• Explain the development of schools and education in colonial America.
• Articulate the struggle to establish universal elementary education in the United States.
• Relate the development of the Latin grammar school, the American Academy, and high schools in the United States.
• List and explain important events in the evolution of goals for the U. S. educational system
• Explain the reasons for the types of involvement of federal government in public schools.
• Describe the historical development of programs to prepare teachers.
• List and describe the evolution of teaching materials.
• Describe the historical events surrounding the education of African Americans and women.

OUTLINE

• Native Americans developed an effective system of informal education, passing on culture to their children and the skills they needed to succeed. 
• First permanent European settlements in US included Jamestown (1607), Plymouth (1620), Massachusetts Bay (1630), Maryland (1632), Connecticut (1635) and Providence Plantations (1636). 
• The motives that prompted most early settlers to move to America were religious, economic, and political.

PROVIDING EDUCATION IN THE NEW WORLD Colonial Education

• The early settlement of the East Coast was composed of groups of colonies: Southern, Middle and Northern. 
• Southern Colonies, centered in Virginia, came to be made up of large tobacco plantations. Because of the size of the plantations, people lived far apart, and few towns grew up until later in the colonial period. 
• Need for cheap labor. In 1619, only 12 years after Jamestown was settled, the colony imported the first slaves from Africa. 
• There soon came to be 2 classes of people in the South - few wealthy landowners and a large mass of laborers. No one wanted to provide education to the slaves. Wealthy hired tutors. Children of wealthy sent to Europe for College. 
• Middle Colonies - centered in New York, people came from Dutch, Sweden and many religious groups from Europe. This diversity of backgrounds made it impossible or the inhabitants to agree on a common public school system. Consequently, the respective groups established their own religious schools. 
• Mainly the Puritans settled northern Colonies, centered in New England, - they could agree on common public school. Harvard, the first colonial college, was established in 1636 for preparing ministers.

The Struggle for Universal Elementary Education

• See page 309 "Dock" for description of a colonial elementary school in 1750. 
• Horace Mann: between 1820 and 1860 an educational awakening took place in US. Led by Mann, helped to establish common elementary schools in Massachusetts. 

Need for Secondary Schools

• The first form of secondary school in the American colonies was the Latin grammar school mentioned previously, first established in Boston in 1635 only five years after colonists settled in the area. 

The Latin grammar school focused largely on teaching Latin and other classical subjects, such as Greek, and was strictly college preparatory. 
• Read relevant research on page 314. 
• By the middle of the 18^th century, there was a need for more and better trained skilled workers. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) proposed a new kind of secondary school in Pennsylvania. In 1751 created the American Academy, the first truly American educational institution. 
• In 1821 an English classical school opened in Boston, and another ed. Institution was launched. 
• In 1910 the first junior high schools were established. In 1916 a survey indicated that the 54 junior high school existed in 36 states. 

Aims of American Education

• After the colonists won independence from England, educational objectives such as providing US citizens with a common language, attempting to instill a sense of patriotism, developing a national feeling of unity and common purpose, and providing the technical and agricultural training the developing nation needed became important tasks for the schools. 
• Committees of Ten in 1892, see page 313. 
• See 7 Cardinal Principles on page 313. 

History of Federal Involvement

• US Constitution does not mention education. -- Reserved to the states. 
• Even though US Constitution does not refer to education, the federal govt. has been active in ed. Affairs from the very beginning. 
• In 1785 and 1787 the Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance Acts. States were required to set aside the 16^th section of each town to be used for educational purposes. 
• Morrill Land Grant in 1862 provided colleges the money and space to provide vocational education, especially in agriculture. 
• In 1917, the federal government passed the first act providing financial aid to public schools below the college level, the Smith-Hughes Act.

Preparation of Teachers 

• In colonial America, elementary school teachers were very poorly prepared. Single qualification: they themselves had been educated. 
• Sometimes the colonies used white indentured servants as teachers. 
• Many educators recognized this country's need for better qualified teachers in 1823 the first teacher training institution was established - called a normal school. 
• Early normal school program consisted of a 2-year course. 
• State Teachers' Colleges then began and than colleges and universities entered the teacher preparation business on a large scale after 1900. 
• See graph on page 321.

Evolution of Teaching Materials

• Hornbook: was the most common teaching device in early colonial schools. See figure on page 310. Consisted of a sheet of paper showing the alphabet and tacked to a piece of wood. 
• New England Primer: first real textbook used in elementary schools. Printed in the 1600s. Contained 50-100 pages including alphabet, vowels, and capital letters then simple words, then verses. 
• Blue-Backed Speller: 1800 Webster published the American Spelling Book to be known as the Blue-Backed Speller. See picture on page 311. 
• Slates: about 1820, a thin piece of slate stone framed with wood. 
• McGuffey's Reader eventually replaced the Blue-Backed Speller. It was geared to each grade. 

EDUCATION FOR SPECIAL POPULATIONS Education of African Americans

• It is a sad but true fact that until recently few efforts were made to provide an education for African Americans. 
• By 1860 there were about 4.5 million African American slaves in US. 
• First organized attempts to educate the African Americans were by French and Spanish missionaries. 
• As African Americans formed their own churches, they became self-confident and educated. 
• Benjamin Banneker: a distinguished African American was born in Maryland in 1731. He became extremely well educated. One of his accomplishments was to manufacture the first clock made in the US in 1770. He then turned his attention to astronomy. He was to work with Thomas Jefferson in this field. 
• Frederick Douglass: born in slavery Maryland in 1817 ran away and began talking to abolitionist groups about his experiences in slavery. He helped to establish vocational schools for the African Americans. 
• John Chavis: One African American that was helped by whites was John Chavis, a free man born in 1763 in North Carolina. Chavis became a successful teacher of aristocratic whites. 
• Not until Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 did African Americans start to receive education. 
• Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was one of the early African American educators who contributed immensely. He founded Tuskegee Institute in 1880.

Education of Women

• Colonial schools did not provide education for girls in any significant way. 
• Emma Willard (1778-1870) was a pioneer and champion of education for females during a time when there were relatively few educational opportunities for them. Emma opened a female seminary in 1821 in Troy New York to offer an educational program equal to that of a boys' school. 
• Maria Montessori (1870-1952) became a successful physician and later a prominent educational philosopher. 
• Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) was one of 17 children both to African American parents in South Carolina, the first family member not born in slavery. She received her first formal schooling at age nine. She believed that education would lead to justice and devoted her life to improving ed. opportunities. 

Private Education in America

• In 1861, New Hampshire tried to take over Dartmouth College, which was private. Supreme Court decided that a private school could not be forced against its will be become a public school. 
• Parochial Schools

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