[...] This presentation explores the connections between the legacy of an eloquent erudite culture and the rhetorical practices in schools in a time when social change and ideological currents led to the establishment of new types of schools and to the inclusion of new social groups, albeit sharply divided by gender and class lines. In this the emerging school system rhetorical activities were part of an institutionalised identity formation on a radically new scale.By comparing classroom exercises as well as outward identity-oriented rhetorical activity in grammar schools with that in e.g. apologist schools or girls’ schools, it is shown how pupils in different types of schools were socialised in alignment with different identity configurations. [...]