The history of summer holidays is clouded with myths. One popular idea is that school children have a long summer holiday (six weeks for most pupils in the UK) so that they could help work in the fields over the summer. But the current school system was developed over the course of the 19th century, when English farms were increasingly mechanised and having children helping with the harvest would only have been necessary for a small percentage of the population. Besides which, a brief glance at the farming calendar tells you that a holiday that ends at the start of September is not going to be much use for bringing in the harvest in the early autumn. So whatever the origin of six weeks off at the height of summer is, it’s not for the sake of farmers.
Also, people tend to keep doing things because that’s how they do things, not because it’s inherently the best thing to do. Consider natural selection: organisms have all sorts of weird and useless features that are there because they don’t critically hinder their ability to reproduce; it’s all just good enough to not get outcompeted. To draw a parallel, some societies have summer breaks because they had summer breaks, and there’s no external force requiring a change.
Sure—but notice that the US, UK, and many other places converged on the same behavior—which in most cases arose as a consensus among local schools that hit on similar practices without any central coordination. Which suggests that the behavior is more than a historical accident.
That’s a bit of a myth:
I was thinking of the US system.
Also, people tend to keep doing things because that’s how they do things, not because it’s inherently the best thing to do. Consider natural selection: organisms have all sorts of weird and useless features that are there because they don’t critically hinder their ability to reproduce; it’s all just good enough to not get outcompeted. To draw a parallel, some societies have summer breaks because they had summer breaks, and there’s no external force requiring a change.
Sure—but notice that the US, UK, and many other places converged on the same behavior—which in most cases arose as a consensus among local schools that hit on similar practices without any central coordination. Which suggests that the behavior is more than a historical accident.
It’s easier to copy someone else’s system than to optimize a new one yourself.
And since America is the greatest country on earth they came up with it right?