Throughout the period between 1750 and 1815, education was most notable for its diversity. There was no common schooling system, much less any common experience shared by all children of a certain age. Children and adults were educated in many places, and their experiences differed by region, gender and class. This is not to say that no significant changes occurred during the period; after the Revolutionary War (1775-83), educators directly linked education to citizenship and founded new institutions to serve civic needs.

In colonial America, the home was the principal site for education. Boys and girls learned not only the skills attached to running a home or farm, but also received their basic moral and literacy education from parents. The Bible and some religious tracts published for children were the primary texts people read; indeed, the Bible was the only book many families owned. In New England, literacy had a larger significance since Calvinists believed that each person should read the Bible individually. For boys, and especially for girls, literacy rates in New England were significantly higher than anywhere else in the British world.

Colonial homes often included people not directly related to the immediate family. In urban areas, artisans--master craftsmen--took on apprentices at young ages. These boys were usually hired out by parents who wanted to provide their child with productive skills. The apprentice lived with the master, who was responsible for general instruction as well as the teaching of a trade. Outside the home, churches were the primary formal educational institutions in colonial America. Ministers were called "public teachers" and were responsible for the moral instruction of their community. Most New England and southern states had an established church, and the community's attendance and support of the church was mandatory. In the middle colonies, religious diversity prevented domination by a single establishment; nonetheless, most residents gained moral instruction from their particular church. Although not all colonists were members of the established churches, especially in the western regions of the South, most agreed that ministers had a central role to play in educating the public.

Formal academic training was available to a few. Each colony had only one, if any, college, which trained ministers and prepared some children for careers as political leaders. While serving many of the children of elite parents, colleges also recruited children from middling backgrounds who showed particular promise. Apart from ministerial training, a college education was rare, and few students completed a full course of study. However, many students used college as a stepping-stone to a legal apprenticeship. There were no law schools in this period; college graduates had their legal education under the tutelage of established lawyers.

The American Revolution altered the ways in which individuals thought about education. Most important, Revolutionary leaders believed that access to education for all citizens was necessary for the preservation of liberty. Thomas Jefferson explained that since the people are the "only safe depositories" of power in a republic, "their minds must be improved to a certain degree." For Jefferson, improvement meant providing a state-supported common schooling system. In Virginia, he proposed a comprehensive school system consisting of different levels and culminating in a university for the best students. Although his plan was rejected, several states did pass mandatory schooling laws. The Second Continental Congress approved Jefferson's draft of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which required every town in the Northwest Territory to set aside some land for schools. Although the state-supported common school system really came into existence after 1815, many private academies were established to educate both boys and girls; these academies proliferated throughout the nation. In addition, many communities developed district schools, supported by tuition or subscriptions. Children ranging in age from four to 18 might attend the same single-room school for a few years to learn the rudiments of reading, arithmetic, and writing. Teachers were poorly trained and often harsh disciplinarians who struggled to control the older students. Since children were an important source of labor, attendance was often better in winter when there was less work at home than in summer.

Education was not limited to formal schooling. Leaders in the United States understood that regular citizens needed to learn less about Latin and more about what was called "practical knowledge." The rejection of formal knowledge was an act of patriotism. European aristocrats may have had the time to learn arcane subjects, but hardworking republicans needed knowledge that they could use. Moreover, idleness was seen as the breeding ground for vice. Agricultural and mechanical societies were established so that ordinary people could spend their leisure time not in idle amusement but learning about their fields of occupation. Educational leaders hoped to provide interesting lectures about science that related to the work of artisans and farmers. Such institutions were meant to increase the knowledge of the population as a whole while promoting values associated with republican liberty. Female education was supported by most leaders in the United States, and many female academies were established during the early republic. Concerned about the values of the next generation, revolutionary Americans understood that women, as mothers, played a vital role in shaping the character of their children. John Adams explained that "it is by the female world, that the greatest and best characters among men are formed." As Adams suggested, female education was still centered on the needs of men. If only men could be full citizens in the new republic, at least women could gain access to education and fill an important public function as moral teachers.

College education changed dramatically during the revolutionary era and the early republic. By the mid-18th century, colleges no longer devoted most of their energy to training ministers. Moreover, affected by the ideas of the Enlightenment, colleges broadened their curriculum to include more science and mathematics. However, throughout this period, classical languages remained the bedrock of a college education. College life was mainly for the elite before the Revolutionary War, with only nine colleges established in the colonial period, including Brown (Rhode Island, 1764), Dartmouth (New Hampshire, 1769), Rutgers (New Jersey, 1770), King's (later Columbia University, New York, 1754), and the University of Pennsylvania (1755) in the decades immediately before the war. Like the earlier colleges of Harvard (Massachusetts), New Jersey (later Princeton), and William and Mary (Virginia), most of these institutions had a religious affiliation. The American Revolution led to several key developments. First, a college education took on new meaning as higher education now had the charge of developing leaders with the proper republican virtue. Second, there were many more colleges founded--as many as 15 started up before 1800. Third, this increase meant that a college education was open to more students from a broader spectrum of ages, social positions, and economic status. These developments, in turn, had ramifications that led to some problems. Because of the drift toward secularization in society and the fact that these colleges now had a civic role, there was an effort in several states to transfer control away from religious denominations to civil authorities. Most of the institutions so challenged--including Harvard College, the College of New Jersey, Yale College, Columbia College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the College of William and Mary--defeated these efforts, and after 1800, with the further spread of evangelicalism, the religious base of most colleges was secured, at least from attack by the state. But it was still challenged from below by the students, for whom the growing number of colleges meant greater competition, which in turn had a tendency to lower the standards for education. Moreover, with many older students entering college, and with the difficulty of recruiting qualified faculty, challenges arose in the classroom and on the campus. Student disruptions and even riots broke out with increasing frequency. In other words, the end result of democratization in education did not lead to a better trained leadership, just more rough-and-tumble behavior and inferior education.

Despite the spread of academies and colleges, much education took place outside schools in informal voluntary gatherings of men called "mutual improvement societies." Members of these societies took seriously the need for civic education in a republic, and they would gather to hear lectures or give their own. Unlike the agricultural and mechanical societies, however, mutual improvement societies were subtly radical. By coming together in informal groups outside the established institutions of school and church, members of these societies took control over their own education.

Bibliography:

1) Richard D. Brown, Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700-1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989)

2) Richard D. Brown, Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in America, 1650-1870 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996)

3) Lawrence Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607-1783 (New York: Harper & Row, 1970)

4) Lawrence Cremin, American Education: The National Experience, 1783-1876 (New York: Harper & Row, 1980)

5) Jurgen Herbst, From Crisis to Crisis: American College Government, 1636-1819 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982)

6) Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980)

7) Joseph F. Kett, The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties: From Self-Improvement to Adult Education in America, 1750-1990 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994)

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