Several kinds of documents have been classified as 'miscellaneous' for the purposes of this site. These include unique records such as notes from a medical exam, professional correspondence, a speech, an inscription, and also educational records.
School boards and private educational institutions recorded information about those who attended their schools. Admission registers, for example, often provide important data about individual pupils including name, age, place of birth, address, school history, and date and reason for school leaving. School authorities also kept track of attendance, the courses students followed in the classroom, and the marks they achieved. Other records take account of students’ behaviour and any disciplinary measures, school and classroom events, and minutes of meetings. Local elementary and secondary schools and universities kept their own sets of documents; the government demanded other forms of record-keeping on education.
These records are important to historians on at least two levels. First, it allows them to determine how important education was in particular societies, who could access schooling, and what were differences between social, ethnic, and religious groups. Thus, it provides another way to assess literacy rates or how school boards, teachers, and parents influenced developments in education. Second, these documents provide important information about individual pupils, in this case concerning their formative years in addition to data about a particular child and his or her family. Famous scholastic achievements or lack thereof concerning prominent people include Winston Churchill and John Lennon. Scholars exercise caution, however, when relying solely on records produced by school boards or on those generated for and by the government. These records may overemphasize the role of school boards or of the state in the delivery of education. Moreover, given that not all educational records have been preserved, the nature and quality of collections vary.