Academies were a prevalent form of higher schooling during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the United States. The authors in this volume look at the academy as the dominant institution of higher schooling in the United States, highlighting the academy's role in the formation of middle class social networks and culture in the mid-nineteenth century. They also reveal the significance of the academy for ethnic, religious, and racial minorities who organized independent academies in the face of exclusion and discrimination by other private and public institutions.