Christian education was the corner stone of education in the United States until the turn of the nineteenth century. Christian Protestant churches in the colonies believed it was important that everyone be able to read the Bible and interpret its teachings. This believe existed only as a part of a broader social matrix within which people were situated. It was within these contexts that religious education has always manifested its importance. It served not only as a vehicle for the transmission of religious beliefs but also of language and culture. The public schools fostered a mainstream Christian piety until their secularization. This paper emphasizes the mission of the Christian Church in the educational environment in America.
During the early colonial period, education was centered in the home. A housewife was in charge of her children education. Sometime, the same housewife, or dame, would teach basic reading and writing, prayers, and rudimentary household skills to several children in her home for a small fee. "The dame schools often provide all the formal education some children, especially girls, ever received" (Ryan and Cooper p.148).
The three geographic regions of the colonies started to developed different types of educational systems. Although based in Christian principles, their educational systems were shaped by each region's settlement patterns.
In New England, as early as 1642, Massachusetts passed a law requiring parents to educate their children. The law was strengthened in 1647 by the famous "Old Deluder Satan Act" based on the principle that Satan assuredly would try to keep people from understanding the Scriptures properly, so it was important for all children to be taught how to read. Therefore, every town of fifty or more families was obligated to pay a man to teach reading and writing. This was the beginning of the Town Schools -- setting the precedent that if parents would not or could not educate their children, the government was obligated to take on that responsibility. As long as villages remained compact and people lived close to one another, the town school system thrived. However, when settlers spread out, seeking better farmland, the town schools began to disappear. What emerged in their place was the so-called Moving School. This consisted in a schoolmaster who traveled from village to village, holding sessions in each place for several months before moving on. Discontent with this system of education led to the development of the District School. In this system, a township was divided into districts, each having its own school and master and funded by the town treasury. This school system soon entrenched itself in the New England region, since it was inexpensive to finance and afforded some measure of schooling to every child. The schools of these colonies were publicly supported and denominationally controlled. In the town schools, the curriculum was largely based on the Bible and Christian doctrine. They learned their ABCs, numerals, and the Lord's Prayer. After learning the basics, teachers used the New England Primer (published in 1690) which was an illustrated book composed of religious texts and other readings.
Education in the South was different from New England due to the great distances between southern settlements. Beginning with the foundation in Virginia of the Church of England in 1611, a pattern followed in the other southern colonies. Education in this region was viewed primarily as a responsibility of the family and the church. Consequently, plantation owners educated their children with private tutors, who were often local ministers or itinerant scholars. In contrast to the government center education that was developed in New England, in the South, the schools administration was delegated to a group or corporation that collected tuition, own property, hired and fired teachers, and decided curriculum content. The Anglican church and religious groups, such as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), were the ones that often took care of the poor and orphans' education. This individualistic approach in their communities, along with an economy based largely on isolated plantations, tended to retard educational development.
In the Middle Colonies education reflected the composition of a variety of religious and ethnic groups. Consequently, private venture schools were developed. Baptists, Quakers, Mennonites, Huguenots, Catholics, and other denominations, each wished to train their children in their respective faiths. Swedish, Dutch and German settlers also wanted a separate education for their children. Although the civil government had to licensed the private schools, they were not protected or financed by it. The use of public funds to educate everyone's children did not become customary. The denominational schools shared the New England concern for proper Christian training as a primary goal, but they also began early to offer practical subjects such as bookkeeping or navigation. In the 1620's the Dutch had settled what later became New York, establishing the Reformed Church in the colony. The foundation of their first school in 1638 marked the beginning of elementary schools that taught reading, writing, religion, and occasionally arithmetic. The schools were administered by the Dutch West India Company, which provided financial support, and the Classis of Amsterdam, which examined , licensed, and often selected schoolmasters. Education in New Jersey and Pennsylvania was sponsored by Lutherans, Presbyterians, Huguenots, and Germans.
The term common school was originally applied to schools that provide education for the average person, but it was not necessarily at public expense or available to all. However, the early New England laws had already set the precedent that all children should be taught how to read and that the civil government had authority over education. This implied a communal obligation to provide "universal education," that is, schooling for everyone. This principle was further developed and applied on the birth of the new republic. Even though our paper covers only the Colonial period, it should be mentioned that the impetus for such public schooling came from the federal government as a new ideal of the Revolution period. During that period, the Constitution relegated control of education to the states. However, the enactment of the Northwest Ordinances of 1885 and 1787 by the federal government, played a crucial role in the ideal of common schooling. The Ordinance of 1785 was concerning the sale of public lands in Northwest Territory. It said that every township was divided into thirty-six sections, one of which was set aside for the maintenance of public schools. In the Ordinance of 1787, congress reaffirmed that "religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged" (Feeman butts & Gremin, 1953, P. 258).
The early American secondary education was influenced historically by four major institutions which are the Latin Grammar School, the English Grammar School, the Academy, and the Public High School. The Latin Grammar School served the purpose of training for entrance to college. This was the sole purpose of all education beyond the elementary level during the colonial period. Then, its name became to mean "college preparator school or prep school," (Butts & Cremin, p. 260). 1635 is generally considered as the year when the first Latin grammar school was established in Boston. Latin grammar started at age seven or eight. At this age, a boy started to learn Latin texts written either by ancient Romans or medieval scholars. Much work was memorized, and over three or four years the student learned composition and writing of Latin verses. Following this, the student studied Greek, then moving in the final year to classical Greek writers and the New Testament. Students might have studied some Hebrew language as well. This type of school was public and open to boys of all social classes. The Old Deluder Satan Act of 1647, which required communities of fifty or more families to establish elementary schools, also required communities of one hundred or more families to establish Latin schools. New England was primarily were these type of schools were found. Later, they were instituted in the Middle Colonies. As in elementary education, families in the South generally either hired tutors or sent their sons back to England to further their education.
English Grammar Schools were born as the growth of middle-class businesses in the 1700s led to the demand for a secondary education that would provide practical instruction in many subjects, from navigation and engineering to bookkeeping and foreign languages. Students needed more than elementary instruction; but were not interested in preparing for college. Commercial subjects were emphasized over religious ones. Some other subjects such as music, art and dancing were also taught as means to train students for socializing in polite company. These schools were the first secondary institutions to accept female students. Girls who lived in the Middle Colonies had greater educational opportunity than girls who lived elsewhere because of the larger number of schools there. Quakers and Christian leaders such as William Penn and Anthony Benezet, were concerned with and supported the education of several deprived groups such as women, African-Americans, as well as native Americans.
The Academy was a new type of secondary school that grew up during the second half of the eighteenth century. It was basically an attempt to combine Latin and English grammar schools through separate Latin and English departments within one school. These schools were private. Academies were unlike the Latin grammar schools in that the primary language was English. Also, classical subjects were included in the curriculum, unlike the English grammar schools. Later on, the academy became the most popular type of secondary school.
The Public High Schools were developed in the early 1800's as a public education alternative to the private academies. Is not the intent of this paper to cover the history of education after the American Revolution. However, it should be mentioned that in the years following the American Revolution, there was a growing demand for free public elementary education as an alternative to the expensive academies. Therefore, such schooling at public expense was the educational system most appropriate for democracy, it was argued. Opponents of the idea of public high schools did not dispute the need for free common elementary schools. However, they did argue that secondary school was a luxury and was not within the domain of the taxing authorities. Later on, it was ruled out that the school district could tax the public to support high schools as well as elementary schools.
Colonial education certainly exhibited diversity, but it also was characterized by a strong common feature in the Christian motive. As these early communities and colonies gained political experience and other philosophies were introduced and permiated the American culture, it was inevitable that other motives would appear in American education.
Finally, as we study the history of Christian Education and its effectiveness in the transmission of culture in the United States, we have to review what are the fundamental principles in which this education was and should be based today.