An analysis of the social changes and political debates that shaped 19th-century American high schools. It reveals what students studied and how they behaved, what teachers expected of them and how they taught, and how boys and girls, whites and blacks, experienced high school.

John Koren gives insights into the story of Boston as a municipality since its inception in 1822 until the year 1922, with its changing forms of government and its multitudinous activities for the betterment of conditions of living. The frame work of the book is mostly limited to tracing the development and undertakings of the City of Boston for a century, under successive city administrations.