History of Education

Before Public Schools In the early years of the nation, schooling was haphazard. Many children were excluded based on income, race or ethnicity, gender, geographic location, and other reasons.

The children who did receive instruction, primarily white children, were educated through:

♦ Church-supported schools

♦ Local schools organized by towns or groups of parents

♦ Tuition schools set up by traveling schoolmasters

♦ Charity schools for poor children run by churches or benevolent societies

♦ Boarding schools for children of the well-to-do

♦ “Dame schools” run by women in their homes

♦ Private tutoring or home schooling

♦ Work apprenticeships with some rudimentary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic

Early schools were financed from various sources and often charged tuition.

Without a formal system for funding education, local schools were dependent on parents’ tuition payments, charitable contributions, property taxes, fuel contributions, and in some cases state support. At the time of the American Revolution, some cities and towns in the Northeast had free local schools paid for by all town residents, but this was not the norm. (A few Northeastern cities also had free schools for African American children.)