Katedralskolan (Meaning "Cathedral School") in Skara is one of Sweden's oldest Upper Secondary Schools. It was founded in 1641 at the initiative of the Diocese of Skara,[1] and its bishop Jonas Magni Wexionensis,[2] and was approved by Queen Christina on August 31 of the same year.[1][2] For hundreds of years before that it had been a priest training school which was founded in the 13th century[1] and the students were called Skaradjäknar ("Skara Deacons").
In June 1864 first student group took the final exam in Skara. Earlier the exam had been taken at a university. In 1878 came the name Higher general secondary school, which remained until 1965. The school opened for girls in 1927.
The school had long been located in a building east of Skara Cathedral Choir by the then-high wall surrounding the cathedral churchyard. [3] The building was demolished in the late 19th century, when the neo-Gothic building with a typical lecture hall was built south of the cathedral. In 1972, the current main building, which is more on the edge of Skara, was finished, and the school moved. The former high school building is now an elementary school for grades 7-9 called Djäkneskolan ("Diacon School") whose students likewise are called Djäknar ("Deacons")
The school has had, during its time, many students who have later become famous, poet Johan Henrik Kellgren, chemist Torbern Bergman and the Swedish veterinary medicine's father Peter Hernqvist to name a few. The school's motto is "Där tradition och framtid möts" ("Where tradition and the future meet").
- ^ a b c Homepage Archived 2010-01-15 at the Wayback Machine of Cathedral School, Skara.
- ^ a b Hjalmar Holmquist "Jonas Magni" (1910)
- ^ Skara stads historia (Part I) by Hilding Johansson, Ragnar Sigsjö et al, Skara history committee, printed 1986, inter alia figure 10 with a photo of 1653's town blueprint of Skara. About the approximately 2-meter-high (6.6 ft) church-wall, which was later damaged by war and fires, until it was finally torn down in the 1820s, see Ragnar Sigsjö, Skara domkyrka. A short history & guidance, Svärd & Söner Tryckeri AB, Falköping 1986, pg.7.