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BRIEF COLONIAL HISTORY

I.  Virginia is founded in 1607.
II.  Massachusetts is founded in 1620.
III.  New York is captured from the Dutch in 1660.
IV.  The Carolinas are established in 1663.
V.  Pennsylvania is established in 1732.
VI.  Georgia is populated by 1732.

This map shows that the two earliest colonies in America, Virginia and Massachusetts, had the most formal schools.  This seems to be common sense, since these two colonies were founded first, however, each colony founded their schools in different ways.

Footnote:  Even those states that were devoid of schools had educational systems.  Among the most important of these systems were the apprenticeship system and the Dame Schools.
 
 

 

                                                        I.  Paddle shaped board with paper sheet attached.
                                                                 A.  Contained the ABC's in both small and capital letter.
                                                                 B.  Contained short syllabic processions.
                                                                 C.  Contained the benediction and either the Lord's Prayer or Scripture.
                                                         II.  Covered with pellucid horn -- lamination of the colonial age.
                                                         III.  Decorated with jewels and leather by wealthy.
 

I.  Different Entry Population
        A.  Educated

II.  Natural Fear Develops
        A.  The death of the first generation

II.  The Roxbury Latin Grammar School
        A.  Two years before Harvard -- 1635
        B.  Five years after Boston is founded, fifteen after Plymouth

III.  First Great Colonial Textbooks
        A.  New England Primer
        B.  Ezekial Cheever's Accidence

IV.  Charlestown's advances
        A.  The first free school

V.  Financing
        A.  Royal donations and decree
        B.  Company donations
        C.  Land grants
                1.  Work/Rent the land
        D.  Direct taxation (1639)

VI.  Dorchester's advances
        A.  The first public school supported by direct public tax

VII.  Laws of the colony
        A.  1642 -- Mandatory apprenticeship for children, if not public education.
                1.  State Inspections for enforcement
        B.  Requires a teacher appointed by the people to teach all that come to him.
        C.  One elementary school for towns of fifty families.
        D.  One grammar school for towns of 100 families.
        E.  Mandatory 5 L. fine to all who oppose the law

EDUCATION IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

In the New England colonies, the Puritans built their society almost entirely on the precepts of the Bible. The Puritans, in particular, valued education, because they believed that Satan was keeping those who couldn't read from the scriptures. According to The American Colonial Gazette, about two-thirds of Puritan men and one-third of Puritan women could sign their names -- the accepted standard of literacy for the time.

Many young Puritans, primarily boys ages six to eight, learned reading, spelling, and prayers at a "dame school," run very much like a home day care. Later, either the boys went on to a Latin grammar school to prepare for college and an eventual religious or political career or they trained in a trade. Girls usually continued their education -- in household skills -- at home.

II.  Penn's first Frame of Government
        A.  Creates provisions for schools, which popular assembly supports
 
III.  Law of 1683
        A.  Anyone having charge of children must make sure they can read
              and write by age twelve
        B.  All children should be taught a useful trade
        C.  Five pound fine for every child that does not meet these standards

IV.  1689 Friends Public School Started
        A.  For both sexes, and all classes
        B.  Run by Quakers; not a normal school
        C.  Free if it could not be afforded

V.  School development slows after charter of 1701 contains no educational
      provisions

VI.  Many schools are ethnically and religiously based after 1700.
        A.  Due to Pennsylvania's racial background.
        B.  They are cross cultural -- the Moravian schools in Bethlehem and
              Nazareth are two of the best in the nation.  Students from all over come to study
 
VII.  The Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania
        A.  A local law grants 960 acres of land for all settlements to build a school
        B.  The land is worked, and tuition paid to fund school
        C.  System spreads until a state system is formed in 1834

EDUCATION IN THE MIDDLE COLONIES

In the middle colonies, where, according to the Gazette, about half the adults could sign their names, colonial leaders agreed that education was important but were not concerned with providing it. The decision of whether to educate children was left to individual families until 1683, when a Pennsylvania law was passed, requiring that all children be taught to read and write and be trained in a useful trade. Pennsylvania's first school was established that same year.

A variety of local religious groups ran most schools in the middle colonies and stressed the practical aspects of education. All boys learned a skill or trade. Depending on their social class, they might also study classical languages, history and literature, mathematics, and natural science. Girls were tutored at home in a variety of household and social skills.

II.  1616
        A.  King orders the Bishop of London to collect money for a college
        B.  Delivered to Governor Yardley in 1618
        C.  London sends 100 children, to be schooled, and 500 pounds for their
              upkeep

III.  Not a real university
        A.  To be more of a place for basic skills and trade knowledge
 
IV.  1622 Slaughter
        A.  Ends all educational plans for a college in Virginia
 
V.  First school
        A.  Private.  Benjamin Symms dies and leaves 200 acres, plus eight
              cows for a free school in Elizabeth County
        B.  Opens in 1636

VI.  A New Trend
        A.  Others follow in 1655, 1667, 1689, 1675
        B.  Economic Stability of Virginia

VII.  Questionable evidence?
        A.  There are laws on the books as early as 1846 calling for apprentice
              education
        B.  Compulsory education as apprentices for at least two children per county
 
VIII.  Remains at this level
        A. Slow growth until William and Mary's founding in 1691

EDUCATION IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES

In the 1840's, the growth of state funded public education was blossoming in states from Connecticut to Illinois (see also "Normal Schools" in the Common School section of this web page). However, the Southern states did not have a tradition of public education to build on, as the North did, and in fact, it was well after the Civil War before the South legislated for state supported schools. This occurred for several different reasons.

First and foremost, Southerners believed that education was a private matter and not a concern for the state. They were quick to point out that in all traditional societies the most important training a child receives is in the home where he/she is inducted into the values of the society he/she is about to enter. If the family fails in this endeavor, then how can the schools be more successful? They felt a priority should be placed upon creating a college-bred elite, if their traditions and way of life were to be successfully transferred to successive generations. This system helped to perpetuate the sharply defined social-class structure which existed in the South. There were planters (plantation owners) and there were slaves; no middle-class existed in the South to bridge the gap between upper and lower classes, and as such, there was no demand for services beyond that provided for those who could afford to pay. Another reason that public education did not flourish in the South was that the population was more dispersed than it was in the North, making it difficult to find enough children in one area to justify a school. Also, the Anglican religion of the South did not put quite as much emphasis on religious indoctrination through schooling as did Puritan New England. The final reason was the South's feeling about slavery, which will be mentioned below.

There were some Southerners who supported a public school system. Many of these supporters solicited advice and materials from Horace Mann, the first secretary of the first State Board of Education, created in Massachusetts in 1837. Mann also published a newsletter, "The Common School Journal" which provided information about the public school system to anyone expressing an interest in learning more about the Massachusetts experiment. As a result, he engaged in extensive correspondence. In response to the Southerners' distrust of public education Mann wrote "...colleges and academies never will act downward to raise the mass of people by education; but, on the contrary, common schools will feed and sustain the academies and colleges. Heat ascends, and it will warm upwards, but it will not warm downwards." As public opinion solidified in the south in defense of the Southern way of life, ideas originating in the north, particularly regarding education, were considered "subversive". The Prussian educational methods so popular in New England were denounced as "autocratic."

"Knowledge is Power" and as events conspired to bring the Civil War ever closer, the Southerner asked, "Who should be entrusted with this power?" Certainly not a slave. Southern colonies began passing laws to make it a crime to teach slaves to read and write. Only the Catholics and Friends (Quakers) continued their efforts to educate the black people in the South, and they were few in number. The North, with its Puritan heritage, had for many decades supported education as a means of providing religious training to its children. In the South, where the religious emphasis was Anglican (Church of England), the religious leaders supported the slave owners by providing oral (not written) religious training for the slaves. One minister commented that instead of reading the Bible, literate slaves would soon be reading documents filtering down from the North inciting rebellion, and pose a threat to the Southern family. Supporting slavery as an institution became the patriotic thing to do.

Children, in both the North and South, were taught from an early age that mankind was divided naturally by race, each race having certain physical and mental characteristics which had remained fundamentally unchanged throughout history. All of the Geographies divided mankind into a racial hierarchy with the white race at the top of the hierarchy (referred to as the "Normal" or "Typical" race) and the black race at the bottom. One text explained that "the degree of degeneration from the typical race is directly dependent on geographical distance from the original habitate of the normal race. The degree of perfection of the type is therefore proportioned." The superiority of the white race was taken for granted. "A well established law of nature...causes an inferior race to yield to a superior when it comes in contact with the other." The white man had been assigned the task of "civilizing and enlightening the world". A child influenced by this ongoing indoctrination would not expect the black race to take an equal place in American civilization. Southerners justified slavery on the basis that the black man was incapable of improvement, all the while denying them access to any type of formalized education. However, even in this time of great adversity, education of the black people continued, often covertly conducted under the cover of night. The quest for knowledge could not be thwarted, although it would be another 100 years before equal rights in education would be legislated throughout the nation.

References

Barnard, John and David Burner, "The American Experience in Education", 1975. New Viewpoints, (a Division of Franklin Watts, Inc.), NY.

Pruitt, Anne S., "In Pursuit of Equality in Higher Education", 1987. The Southern Education Foundation, Inc., General Hall, Inc., Dix Hills, NY.

Prepared by Karen Cheek