Education in the Thirteen Colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries varied considerably. Public school systems existed only in New England. In the 18th Century, the Puritan emphasis on literacy largely influenced the significantly higher literacy rate (70 percent of men) of the Thirteen Colonies, mainly New England, in comparison to Britain (40 percent of men) and France (29 percent of men). How much education a child received depended on a person's social and family status. Families did most of the educating, and boys were favored. Educational opportunities were much sparser in the rural South. New-England Primer Enlarged printed and sold by Benjamin Franklin

New-England Primer Enlarged printed and sold by Benjamin Franklin

The Puritans valued education, both for the sake of religious study (they demanded a great deal of Bible reading) and for the sake of citizens who could participate better in town meetings. A 1647 Massachusetts law mandated that every town of 50 or more families support a 'petty' (elementary) school and every town of 100 or more families support a Latin, or grammar, school where a few boys could learn Latin in preparation for college and the ministry or law. In practice, virtually all New England towns made an effort to provide some schooling for their children. Both boys and girls attended the elementary schools, and there they learned to read, write, cipher, and they also learned religion. The first Catholic school for both boys and girls was established by Father Theodore Schneider in 1743 in the town of Goshenhoppen, PA (present day Bally) and is still in operation. In the mid-Atlantic region, private and sectarian schools filled the same niche as the New England common schools. The South, overwhelmingly rural, had few schools of any sort until the Revolutionary era. Wealthy children studied with private tutors; middle-class children might learn to read from literate parents or older siblings; many poor and middle-class white children, as well as virtually all black children, went unschooled. Literacy rates were significantly lower in the South than the north; this remained true until the late nineteenth century. Secondary schools were rare in the colonial era outside a handful of major towns. They generally emphasized Latin grammar, rhetoric, and advanced arithmetic with the goal of preparing boys to enter college.

Young children

Dame schools

{{Further, Dame school The Americans copied the "dame school" from the version that was popular in Great Britain. It was a private school taught by a woman for nearby boys and girls. The education provided by these schools ranged from basic to exceptional. The basic type of dame school was common in New England, where basic literacy was expected of all classes and where people lived close together in villages. It was less common in the southern colonies, where there were fewer educated women available as teachers, and where towns and villages were few and farms were so distant that the children could not easily walk there every day. Motivated by the religious needs of Puritan society and their own economic needs, some colonial women in 17th century rural New England opened small, private schools in their homes to teach reading and catechism to young children. An education in reading and religion was required for children by the Massachusetts School Law of 1642. This law was later strengthened by the famous Old Deluder Satan Law, Old Deluder Satan Act. According to Puritan beliefs, Satan would try to keep people from understanding the Scriptures, therefore it was considered necessary that all children be taught how to read. Dame schools fulfilled this requirement when parents were unable to educate their young children in their own home. For a small fee, women, often housewives or widows, offered to take in children to whom they would teach a little writing, reading, basic prayers and religious beliefs. These women received ''"''tuition''"'' in coin, home industries, alcohol, baked goods and other valuables. Teaching materials generally included, and often did not exceed, a hornbook, primer, Psalter and Bible.Harper, Elizabeth P. "Dame Schools". In Encyclopedia of Educational Reform and Dissent, Thomas Hunt, Thomas Lasley and C D. Raisch, 259–260. SAGE Publications (2010). Both girls and boys were provided education through the dame school system. Dame schools generally focused on the Three R's, four R's of education — ''Reading, Riting, Rithmetic, and Religion''. In addition to primary education, girls in dame schools might also learn sewing, embroidery, and other "graces". Most girls received their only formal education from dame schools because of sex-segregated education in common or public schools during the colonial period. If their parents could afford it, after attending a dame school for a rudimentary education in reading, colonial boys moved on to Elementary school (United States), grammar schools where a male teacher taught advanced arithmetic, writing, Latin and Greek. In the 18th and 19th centuries, some dame schools offered boys and girls from wealthy families a "polite education". The women running these elite dame schools taught "reading, writing, English, French, arithmetic, music and dancing". Schools for upper-class girls were usually called "female seminary, female seminaries", "finishing schools" etc. rather than "dame schools".

Teenagers

Secondary schools were rare in the colonial era outside major towns such as Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Charleston, South Carolina, Charleston. Where they existed, secondary schools generally called "academies," were private schools that emphasized Latin grammar, rhetoric, and advanced arithmetic with the goal of preparing boys to enter college. Some secondary schools also taught practical subjects such as accounting, navigation, surveying, and modern languages. Some families sent their children to live and work with other families (often relatives or close friends) as a capstone to their education. Few youth of the colonial era had access to secondary or higher education, but many benefited from various types of vocational education, especially apprenticeship. Both boys and girls were apprenticed for varying terms (up to fifteen years in the case of young orphans). In addition to the 3Rs, boys were typically taught a trade, and girls sewing and household management, . Of course, many children learned job skills from their parents or employers without embarking on a formal apprenticeship.

Higher education

Colleges were set up on the British model with the goal of producing educated ministers and good citizens. The curriculum was heavily weighted to Latin and Greek, plus some mathematics. The faculties were small and electives were rare. Extra curricular activities such as clubs, fraternities, and sports were rare before 1800. All were private boarding schools. Except for the College of Philadelphia, each was sponsored by the locally dominant religious denomination. The Colonial colleges, first colleges, not including pre-collegiate academies, were: *New College in Massachusetts (subsequently Harvard University) (1636) *College of William and Mary in Virginia (1693) *Collegiate School in Connecticut (subsequently Yale University) (1701) *College of New Jersey (subsequently Princeton University) (1746) *King's College in New York (subsequently Columbia University) (1754) *College of Philadelphia (subsequently the University of Pennsylvania) (1755) *College of Rhode Island (subsequently Brown University) (1764) *Queen's College in New Jersey (subsequently Rutgers University) (1766) *Dartmouth College in New Hampshire (1769) Only white males were admitted; some took students as young as 14 or 15, and most had some sort of preparatory academy for those who needed Latin or other basic skills. College faculties were generally very small, typically consisting of the college president (usually a clergyman), perhaps one or two professors, and several tutors, i.e. graduate students who earned their keep by teaching the underclassmen. All students followed the same course of study, which was of three or (more commonly) four years' duration. Collegiate studies focused on ancient languages, ancient history, theology, and mathematics. In the 18th century, science (especially astronomy and physics) and modern history and politics assumed a larger (but still modest) place in the college curriculum. Until the mid-18th century, most graduates became Protestant clergymen. Towards the end of the colonial period, law became another popular career choice for college graduates.

French Louisiana

History of Louisiana, Louisiana was founded by France in the 1680, and History of New Orleans, New Orleans was established in 1718,. In the 1760s there was a large influx of Expulsion of the Acadians, French who had been expelled from Nova Scotia. Spain was in control from 1762 until the purchase of the territory by the United States in 1803, but French was the common language. The private company that operated Louisiana ignored schools, as did the population at large. A school for boys soon closed. Apprenticeship was the training route for boys. However the History of the Ursulines in New Orleans, nuns of the Catholic Church took in charge of education for girls with the Ursuline Academy (New Orleans), Ursuline Academy in New Orleans. It was founded in 1727 by the French Ursulines, sisters of the Order of Saint Ursula. It is both the oldest, continuously-operating school for girls in the United States and the oldest Catholic school in the U.S.. It also holds many American firsts, including the first female pharmacist, first woman to contribute a book of literary merit, first convent, first free school and first retreat center for ladies, and first classes for female African-American slaves, free women of color, and Native Americans.Clark Robenstine, "French Colonial Policy and the Education of Women and Minorities: Louisiana in the Early Eighteenth Century," ''History of Education Quarterly'' (1992) 32#2 pp. 193–211
in JSTOR
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Notes

*Axtell, James. ''The school upon a hill: Education and society in colonial New England.'' (Yale University Press, 1974), a major scholarly survey.. *Bailyn, Bernard. ''Education in the Forming of American Society'' (U of North Carolina Press, 1960
online
* Bridenbaugh, Carl. ''Cities in revolt: urban life in America, 1743-1776'' (1955) pp.172-179, 373-380
online
* Brown, Richard D. ''The Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in America, 1650-1870'' (1996) * Cohen, Sheldon S. ''A History of Colonial Education, 1607-1776'' (1974) , a major scholarly survey
online
* Cott, Nancy F. ''The Bonds of Womanhood:" Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835'' (Yale UP, 1977) pp 101-125 on education. *Cremin, Lawrence. ''American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607–1783.'' (Harper & Row, 1970). with extensive bibliograph
online
*Faragher, John Mack, ed. ''The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America.'' New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. * Herbst, Jürgen. ''From Crisis to Crisis: American College Government, 1636-1819'' (Harvard University Press, 1982). * Jannenga, Stephanie C. "Making College Colonial: The Transformation of English Culture in Higher Education in Pre-Revolutionary America" (PhD dissertation, Kent State University, 2020)
online
*Johnson, Clifton. ''Old-Time Schools and School-books.'' (1917
online
400 pages of factual detail and illustrations (which are out of copyright) * Kelley, Brooks Mather. ''Yale: A History'' (1974) pp. 1-112. *Knight, Edgar Wallace. ''Public education in the South'' (1922
online edition
* Morgan, Edmund S. ''The Puritan Family'' (2nd ed. 1966), pp. 87-108
online
* Morgan, Edmund S. ''Virginians at home : family life in the eighteenth century'' (1952) pp 9-22
online
* Morison, Samuel Eliot. ''The intellectual life of colonial New England'' (2nd ed. 1956
online
pp 27-112. * Morison, Samuel Eliot. ''Three centuries of Harvard, 1636-1936'' (1965) pp. 3-148
online
* Norton, Mary Beth. ''Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800'' (Cornell University Press, 1980; reprint with new preface 1996) pp 256-294
online
* Prangle, Lorraine Smith, and Thomas L. Pangle. ''The Learning of Liberty: The Educational Ideas of the American Founders'' (1993). * Purvis, Thomas L. ''Colonial America to 1763'' (Facts on File, 2014) pp 239-250; detailed statistics
online
*Robson, David W. ''Educating Republicans: The College in the Era of the American Revolution, 1750–1800''. Greenwood, 1985. 272 pp. *Spruill, Julia Cherry. ''Women's Life and Work in the Southern Colonies.'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1938), pp. 185-232 on schooling and also librarie
online
* Woody,Thomas. ''A History Of Women's Education In The United States Volume I'' (1929
online
pages 138-147, 177-217, 268-273. History of the Thirteen Colonies History of education in the United States, Thirteen Colonies