The Beginning of Public Education
As the populations in the towns grew, and the complexity of Colonial society increased, the colonies realized that there was a compelling government interest in the education and literacy of the inhabitants. The very first public school law on this continent was in Massachusetts and was enacted in 1642. It commissioned an individual to have oversight of the parents responsibility to educate their children. We read:
This court, taking into consideration the great neglect of many parents and masters in the training up their children in learning and labor and other implements which may be profitable to the common wealth, do hereby order and decree, that in every town, chosen men appointed for managing the prudential affairs for the same shall henceforth stand charged with the care of the redress of this evil, so as they shall be adficiently punished by fines for the neglect thereof, upon presentation to a grand jury, or other complaint....(They) shall have power to take account from time to time of parents and masters, and of their children, concerning their calling and implement of their children, especially of their ability to read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of this country.
The government had a compelling interest in making sure that children could read and comprehend the principles of Christianity. This law was followed five years later with an order for towns to appoint a publicly paid teacher to make sure children could understand scripture. The Massachusetts School Law of 1647 is frequently known as the "Old Deluder Satan" ruling.
It being one of the chief projects of the old deluder Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from use of tongues, yet at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded by false glosses of saint seeming deceivers, yet learning may not be buried in the grave of our fathers in the church of the commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors. It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord has increased the number to 50 households, shall forwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as should resort to him to read and write.
Not only were the primary schools founded for the teaching of the Bible and principles of Christianity, the higher institutions of learning were also founded for the purpose of spreading the Gospel. Harvard University was founded at this time (1636) for the purpose of training clergy for ministry. In 1642, Harvard stated the Rules and Precepts for the college. Among the rules were
Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of sound knowledge and learning. (Rules and Precepts, sec. 2)
Several decades later (1693) , the College of William and Mary was founded in Virginia. The charter specifically states that it was founded for the training of ministers and that the attending students:
might be piously educated in good letters and manners, and the Christian faith might be propagated among the Western Indians to the Glory of God…
George Washington received his surveyor’s commission at William and Mary in 1749, and later became the college’s chancellor. Both Thomas Jefferson ad Benjamin Franklin received degrees from there as well. Shortly after William and Mary was founded, Yale was founded in Connecticut. In 1701, the trustees of Yale stated in the charter that the purpose of Yale was to
Plant, and under ye Divine blessing to propagate in the wilderness, the blessed Reformed, Protestant religion, in it’s purity of order and worship. (November 11th, 1701).
Each school had specific directives for the spiritual training of it’s students that included times of prayer and Bible reading. The original mission of not only of our educational institutions, but of the very colonies themselves are so intertwined with the evangelical dimension of Christianity that they were inseparable. The spreading of Christianity is the fundamental basis for the existence of the colonies and it’s institutions. These principles of the colonies remained inviolate for many years. They were an integral part of the American experience.