The Puritans: The American Education System

Education in the late 1700’s and early 1800 was only available to those who had money. Public education was not available to everybody. Children who came from wealthy parents were able to learn how to read and write. These children went on to continue the cycle with their children. Schools came about when towns would pull their resources and higher teachers. The teachers were literally paid by bushels of wheat and half of a cow. School was based off the Bible. These facts and many more make me so grateful for not being born during this time. I love education and I love learning. I don’t know what I would do without the education I have received and continue to receive.

Public education in America began in the early to mid-19th century with the simple goal of “uniting the American population by instilling common moral and political values” (Spring, 2012, p. 5). Our country was founded by men who designed the constitution so that it could be amended to accommodate changing political and social climates. They believed in the ideology of the American dream which “holds out a vision of both individual success and the collective good of all” (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2004, p. 1). It is with this same ideology that our public schools were

The Puritans view of education the same way they viewed religion. It was a major part of their daily routine. The puritans had different ways of teaching their children, they used the New England Primer, which was one of the first books to be published in the 18th century. They used this to teach the children how to read and write properly. This book also taught the children the difference of right and wrong, along with the respect of parental figures, sin and salvation.

There is a Powerade advertisement on television that says, “We’re all just a kid from somewhere.” It means that no matter what one does in life, everyone starts off in the same spot. While this is true for today, it can also be applied to the foundational Puritan roots of this country. In 1629 when the Puritans first arrived in Salem, Puritans began to broaden their influence throughout the new world. Similarly to the advertisement, most of American society began with the same Puritan disciplines and beliefs, and some of the iconic Puritan standards can still be detected in regions of America today. The article “Still Puritan After All These Years,” claims that Puritan ideas can still be seen in American life. This statement is completely true because Puritan values and ideals are extremely visible in modern America.

Over the summer I took American History 1 and learned about the Puritans. They were a religious group of people that came to America from England to get away from religious persecution back in the late 16th century. They immigrated to America by boat, which was a long and hard journey that some did not survive.

Puritans not only built the foundation of the education system in America, but they also helped to develop it over the course of multiple centuries  In 1636, for example, the first public elementary school was produced in Boston, Massachusetts, shortly after the Puritans arrived in America.  By the end of the 1700s, these public schools became free so that both wealthy and poor children had access to a quality education.  In 1821, the first high school was established in Boston, where public schools were first created.  Sixteen years later, in 1837, the first Board of Education was fabricated in Massachusetts to oversee the system in the state.  In 1918, almost a century later, school attendance became mandatory in every state in America, and in the 1950s, schools would become desegregated for

[H]e which would have suer peace and joye in Christianitye, must not ayme at a condition retyred from the world and free from temptations, but to knowe that the life which is most exercised with tryalls and temptations is the sweetest, and will prove the safeste. For such tryalls as fall within compasse of our callinges, it is better to arme and withstande them than to avoide and shunne them. -John Winthrop

Colonial America was shaped by the many Christian denominations of its founders. Christian ideals were one of the most important intellectual discussions on the mind of America’s founders. The Puritans were a separatist religious group that came to North America from England to escape religious persecution in the mid-seventeenth century. Its followers arrived to the northern English colonies in the New World and settled almost exclusively in the New England region. Led by John Winthrop, the Puritans formed the colony of Massachusetts, where their faith would prove to have an enormous impact over almost every aspect of colonial society. Their goal was to build a “city upon a hill”, representing a spiritually pure and idyllic society. Puritanism greatly influenced the political, social, and cultural aspects of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The strict nature of Puritanism is one factor that aided in making Massachusetts distinguishable from the rest of colonial America.

The Puritan values, constructed in the seventeenth century, originated from a movement to reform the Church of England. This particular movement still plays a vital role in the American society influencing the social, ethical, and theological ideas of modern day citizens. These ideas that were put forth were the starting point for the American culture - offering new ideas of how to think and how to live. The writers and thinkers of John Winthrop, Arthur Miller, and Benjamin Franklin make it possible for people to study and apply these laws to their own lives hundreds of years after they were introduced. Even though not all tenets are practiced as strongly as others, the concepts of the value of hard work and a self reliant lifestyle still resonate in the hearts of many American individuals hundreds of years after the birth of this Puritan lifestyle.

When American 's think of education, they almost automatically think of public education. Through the years it is slowly changing. Many parents ' today are deciding to home school their children. Although most people think that a public education is better, most statistics and facts tend to show that homeschooling is beneficial in more ways. It is estimated that parents are now teaching over two million children at home, rather than in public or even private schools. Education in our public schools has been on the down slope for over twenty years now. Public schools have lost all values and biblical morality. This was what our country was founded on and it has been replaced with humanism. One example of humanism in our schools is that they

When a person thinks of an education system, they most likely think of the education system that was in place when they went to school. That system however had many different influences to become what it was. Some of those influences came from the different regions in the American colonial time. In American colonial time, the Europeans who were settling along the coast all shared a general culture and heritage. They however had differences when it came to their economic, political and religious beliefs. Those main factors, as well as others, such as language and geography, motivated them to split into different colonies. Those colonies can be grouped into three regions which are the New England, the southern and the Middle Atlantic colonies. Since each region had their differences, with the main difference being the type of religion practiced, each region had a different style for education.

This law largely contributes to the vast amount of schools in every city and state today. Another law concerning the amount of schools in every state was passed in 1785. This law was established by the Continental Congress, before the constitution was created. It called for a survey of the Northwest Territory, creating townships, and the reserving of a portion of these townships to create a public local school. Education has always cost money, but it used to cost money for everyone to attend. However, in 1790, a law was decreed declaring that poor children were allowed to go to school for free while rich children still had to pay. Fortunately for the rich, this changed in 1827, when a law was passed making school public to everyone and free of charge. Because of slavery and segregation, this was not the case for African Americans. So, from 1865 to 1877, African Americans pushed for public education. They finally got to go to school, but they had to go to separate, less funded schools. This was supposed to change in 1954 when the Supreme court unanimously agreed that segregated schools were wrong and should be stopped. Unfortunately, schools were still segregated in 1998. Schools taught different material in the past too. The very first textbook ever created 1841. It included fifty-five lessons on ethics and being a good student and a good kid. It had a big influence on America and was considered a wonderful book. Many people even said

Public education in the United States is closely linked to its very founding. Puritans who left England to establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony brought with them the egalitarian idea that universal education was necessary with the rise of the secular state to ensure individual autonomy and remove “ecclesiastical and monastic control of education...exercised by the Catholic Church.” (Walker, 1984, p. 266).

Schooling in America originated in the 18th century, with the creation of privatized schooling. Selective students were given the opportunity to study various subjects. Most of the students who were given an opportunity to attend school at that time were white and came from wealthy families, and unlike today, most of the teachers were male. The formation of public schools didn’t happen until the 1840’s, which was created by the government in effort to provide education to those who could not afford it at the time. The most qualified teachers were often found teaching in the private schools, leaving the less qualified teachers in the public schools.

Education in America has progressed through time in many different aspects, both in form but also of importance. In 1647, it was determined that education in America was a must. In these very early stages the focus was not so much about a well rounded education as it is today, but more so to be sure the children were able to read the bible and learn basic information about their religion. Even though advanced we being made in 1779, Thomas Jefferson implemented a two track education system. This system was set up so that not everyone was given the right to learn, only a few of the work force (Historical TImeline web). It is my opinion that this was the first sign of true power of education. As the year progressed forward we see again in the 1830’s that education is held from a certain group of people, those who were slaves. Frederick Douglas shared in his biography of the great struggle he had to endure to become educated. Much of his education was self education, because the white people of that time were forbidden to teach those who were thought of as less. Douglas shares, “it was unlawful, as well as undasge to teach a slave to read… it would forever unfit him to be a slave” (Douglas p. 20). This idea tells us, me, that education was know to have power, why else be afraid of helping all to learn and grow. Again, in 1864, it was illegal for native american children to be taught in their native language. To the point that they children would be removed from their families