The Coburn Classical Institute was a college preparatory school in Waterville, Maine, which operated from 1828–1970.

Timothy Boutelle, and funds raised by the college president Jeremiah Chaplin, for a small brick building in which the school went into operation in the fall of 1829.

The school was under the charge of Henry W. Paine, then a member of the senior class at the college.

Around 1874, Abner Coburn pledged $50,000 to the endowment of the school, on the condition that $50,000 also be raised to support two other institutes proposed by the college (called at the time Colby University).

[2][3] An observatory dome was added to the school in 1889, with an Alvan Clark & Sons equatorial telescope.