- Free schooling was the exception, not the rule, in British colonies
- Many colonial leaders had a concern for education
o All major religious groups had education concerns:
§ Anglicans in Virginia and the Carolinas
- Religious leaders constantly discussed means of ensuring education to the children in their respective areas
- The emphasis upon reading the Bible and pious books was characteristic of the English Puritans, also the Protestants
o Protestants made individual biblical interpretation a central part of their religion
- In most areas, those who had the means to pay for instruction were expected to provide education for their children
- New Englanders succeeded best in their efforts to create schools in which children of both the prosperous and the poor could gain the minimal essentials of education; the other colonies struggled with the problem
§ strong central government – dominated by clergy who had firm opinions about training children in literacy and knowledge of the Bible
· Massachusetts Bay could see that all children be educated by persuasion or authority
- Connecticut and other New England colonies (except for Rhode Island) followed Massachusetts
- Agrarian colonies: Virginia, Maryland, etc. had the greatest difficulty in establishing schools – low-mobility situations
- When one surveys the difficulties, the amazing fact is not that most schools were poor and few but that so many colonial Americans somehow obtained the rudimentary elements of an education
- Within 10 years after the settlement of Jamestown, colonial authorities were making efforts towards creating schools.
o King James sent instructions to the bishops to collect money to put towards schools
o The Virginia Company set aside 10,000 acres for the creation of a university at Henrico and 1,000 acres to support a college for the conversion of non-Christians
o Plans were scrapped because the ...