About School in Colonial Times
Colonial America started with a few families settling as neighbors with a commitment to build a community from scratch. The typical community infrastructures of the schools, roads, churches, government protocols and businesses had to be developed. While the institutions incorporated many of the ideas and practices from Europe, they discarded others that did not promote the vision for independence and individual freedom that the new land promised. Colonial schools set the course for what would become a nationwide public school system.
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Geography
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How schools worked in Colonial times varied with the location of the colony. In New England, early public school laws were established by 1647 because this region was colonized in towns and villages. However, in the southern colonies, the plantations precluded a public approach to schooling the land owners' children because each plantation was a large area of land that made gathering a student body difficult. Plantation owners tended to employ private tutors for their children. However, it was very unusual and sometimes illegal for African American slaves to be taught how to read and write.
Considerations
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Schools prepared boys and girls differently, too. Boys learned to read and write and do arithmetic. If they were bound for a college, they also learned Latin. Girls were less likely to be sent to school. The subjects that girls studied included what is today considered "home economics" concentrating on sewing, knitting and cooking. Colonial Americans who were Quakers or Moravians, two Protestant sects, did include both girls and boys in the schools they founded.
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Types
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The first school that both boys and girls might have attended in Colonial New England was a Dame School. These schools operated in a woman's home. Dame schools introduced the students to numbers, letters and basic reading. Boys who attended the dame schools would be prepared to go to an elementary school where they would learn reading, writing and religion. Girls who attended dame schools also studied sewing.
History
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The first public school law was passed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1647. It required the selectmen in each town to make sure that every child learn how to read English and become acquainted with the "capital laws." A fine of 20 shillings was charged if this did not happen. Parents also had to make sure that their children received some form of religious instruction in the catechism once a week. They also had to introduce their children and apprentices to a trade. The law also required every town which had fifty families to open an elementary school. Towns with one hundred families had to open a secondary school, called a Latin Grammar School, which we would call a college preparatory school today. These became the first of the one room school houses which we commonly associate with Colonial America. Whenever a new town grew large enough, a one room school house would be built.
Features
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Textbooks and school supplies were scarce in Colonial schools. The most popular textbook was "The New England Primer." It was published between 1690 and 1800. It was followed by the "McGuffey's Readers" which are widely used even today by home schooling families. Students used slate pencils to write on tablets made from slate rock. After the teacher checked the work, the student could erase their slate and reuse it for the next assignment. The youngest students used hornbooks, three-part study guides. The base was a wooden board with a handle. The top was a piece of transparent animal horn which protected the piece of paper in the middle. The alphabet and the Lord's Prayer typically were written on the paper.
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