Educating Boys and Girls in the Colonies

After learning to read and write at home or in a Dame School in what we would call "early childhood education" today, most girls discontinued any schooling. Their mothers would teach them household skills at home now. Most boys, however, went on to another school or received more education at home, either by a parent or a tutor they hired. 

It wasn't long before many of the colonies had laws, something to the effect that any town of more than fifty residents had to provide a school for boys. These were not schools as we know them today, though. Most were uncomfortable with hard benches and only one fireplace. Each boy had to provide his share of the wood to burn. Those who brought the most sat closest to the fire. Each family also had to pay the schoolmaster, but most paid in bartered goods.

The schoolmaster usually kept strict discipline by using switches to whip students who misbehaved or didn't know their lesson. It was also common to embarrass the student who didn't follow the rules by having him wear signs declaring what he did wrong, wearing a dunce cap, etc. 

Paper was scarce and expensive, and students might have to write on birch bark. They used either a lump of lead or a goose quill pen dipped in homemade ink. Spelling wasn't standardized, and The New England Primer was a commonly used textbook. Other sources might include The Bible, Aesop's Fables, and Robinson Crusoe (after 1719).

When the boys finished the coursework here, most went to work or to learn a trade, but a few continued their education. Some of the wealthier families chose to send their sons back to England to be educated.

_________________________________________