Hello. Today we're talking about colonial institutions that taught children to read, write and calculate, and the instructional tools that were available for this task. >> Recall from our last episode that Puritan leaders in Massachusetts passed an education law in 1642 that charged parents with the responsibility to ensure their children's, quote, ability to read and understand the principles of religions and the capital laws of this country. Lest parents shirk their duty to muster literate young soldiers for the army of the Lord in the perennial battle against the old deluder, Satan. After 1647, the Massachusetts General Court required townships of 50 or more householders to establish reading and writing schools, that is, primary schools, and in the eight towns of 100 or more householders, grammar schools for advanced learners. Only males were allowed to attend the 17th century grammar schools, which prepared them for admission to all-male Harvard College. Outside of Boston, the requirement to establish town grammar schools was observed more in the breech of the law than the implementation. Nevertheless, in 1647, the Massachusetts colony established an enduring principle, publicly supported common schools. >> By the mid-18th century, the Massachusetts towns were operating summer and winter schools. Women taught girls and young boys during the summer session. Men taught the older boys in the winter session. The moral character of male teachers had to be attested by the minister or town official. Towns supported these schools either through poll taxes or tuition charges, or a combination thereof. By 1767, the town of Sutton, Massachusetts supported 14 district reading and writing schools. >> Mm. While adherence to religious orthodoxy, the cultivation of piety remained important in the colonial mind of the 18th century, economic considerations as well as concerns for cultural refinements were increasingly important in the shaping of education. As the market economy gained ground, teaching became an entrepreneurial activity. Historian Lawrence Cremin aptly remarks on the incredible variety of teachers and schools and school-like arrangements that were options for communities in the 18th century. And I quote. There were individual teachers of reading, writing, ciphering, grammar, bookkeeping, surveying, navigation, fencing, dancing, music, modern languages, embroidery, and every conceivable combination of these and other subjects. These teachers taught part-time, full-time, by day, by evening, in their homes, in rented rooms, in churches, meetinghouses, and abandoned buildings erected especially for their use. They were self-employed and employed by others. They were paid with funds obtained from employers, patrons, subscriptions, lotteries, endowments, tuition rates, and taxes. The combinations and permutations were legion. And the larger and more heterogeneous the community, the greater the latitude and diversity of these arrangements. >> Entrepreneurial teachers were endemic, perhaps epidemic. In large towns such as Boston, New York and Philadelphia, they were often the major source of education. They would advertize their services, rent a building or a room, hang out a sign, set up shop, and teach whatever skills were demanded. Then shut down when there were no more pupils to teach and perhaps depart for another town. Their only professional qualification was their ability to attract and satisfy customers. >> Mm. Various forms of formal schools are identifiable in the 18th century. The, the primary school, or petty school, taught reading and writing, as well as arithmetic. The grammar school offered Greek and Latin, and perhaps Hebrew to advanced students, as preparatory subjects for the colonial colleges. Grammar schools invariably attracted well-educated teachers, ones who had a command of classical languages. Private venture schools offered subjects based on local demand. Completion of a primary school education was generally the only qualification required for a teaching position in that school. As a result, primary schools and grammar schools were paid for by a combination of parental tuition and poll taxes. Many private venture schools were short-lived entrepreneurial ventures that were totally dependent on their students' tuition. The academy held a charter from the colonial legislature and was supported by a group of local subscribers. Now, regardless of the type of school, a common instructional style or pedagogy prevailed in the colonies. Instruction was university, universally didactic, rote, individual, with each student standing at the schoolmaster's desk or lectern to display her work, recite often lengthy passages from memory, and regurgitate them rising, answers to memorized questions in the manner of reading a catechism. The textbooks were hornbooks, catechisms, primers and Bibles. The formal educational institutions of colonial America almost exclusively served the offspring of white colonists. What about the education of blacks and American Indians? In 17th century New England, no more than a handful of blacks attended schools with whites, and there were no all-black schools. As a rule, wherever slavery gained a foothold, black literacy was unlikely to follow. >> Mm. >> This was certainly the case in the South. In the 18th century, the Anglican Church's missionary society, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, proselytized and baptized slaves and Indians, teaching at least a small number of them to read. In 1770, the Quaker teacher and anti-slavery activist, Anthony Benezet, established a charity school for black children in Philadelphia that continued to operate for decades after the American Revolution. In 1758, the Bray Associates, a missionary group affiliated with Benjamin Franklin, founded all-black charity schools in Philadelphia, New York, Connecticut and Virginia. >> Hm. The formal educational institutions that were established in the colonial period continued in the early republic, a period of nation-building that extended from the 1780s to the 1810s. Separating these two periods was, is the American Revolution, 1775, 1781, a war fought for independence from Great Britain, a war whose aftermath gave fitful birth to the U.S.Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Two men who played significant roles in the Revolution, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Rush, would advocate staunchly for state systems of universal, free public primary schools, which would later be called common schools. [MUSIC]
