The first of this kind originated in Scotland, at St. Andrews. It was founded in 1877 by a local company with a view to educating their own daughters; but arrangements were at once made for taking boarders, and these were placed under the immediate charge of the head-mistress. As the numbers increased, other houses were taken and placed under charge of senior mistresses; and as more and more girls were attracted from a distance, the boarding element began to predominate. With Miss Lumsden, one of the ‘Girton pioneers,’ as first head-mistress, and Miss Dove, another student of Hitchin days, as her successor, the school very quickly settled down into lines very closely resembling those of a boys’ public school. The boarding-houses became an integral part of the institution, the school-house being under the charge of the head-mistress, and the others under the senior assistants. In this way the staff of the school was strengthened by the encouragement thus offered to women of ability to remain in the school instead of seeking their promotion elsewhere. The boarding-houses are also valuable in ensuring regular attendance and proper home preparation, since the day-girls, being in a minority, cannot introduce those lax ideas of attendance which are in some places unfortunately the result of the much vaunted home influence.
The numbers in the school are limited to 200. The admission age is thirteen or fourteen, no girl can be admitted who has turned seventeen. All must pass an entrance examination, graduated according to age, but always including a certain amount of Arithmetic, English, Latin and French. A school of 200 girls, all between thirteen and nineteen, and all with a sufficient preparatory training, can genuinely concentrate its efforts on higher teaching. The classes become easier to group, and with a large staff which allows of careful subdividing, all the ordinary hindrances to progress are removed, and a school is enabled to work under the best possible conditions. It can, if it is desired, make a speciality of certain branches of study. At St. Andrews classics take an important place; of the present staff five have passed the Classical Tripos. Among the honours won by old pupils are first classes in Classical Moderations and Final Classical Schools at Oxford, and in the Classical Tripos at Cambridge. The school distinctly aims at a literary curriculum, with the higher certificate of the Joint Board to fix the standard, and Oxford or Cambridge as the goal for those girls whose education is to be continued.