America’s first — and oldest — school is celebrating its 369th birthday today. The Boston Latin School started in 1635 with a handful of students meeting in the headmaster’s home. Admission was by reading aloud a few verses from the Bible. Stressing a classical education and the development of independent thought, the school has long been considered one of the top public secondary schools in the nation. Its list of graduates includes John Hancock, George Santayana, and Leonard Bernstein. Ben Franklin is one of its famous dropouts. Today, there are 78 million children and adults enrolled in school throughout the country — from nursery school to college. They comprise 26.4 percent of the entire population age 3 and older. Of those students, 17 million are in high school. Profile America is in its17th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
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Somebody didn’t check with the local Chamber of Commerce before scheduling their venue for the regional (NC & VA) meeting to discuss the impact of Duke’s coal ash spill on the Roanoke water basin. The Chamber of Commerce’s has been advertizing this year’s first Meet in the Street program for couple months. Maybe the talking heads from Raleigh or Durham television stations will confuse the Meet in the Street festivities with those concerned about Duke Energy’s contamination of Kerr Lake with coal ash.