Education in the New England Colonies

In the New England colonies (Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut), many people shared similar values, which made it possible to establish town schools. In particular, two laws moved New Englanders in the direction of town schools. The Massachusetts Act of 1642 required that parents and master craftsmen with apprentices be monitored to ensure that children were learning to read and understand religious principles. The Massachusetts Act of 1647, sometimes referred to as Old Deluder Satan Act, required towns to educate youth so they might thwart (put a stop to) Satan’s trickery. To produce Scripture-literate citizens, every town of fifty households had to employ a teacher of reading and writing, and every town of one hundred households had to provide a grammar school to prepare students for continuing study at Harvard University.
Many settlers in the northern colonies were Puritans who followed the teaching of John Calvin, a Swiss religious reformer. Calvin believed God was omnipotent and good, whereas human being were evil and helpless, predestined for either salvation or eternal torment. Schools were to produce literate, hardworking, frugal (economical), and respectful men and women who could resist temptation. Calvin saw children as savage and primitive creatures [who] needed training and discipline to achieve a life of social conformity and religious commitment.
Colonist living in southern cities experienced a life style quite different from colonist in other areas of the country. Northern cities were densely (Heavily) populated trading centers. Merchants, who where key people in the community; offered an array (selection) of goods and services not found elsewhere, ships brought both goods and ideas from England and Europe that seldom (rarely) made their way south. Overall, city dwellers on the eastern seaboard were among the best informed and sometimes the most influential of the colonists. In addition, many schoolteachers in the North were better educated than teachers in other parts of the country (Blum et al., 1993) (Education the Practice and Profession of Teaching Fifth Edition).