The school's first class included nine students; the school now has 2,400 pupils drawn from all parts of Boston. Its graduates have included four
Harvard presidents, eight
Massachusetts state governors, and five
signers of the
United States Declaration of Independence, as well as several preeminent architects, a leading art historian, a notable naturalist and the conductors of the
New York Philharmonic and
Boston Pops orchestras. There are also several notable non-graduate alumni, including
Louis Farrakhan, a leader of the
Nation of Islam. Boston Latin admitted only male students at its founding in 1635.[4] The school's first female student was admitted in the nineteenth century. In 1972, Boston Latin admitted its first co-educational class.[5]
Admission is determined by a combination of a student's score on the independent school Entrance Examination and recent grades, and is limited to residents of the city of Boston.[6] Although Boston Latin runs from the 7th through the 12th grade, it admits students only into the 7th and 9th grades. In 2007, the school was named one of the top twenty high schools in the United States by U.S. News & World Report.[2][7]
Abraham Captain Ratshesky ("Cap"). At age 14, he left Boston Latin School to work with his father. In 1895, he and his brother founded the U.S. Trust Company and was one of the founding members of Beth Israel Hospital.[80] He donated a building in Boston to the American Red Cross, and was founder of the "Pennies Campaign" in 1925 where school children throughout the country raised money to restore the U.S.S. Constitution ("Old Ironsides"). In 1917, Ratshesky organized and financed relief efforts for the
Halifax Explosion which killed over 2,000 Haligonians when an ammunition ship exploded in Halifax Harbour. The work of Ratshesky and his colleagues inspired the annual gift of the Christmas tree each year from Nova Scotia.[81]
^"
Recent Deaths", Boston Evening Transcript (April 13, 1878), p. 1.
^Henry F. Jenks. Catalogue of the Boston Public Latin School. p. 219.
^Smith, E. Stratford (March 26, 1992).
"Oral Histories: Robert Brooks". Penn State Collection. The Cable Center. Archived from
the original on August 19, 2014. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
^Harvard College Class of 1897 Secretary's Fifth Report. Plimpton Press. 1917. p. 276.
^William Thomas Davis (1895). Bench and bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Vol. 1. The Boston History Company. p. 413.
^Association of Graduates (1893). Twenty-Fourth Annual Reunion of the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, June 9, 1893.
Saginaw, Michigan: Seeman and Peters. pp. 133–137.
^"Isadore Twersky, Rabbinical Scholar, Dies". The Harvard University Gazette. October 16, 1997.
^"Negro Economist Is Named Head of Michigan State U.; Clifton Wharton, Negro Economist is Named Head of Michigan State U.". The New York Times: 1. October 18, 1959.
^"Michigan State Chief, Clifton Reginald Wharton, Jr". The New York Times. October 18, 1969.
^Joseph E. Wolff (October 17, 1969). "New MSU President: A Man Of Many Firsts". Detroit News.
^Samuel Weiss (October 16, 1986). "State U. Chief to Resign to Become Head of $50 Billion Pension Fund". The New York Times.
^Joan Potter (November 2002). "Who Was the First African-American to Head a Fortune 100 Company?". African American Firsts: Famous Little-Known and Unsung Triumphs of Blacks (Paperback ed.). Dafina Books: 12–13.
^Briggs, Ward W.; American Philological Association (1994). Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 697.
ISBN0-313-24560-6.