Shaping Minds: The Primary Purposes of Education During Colonial Times

The purposes of education have evolved throughout history, varying across different societies and eras. Examining these historical purposes, especially during colonial times, provides valuable insights into the development of modern schooling and its impact on diverse cultures. This article delves into the primary goals of education during the colonial period, highlighting the influences that shaped educational practices and their enduring legacies.

Education Before Colonialism

It is important to acknowledge the traditions of learning that predate modern schooling to understand where we want to move as a global community in transforming education. Formal schooling began to take shape around the 18th century. However, numerous education systems, such as religious, civil service, apprenticeship, and indigenous systems, have existed for thousands of years. These pre-existing systems focused on the enrichment of the self, community, and society as their primary purposes. The artes liberalis (liberal arts) program, dating back to ancient Greece and Rome, taught broad-based curricula focused on grammar, rhetoric, and logic, as well as geometry, astronomy, and music. Apprenticeships and guilds from ancient civilizations in Egypt, Greece, and Rome provided vocational training and gave students spiritual and moral grounding.

Roots of Modern Schooling

Modern schooling primarily originated in Europe to build national identities for newly formed nation-states and to replace the Catholic Church’s political and social reign after The Thirty Years’ War (~1610-1648). The purpose of schooling in the 17th century was largely to create loyal subjects to the newly formed nation-states rather than the monarchies. It focused on assimilation, homogenization, and building national identities through standardized language and bringing together strangers to create a unified national identity for fostering social control and political legitimacy rather than democratic civic engagement as we understand it today. The Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation (~1685-1815) across the European empire emphasized education as a means to prepare good citizens. Protestant leaders like Martin Luther (1483-1546) and John Amos Comenius (1592-1670)-from Germany and what is now the Czech Republic-called for mass schooling to make religious texts widely available. Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke (1632-1704) and Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) argued for a secular government founded on citizen loyalty to the nation rather than the Catholic church. Modern schooling “assume(d) a primary responsibility for the moral, cultural, and political development of the nation (Andy Green, p.

Education in the Thirteen Colonies

Education in the Thirteen Colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries varied considerably. Public school systems existed only in New England. 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. 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.

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. Secondary schools were rare in the colonial era outside a handful of major towns.

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Dame Schools

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. 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 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. Both girls and boys were provided education through the dame school system. In the 18th and 19th centuries, some dame schools offered boys and girls from wealthy families a "polite education".

Secondary Education and Vocational Training

Secondary schools were rare in the colonial era outside major towns such as Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and 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.

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.

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. 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.

Should a young man have been able to receive a formal education, he would have had the opportunity to attend one of nine colleges in the colonies. The oldest of these was Harvard College (est. in 1636), where Revolutionary leaders John Adams and John Hancock had attended in their youth. The other colleges in the New England region included Yale College (est. in 1701), College of New Jersey (est. in 1746), King’s College (est. in 1754), The College of Philadelphia (est. in 1755)The College of Rhode Island (est. in 1764), Queen’s College (est. in 1766), Dartmouth College (est. in 1769). As for the South, the closest institution was the College of William & Mary in Virginia, which was established early on in 1639. These colleges were open to young boys who typically enrolled at the age of 13. Though all but King’s College and the College of Philadelphia had been founded by religious groups, by this time in the 18th-century many colleges expanded their curriculum to include law, medicine, and agriculture as the commercial interests of applicants grew. Still many professorships and trustees were reserved for ministers and religious leaders.

At colleges, faculty members were appointed by by each college’s board of trustees. In 1775, seven of the nine colleges had professors; Dartmouth and King’s College were still too small and relied solely on tutors and the president of the institution to teach its students. The College of William and Mary had six professors which was the most out of all the colleges during this time. Professors ranged from ordained ministers to laymen scientists.

Education for Girls

Education for women in Colonial America was limited and highly dependent on social class, region, and race. Girls received scarce formal schooling opportunities, as educational priorities for women centered on domestic skills like sewing, cooking, and household management rather than academic subjects like math, science, or advanced literacy. Girls from wealthier families sometimes received private tutoring at home or attended "dame schools," which were informal neighborhood schools run by women, where they learned basic reading, writing, and arithmetic alongside domestic arts. In New England, where literacy was more valued due to Puritan religious ideologies, girls had better access to basic education than in the southern colonies, where formal schooling was less accessible to both boys and girls due to the reliance on plantation labor and agriculture. While boys might prepare for higher education or apprenticeships, girls were expected to prepare for their roles as wives and mothers, with only a select few from elite families receiving a more robust education. Access to education was also stratified by race, as enslaved African American girls were largely denied any form of formal education, while Native American girls faced efforts at assimilation through missionary schools.

Education for Enslaved People

Formal education, as it was understood for white children, was largely inaccessible to enslaved individuals, who were generally prohibited from learning to read and write. While wealthier white families in the colonies hired private tutors or send their children to small local schools, enslaved families had no such opportunities for their children. At this time education was deeply tied to notions of social hierarchy, and enslaved people were deliberately kept illiterate to prevent rebellion or escape. Efforts to educate enslaved individuals were rare and often met with harsh punishment. In 1740, following the Stono Uprising, South Carolina passed the “The Negro Act,” which explicitly prohibited enslaved people from learning to read, among other restrictions. However, some enslaved people throughout the colonies managed to acquire literacy skills in secret or through new schools of the period, such as the Bray School pictured below.

Education for Indigenous Peoples

The colonial system had created some avenues of education for Indigenous people, such as the Harvard Indian School, founded in the 17th century, but were often short-lived. Many of the schools intended for Indigenous children were established in New England and founded by religious leaders, such as Reverend Eleazar Wheelock who established a missionary school in Connecticut as early as 1754. Wheelock’s was to teach the children the necessary skills to be missionaries in their own communities. The “Moor's Indian Charity School” was primarily composed of boys, but accepted a small number of girls who would receive a formal education as well as serve at local households to learn husbandry, sewing, and cleaning. As the students grew older they would then learn Latin, Greek, and Hebrew to prepare for careers as educators or ministers. While some students graduated and went on to become teachers and missionaries, reports show that many others struggled with alcohol addiction, illness, and homesickness. As a result, the majority of Indigenous children continued to learn through the traditions of their own communities.

As young children their education would be provided by the family unit, and older children would then by taught from skilled story tellers, spiritual leaders, and hunters. For tribes such as the Cherokee and Creek, teaching spiritual rituals also instilled agricultural knowledge since many festivals were closely linked with planting cycles. During the middle of the century, many colleges attempted to invite Indigenous men to their schools with the goals of assimilation and spreading Christianity. There is record of one Indigenous youth from Delaware who attended the College of New Jersey in 1751. However, many Indigenous communities expressed concerns over colonial education, as they found the system detrimental to the reintegration of students into their communities. Furthermore, accounts show that many students also died in their time away from home due to exposure to diseases like tuberculosis. Given the limited success of the schools, it became increasingly difficult for the British government to justify funding such programs.

Education in Louisiana

Louisiana was founded by France in the 1680, and New Orleans was established in 1718. In the 1760s, there was a large influx of French who had been expelled from Nova Scotia. 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 nuns of the Catholic Church took in charge of education for girls with the Ursuline Academy in New Orleans. It was founded in 1727 by the French sisters of the Order of Saint Ursula.

School Teachers

School teachers varied in their qualifications and backgrounds based on the different schools at which they worked. For example, in dame schools, where the children were between the ages of three to seven, the teachers were usually widowed or unmarried women who would teach neighboring children for a fee.

In town schools where the parents paid to maintain the schoolhouse, the teachers were predominantly men. The same applied to hired tutors in private homes. Some of these men were indentured servants escaping debt while others were educated young men who taught as a stepping stone in their long-term careers.

In the cases where women were hired to keep schools, they were often paid less than men due to a lack of college education. Records show that the salaries of married women or single women would also go to their husbands and fathers. Widowed women or women without fathers were able to keep their earnings, so teaching became a way for them to sustain themselves and their families.

High turnover rates were common among teachers, as the pay was often very little. It was not entirely uncommon for teachers to be paid through housing as well.

Colonial Education and its Lasting Impact

As modern schooling was intentionally spread and dispersed by colonial forces within Europe and across the world, the result was often the displacement and repressing of existing education models and philosophies of education. This global expansion needs more systematic dialogue about how and which purposes of schooling were assumed in the process. As Julius K. Nyerere, the first president of independent Tanzania, said, “The education provided by the colonial government in the two countries which now form Tanzania had a different purpose. It was not designed to prepare young people for service of their country; instead, it was motivated by a desire to inculcate the values of a colonial society and train individuals for service of the colonial state” (p. 2-3).

Throughout history, critics of modern schooling have challenged the positioning of schools for building national identities and civic engagement, and economic development. These critiques can be seen in Indigenous education movements, as discussed in Linda Tuhiwahi Smith’s foundational work on decolonizing methodologies and Paolo Freire’s work on critical dialogues in education in Brazil and Latin America.

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