Education history Essay Example For Students

Education history Essay What factors in society ended sectarianism in schools, and made them secular?Probably no single movement so greatly affected colonial America as the Protestant Reformation. Most of the Europeans who came to America were Protestants, but there were many denominations. Lutherans from Germany and Scandinavia settled in the middle colonies along with Puritans and Presbyterians. The Reformation was centered upon efforts to capture the minds of men, therefore great emphasis was placed on the written word. Obviously schools were needed to promote the growth of each denomination. Luthers doctrines made it necessary for boys and girls to learn to read the Scriptures. While the schools that the colonists established in the 17th century in the New England, southern and middle colonies differed from one another, each reflected a concept of schooling that had been left behind in Europe. Most poor children learned through apprenticeship and had no formal schooling at all. Those who did go to eleme ntary school were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion. Learning consisted of memorizing, which was stimulated by whipping. The first basic textbook, the New England Primer, was Americas own contribution to education(Pulliam, Van Patten 86). Used from 1609 until the beginning of the 19th century, its purpose was to teach both religion and reading. The child learning the letter a, for example, also learned that In Adams fall, We sinned all. As in Europe, then, schools in the colonies were strongly influenced by religion. This was particularly true of schools in the New England area, which had been settled by Puritans and other English religious dissenters. The school in colonial New England was not a pleasant place either, physically or psychologically. Great emphasis was placed on the shortness of life and the torments of hell. Like the Protestants of the Reformation, who established vernacular elementary schools in Germany in the 16th century, the Puritans sought to ma ke education universal. They took the first steps toward government-supported universal education in the colonies. In 1647, Puritan Massachusetts passed a law requiring that every child be taught to read. It being the chief object of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the scriptures,it is therefore ordered, that every townshipafter the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders,shallappoint one within their town to teach all children as shall resort him to read and write. It is further ordered, that where any town shall increase to the number of one hundred familiesthey shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university. Old Deluder Satan Act.Massachusetts Laws of 1647(Pulliam, Van Patten 51)Puritan or not, virtually all of the of the colonial schools had a clear-cut moral purposes. Skills and knowledge were considered important to the degree that they served religio us ends and trained the mind(Gutmann 180). Early schools supplied the students with moral lessons, not just reading, writing and arithmetic. Obviously, the founders saw it necessary to apply these techniques, feeling that in was necessary that the students learn these particular values. As the spirit of science, commercialism, secularism, and individualism quickened in the Western world, education in the colonies was called upon to satisfy the practical needs of seamen, merchants, artisans, and frontiersmen. The effect of these new developments on the curriculum in American schools was more immediate and widespread than its effect in European schools. Practical content was soon in competition with religious concerns. Vocational education was more significant in the Middle colonies than elsewhere in colonial America. The academy that Benjamin Franklin helped found in 1751 was the first of a growing number of secondary schools that sprang up in competition with the Latin schools. Fran klins academy continued to offer the humanist-religious curriculum, but it also brought education closer to the needs of everyday life. Teaching such courses as history, geography, merchant accounts, geometry, algebra. These subjects were more practical, seeing as how industry and business were driving forces in the creation of the United States, while religious classes could not support a family or pay the debts. By the 1880s the United States was absorbing several million immigrants a year, a human flood that created new problems for the common school. The question confronting educators was what to teach to educate and prepare them for the work force. Religion was still an important part of their lives but with so varied a population it was impossible to teach any one and families kept their members involved in the church and children learned about religion through Sunday school and by being active in church social gatherings. Hydrocephalus EssayPulliam John D., James Van Patten. History of Education in AmericaNew Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1999. Ravitch, Diane The Troubled Crusade: American EducationBasic Books: New York, 1983.