COLONIAL AMERICA
1607 Ð The first permanent settlement in North America is established by the Virginia Company at Jamestown in what is now the state of Virginia.
1620 - The Mayflower arrives at Cape Cod, bringing the "Pilgrims" who establish the Plymouth Colony. Many of the Pilgrims are Puritans who had fled religious persecution in England. Their religious views come to dominate education in the New England colonies. ÊÊ Ê
1635 - The first Latin Grammar School (the Roxbury Latin School) is established. These schools are designed for only sons of certain social classes who are destined for leadership positions in church, state, or the courts.
1635 - The first "free school" in Virginia opens. However, education in the southern colonies is more typically provided at home by parents or tutors.
1636 - Harvard College, the first higher education institution in the New World, is established in Newton (now Cambridge), Massachusetts.
1640 - Henry Dunster becomes President of Harvard College. Dunster teaches all the courses himself!
1642 - The Massachusetts Bay School Law is passed. It requires that parents assure their children know the principles of religion and the capital laws of the commonwealth.
1647 - The Massachusetts Law of 1647, also known as the Old Deluder Satan Act, is passed. It decrees that every town of at least 50 families hire a schoolmaster who would teach the town's children to read and write and that all towns of at least 100 families should have a Latin grammar school master who will prepare students to attend Harvard College.
1690 - The first New England Primer is printed in Boston. It becomes the most widely-used schoolbook in New England.
1692 - The Plymouth Colony merges with the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1693 - The College of William and Mary is established in Virginia. It is the second college to open in colonial America and has the distinction of being Thomas Jefferson's college.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
1751 - Benjamin Franklin helps to establish the first "English Academy" in Philadelphia with a curriculum that is both classical and modern, including such courses as history, geography, navigation, surveying, and modern as well as classical languages. The academy ultimately becomes the University of Pennsylvania.
1779 Ð Thomas Jefferson proposes a two-track educational system, with different tracks for "the laboring and the learned."
1783 to 1785 - Because of his dissatisfaction with English textbooks of the day, Noah Webster writes A Grammatical Institute of the English Language , consisting of three volumes: a spelling book, a grammar book, and a reader.
1787 - The Constitutional Convention assembles in Philadelphia. Later that year, the constitution is endorsed by the Confederation Congress (the body that governed from 1781 until the ratification of the U.S. Constitution) and sent to state legislatures for ratification. The document does not include the words education or school.
1787 - The Northwest Ordinance is enacted by the Confederation Congress. Specifically recognizing the importance of education, Act 3 of the document begins, "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Perhaps of more practical importance, it stipulates that a section of land in every township of each new state be reserved for the support of education.
1788 - The U.S Constitution is ratified by the required number of states.
1791 - The Bill of Rights is passed by the first Congress of the new UnitedÊ States. No mention is made of education in any of the amendments. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution states that powers not delegated to the federal government "are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people." Thus, education becomes a function of the state rather than the federal government. Ê Ê
1821 - First public high school, Boston English High School, opens.
1827- The state of Massachusetts passes a law requiring towns of more than 500 families to have a public high school open to all students.
1836 - The first of William Holmes McGuffey's readers is published. Their secular tone sets them apart from the Puritan texts of the day. The McGuffey Readers, as they came to be known, are among the most influential textbooks of the 19th Century.
1837 - Horace Mann becomes Secretary of the newly formed Massachusetts State Board of Education. A visionary educator and proponent of public (or "free") schools, Mann works tirelessly for increased funding of public schools and better training for teachers.
1837 - Eighty students arrive at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, the first college for women in the U.S. Its founder/president is Mary Lyon.
1839 - The first state funded school specifically for teacher education (then known as "normal" schools) opens in Lexington, Massachusetts.
1852 - Massachusetts enacts the first mandatory attendance law. By 1885, 16 states have compulsory-attendance laws, but most of those laws are sporadically enforced at best. All states have them by 1918.
1856 - The first kindergarten in the U.S. is started in Watertown, Wisconsin, founded by Margarethe Schurz. Four years later, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody opens the first "formal" kindergarten in Boston, MA.
1857 - The National Teachers Association (now the National Education Association) is founded by forty-three educators in Philadelphia.
1860 - Abraham Lincoln, an anti-slavery Republican, is elected president.
1862 - The First Morrill Act, also known as the "Land Grant Act" becomes law. It donates public lands to states, the sale of which will be used for the "endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life." Many prominent state universities can trace their roots to this forward-thinking legislation.
1865 - The Civil War ends with Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. Much of the south, including its educational institutions, is left in disarray. Many schools are closed. Even before the war, public education in the south was far behind that in the north. The physical devastation left by the war as well as the social upheaval and poverty that follow exacerbate this situation.
1865 - Abraham Lincoln is assassinated, and Andrew Johnson, a southern Democrat and advocate of state's rights, becomes president.
1866 - The 14th Amendment is passed entitling all persons born or naturalized in the United States to citizenship and equal protection under the law. This gives freed male slaves the right to vote. Most southern states refuse to ratify it.
1867 - After hearing of the desperate situation faced schools in the south, George Peabody funds the two-million-dollar Peabody Education Fund to aid public education in southern states.
1875 - The Civil Rights Act is passed, banning segregation in all public accommodations. The Supreme Court rules it unconstitutional in 1883.
1881 - Booker T. Washington becomes the first principal of the newly-opened normal school in Tuskegee, Alabama, now Tuskegee University.
1890 - The Second Morrill Act is enacted. It provides for the "more complete endowment and support of the colleges "through the sale of public lands, Part of this funding leads to the creation of 16 historically black land-grant colleges.
1892 - The Committee on Secondary Social Studies, often called the Committee of Ten, recommends a college-oriented high school curriculum.