The custodians of public education had promoted the offerings of the high school as the ultimate opportunity of a democratic school system, yet after the Civil War it was still avoided by most youngsters who felt jobs and home duties provided all the necessary preparation for adulthood. The high school suffered unpopularity from a nebulous definition of its role. Only a minority attended, because the rewards of a high school education seemed vague and impractical to many. It did not provide coursework that effectively trained people for attractive jobs, and its college preparatory instruction was inferior to that provided by private academies or tutors. Furthermore, a segment of public opinion continued to question its existence on the grounds of a critique of privilege. In the 1870s, many citizens still argued that the public should not bear the burden of completing the education of the elite who could afford to attend.

Realizing these defects and criticisms, Somerville schoolmen broadened popular support for the high school by transforming it into a nexus with low-white-collar employment, on the one hand, and the expanding colleges of the late nineteenth century, on the other. By the turn of the century, the high school had been restructured to perform this function with a degree of rigor and specialization unforeseen by the common-school reformers who had established it in 1852. As it assumed an unprecedented role as a supply line for the labor market and a conduit to college, it attracted a student population of growing size and ethnic diversity, but one which continued to originate from white-collar and artisan families.