The First public school was Boston Latin School, established in 1635 in Boston Massachusetts. It was modeled after the Free Grammar School in Boston England where Latin and Greek were taught. Students were also taught how to learn and to think. Some of the students of this very first public school were John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Treat Paine, and William Hopper, all signers of the U.S. Constitution. For admittance into the school, students had to be able to read a few verses from the bible. This school of course was strictly for boys, and most children were still educated at home. Boston Latin School, however, was not the first tax-funded school. This happened sometime later in Dedham Massachusetts.
The first compulsory school attendance law, requiring all children between certain ages attend school was passed in Massachusetts in 1852. By 1918, every state had compulsory school attendance laws. Incidentally, these laws coincided with the industrial revolution. Before it was required by law that all children go to school, most poor children worked in factories in terrible conditions. To save children the responsibility and abuse of working to make money for the family, it became law that children are educated and their work was highly restricted. Public education saved many children from lives of servitude and abuse, and allowed them to be children, and to learn.
With the passing of compulsory attendance laws, it would seem that factories lost a lot of cheap labor. It would seem that children were freed from the hands of industry in this country, but this could not be further from the truth. The Industrialist class (big industry millionaires) still had their hands in the lives of children all over the United States. Thanks to brilliant men like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, and J.P. Morgan, “school in America became like school in Germany, a servant of corporate and political management.”John Taylor Gatto Americans were sold a bill of goods that said, “Get your education, you will get a job, and the job will take care of you for the rest of your lives”. We were also told, “Thinking is inconsequential. Just do as you are told.” It worked for a while, but as anyone can see, these were promises left unkempt.
As these promises fell by the wayside, so must the model of education that once existed to create good and diligent workers. At some point, the promises lulled Americans into a sense of complacency and stole imagination and innovation. The whole premise of mass education was, and is a good idea, to a certain point. However, we are no longer living in a “mass” world. We are living in an “individual” world where we have to start looking at education on an individual basis. Schools need to be reformed to teach children on an individual basis. For those who cannot wait for such changes, homeschooling is our best choice for educating our children.
*Have a question about homeschooling? Just ask.
*Want to know more about homeschooling? Start with the 2006 homeschool blog in review!
* Have you seen the homeschooling curriculum glossary?