master}}
[[File:CoalBarons.JPG|thumb|"The Washington Schoolmaster", a cartoon of 1902 from Chicago]]
A '''schoolmaster''', or simply '''master''', is a male [[school]] [[teacher]]. The usage first occurred in England in the [[Late Middle Ages]] and [[early modern period]]. At that time, most schools were [[one-room school|one-room]] or [[two-room school]]s and had only one or two such teachers, a second or third being often called an '''assistant schoolmaster'''. The use of the traditional term survives in British [[Private schools in the United Kingdom|private schools]], both [[secondary school|secondary]] and [[preparatory school (United Kingdom)|preparatory]], and in [[grammar school]]s, as well as in some Commonwealth boarding schools (such as [[the Doon School]] in [[India]]) which are modelled on British grammar and public schools.

==Origins==
The word "master" in this context translates the [[Latin]] word '''magister'''. In England, a schoolmaster was usually a university graduate, and until the 19th century, the only universities were [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] and [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]]. Their graduates in almost all subjects graduated as [[Bachelors of Arts]] and were then promoted to [[Master of Arts (Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin)|Masters of Arts]] (''magister artium''), simply by seniority. The core subject in an English [[grammar school]] was Latin.<ref>''Oxford Historical Society'', Vol. 45 (1904), p. 111</ref>

==Present usage==
[[File:Albrecht Dürer - Schoolmaster - WGA7167.jpg|thumb|Schoolmaster, by [[Albrecht Dürer]]]]
Where a school has more than one schoolmaster, a man in charge of the school is the [[Head teacher|headmaster]], sometimes spelt as two words, "head master". This name survives in British independent schools but has been replaced by ''head teacher'' in most British publicly funded schools, although "headmaster" is often still used colloquially, particularly in grammar schools, and is equivalent to the principal in American schools. The term "headmaster" also survives in some American and [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] independent schools.<ref>[[A. C. Benson]], 
''The Schoolmaster: A Commentary Upon the Aims and Methods of an Assistant master in a Public School'' (1902), p. 47</ref>

In such schools, a schoolmaster who is not the head is formally called an "assistant schoolmaster".

A range of other terms is derived from "schoolmaster" and "headmaster", including '''deputy headmaster''' (the second most senior teacher), '''senior master''' and '''second master''' (both used in some independent schools instead of deputy headmaster), and [[housemaster]], the schoolmaster in charge of a [[boarding school]] [[house system|house]]).<ref>''The School World: A Monthly Magazine of Educational Work and Progress'', Vol. 16 (Macmillan and Co., 1914), p. 138</ref> Some independent schools use other titles for the head of the teaching staff, eg ''[[High master (academic)|High Master]]'', ''[[Rector (academia)|Rector]]'', ''[[Warden]]''.<ref>David Turner, ''The Old Boys: The Decline and Rise of the Public School'' (2015), p. 233</ref>

The female equivalent of schoolmaster is ''schoolmistress'', which is used with all the same prefixes.<ref>Alfred Habegger, ''Masked: The Life of Anna Leonowens, Schoolmistress at the Court of Siam'' (2014), p. 7</ref> A ''[[Dame school]]'' was taught by a ''school dame'', a local woman who would care for young children and teach them the alphabet for a small fee.<ref>Barnard, H.C. ''A History of English Education from 1760'', (London: University of London Press, 1961), 2–4.</ref> Dame schools were localized, and could typically be found at the town or parish level.<ref>Adamson, John William. ''English Education, 1789–1902'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930), 114–127.</ref>

== Older usage ==

=== Usher ===

An older term for the ''Second Master'' in a school in England was the ''Usher''.<ref>''Reports of the Commissioners Appointed in Pursuance of Acts of Parliament'', Volume 33 (1839), p. 628</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-03-29 |title=Ushers of Sherborne School – The Old Shirburnian Society |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250329223107/https://oldshirburnian.org.uk/ushers-of-sherborne-school/ |access-date=2025-03-29 |website=web.archive.org}}</ref>

==Spelling==
The term schoolmaster was once commonly two words, and the spelling has varied. 

[[Roger Ascham]]'s book ''The Scholemaster Or a Plaine and Perfite Way of Teachyng Children, to Understand, Write and Speake the Latin Tong'' was published in 1570.<ref>''The Children's World of Learning, 1480-1880'' Vol. I (1905 edition), [https://books.google.com/books?id=jICsEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA133 p. 133]</ref>

In 1634, Henry Bury, former master of [[Bury Grammar School]], left in his will £300 to the "ffree school" at Bury "for and towards the yearlie mentayninge of a school maister there, for to teach their children."<ref>Derek Hodgkiss, [http://www.henrydunstersociety.org/uploads/2/0/1/6/20161677/roger_kay_commem_book_b.pdf ''Bury Grammar School''],  henrydunstersociety.org (and Bury: BGS, 1974) accessed 21 November 2016</ref>

==See also==
* [[Education in the United Kingdom]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* [[Roger Ascham|Ascham, Roger]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100314154001/http://www.classiclanguagearts.net/resources/the-schoolmaster.htm The schoolmaster: or, A plain and perfect way of teaching children to understand, write, and speak the Latin tongue] (1570; Based on the edition reproduced by Menston Scolar Press, 1967) ([https://books.google.com/books?id=GjcJAAAAQAAJ Google books text])
* Edward Egglestone, ''The Schoolmaster in Literature'' (2003)

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[[Category:Education and training occupations]]
[[Category:Education in the United Kingdom]]