We present the reprint edition of 1912, which gives an overview of the history of gymnasium education in Russia in the 18th-19th centuries. The subject of this work, the author, teacher of the Russian language and literature Ivan Aleksandrovich Aleshintsev (1881-1912), determined "the main principles and historical development of the educational system of a secondary school" in the Russian Empire. The following questions are considered in the work: whether gymnasiums have always been secondary schools, whether gymnasiums were publicly available, whether educational ideas were replaced by praying ones, and what successes were achieved in the general education field by the last third of the 19th century. The periods of the reign of Alexander I were taken for research, Nicholas I, Alexander II, and the review of the activities of the Ministers of Education D. A. Tolstoy and I. D. Delyanov is completing its work.