History of the Common School Movement from Jamestown-1850s
America has and always will be a center of diversity of culture, ideas, and religions. Many ventured to the New World beginning in 1607 with Jamestown, bringing with them not only their families, but their European roots, religions, and gender and class distinctions as well. These newcomers saw education as an important means to make their children strong and straight, yet their idea of who should be educated was rather narrow. Similar to Europe, only wealthy, white males were educated, and this was for the purpose of learning or teaching the Scriptures in the pastorate. However, sentiments from the Peace of Westphalia in 1649 carried over to the colonies in that nations religious freedom not for purposes of religious tolerance, but for religious absolutism. Each colony and grouping of colonies (New England, Middle, and Southern) varied in religious convictions and educational provisions. For instance, the South relied on private tutors to educate due to large distances separating plantations; the middle colonies were so diverse that each area taught in its native tongue and religion. It was only in New England, much due to the homogeneous population and development of cities and industry, that education first began to cent
With the creation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to override the unsuccessful Articles of Confederation, the Founding Fathers could not agree on what to do about the issue of religious freedom. No one group at the Constitutional Convention could conjure a majority vote for their denomination, they agreed that religious toleration was preferable over the establishment of another group’s church. The first and tenth amendments dramatically altered the atmosphere that had previously guided education in that the link between religion and school was severed and that the control of schools was shifted to the states. The Puritan’s beliefs prevailed in the decisions and values of the developing education system. The Puritans felt that education was necessary for people to follow God’s Word, therefore learning to read and write was vital. Legislation confirmed this in 1647 with the Old Satan Deluder Act, which intended to create Scripture-literate citizens to “thwart Satan’s trickery.” To enact this, every town that had more than 50 families needed to designate someone to teach the children to read and write. Before long, several other states, including Pennsylvania in 1863, passed legislation to increase education and literacy for the purpose of reading the Bible. This act, though silly in name, provided a legal foundation for the public support of education. The Common School Movement concluded with the secularization of the Protestant faith, but much gained in the area
Some topics in this essay:
School Movement,
Middle Southern,
Deluder Act,
Mann Massachusetts,
Andrew Jackson,
Constitutional Convention,
School Society,
,
Board Education,
Public School,
school society,
common school,
public education,
cities industry,
religious freedom,
read write,
teacher preparation,
public school society,
public school,
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Approximate Word count = 1017
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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