General Education

Children were first taught by Mother, if she could read.

Dames School, for 4-year-olds and older, were usually taught by widows and spinsters in their own homes. Children were taught sewing, knitting, and making samplers (even boys), and they had to take out mistakes and re-do until done correctly.

All girls were supposed to learn to sew, cook, read, write, cipher, dance, and how to walk properly (with a backboard strapped on to stand straight or with a book balanced on their heads). Learning to play a musical instrument was just beginning.

Children went from Dames School to the one-room school if one couldn’t afford private teaching.

One-room schools. By 1647 in Massachusetts, any town with 50 families had to provide a school. Parents paid for supplies and provided wood or worked it off. Written work was done on fools cap in ink. These sheets were sewn into books and ruled by hand. After the Revolution, slates were used. Arithmetic was taught by rote. The teacher read math facts and problems from his own “Sum Book.” The pupils learned by repetition, writing, and reciting. All lessons were recited out loud—if bright, students could learn by listening to others.

Before the Revolution, books used were from Great Britain. Students used a hornbook, primer, psalter, testament and Bible. In the late 18th century, readers, arithmetic, Latin, and grammar were taught. In 1786, the book The Art of Speaking was widely used. Speeches by Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, and “other Revolutionaries” were recited. Books were not assigned a grade level until the mid-1830s.

The standard size of the classroom was 30 ft. x 25 ft. with an open fireplace at the north end for heating purposes. If there was enough money allocated by the town for wood, the children sitting near the fire would soon be roasted while others shivered. Children would have to switch seats from time to time to try to maintain a balance. Sometimes there was no money for wood and all would be cold.

Boys older than 12 were allowed to make their own quill pens. They also helped mix powdered ink with water.

Any well-educated man in town could be a School Master who taught reading, writing, and ciphering. They sometimes used their homes and might be hired for the winter only. Sometimes young women were used as teachers in the summer.

Boys were given the opportunity to live with educated men—a relative or friend—to learn Latin, etc. Other boys were sent to be apprentices for approximately 7 years (from age 8 to 15). They had four choices: work on a farm, go to the sea, or learn a trade; some boys went to college.

In the latter half of the 18th century, the first boarding schools for girls were started. They were taught housekeeping, social graces, fancy sewing, and how to be a gracious hostess. Neatness, decorum, regularity, and quietness were stressed. The etiquette of visiting, dinner parties, and dancing were taught.

Holliston’s One-room School

Clapboarded, unpainted, rough plaster with fireplace. Long shelf on one side where students did their writing. Rows of benches with a center aisle and teacher’s desk opposite the fireplace. School was held 10–12 weeks in winter for older boys and girls and for 6–8 weeks in summer for younger boys and girls.

An early First School Master, John Stone, son of the first minister, was a tavern-keeper, trial justice, and town clerk as well. There were several district schools. The size of the one that was near the burying ground was 21 ft. x 16 ft. The first woman teacher in Holliston was Dinah Littlefield. She may have taught in her own home.

Curriculum

In 1789, arithmetic, English Language, orthography, and decent behavior were added to the curriculum.

Examples of materials used:

From the New England Primer, patterned after English books, 1691—used for 100 years as the principal beginning reading book—consisted of a picture alphabet and rhymes for each letter:

In Adam’s fall
We sinned all
Zaccabeus he
Did climb the Tree
His Lord to see.

From The Columbian Orator, published in 1797 by Caleb Bingham, bookshop owner and founder of the Boston Public Library:

Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow;
And though now I am small and young,
Of judgment weak, and feeble tongue,
Yet all great, learned men, like me
Once learned to read their ABC.
        — David Everett

Noah Webster, a lawyer and school master in Connecticut, wrote The American Spelling Book in 1780, known as the Old Bluebacked Speller. Over one hundred million copies were sold—the largest selling textbook of all time. The American Spelling Book contained reading, grammar, pronunciation, and spelling—with geography and morals guidance thrown in. Before publication of this book, if you could read and understand a work, it was considered spelled correctly.

One of the earliest books for children in the middle of the 18th century was Jack the Giant Killer by John Newberry, an Englishman. He also published Mother Goose’s verses and other Goose’s Melodies in 1785.

Schools also taught manners:

• Bite not your bread, but break it.

• Take salt with a clean knife.

• Dip not thy meat in same.

• Sing not, hum not, wiggle not at the table.

Discipline

When it came to the discipline of children, the colonists firmly believed that there was a “stubbornness and stoutness of mind in all children” which must be broken and beaten down.

Because birch and willow trees were plentiful in Massachusetts, the schools were certain to have an ample supply of whipping rods. In Boston, merchants advertised the sale of fine rods for children. If the children attended a private school, the cost of a rod was often added to their tuition. Because the swishing of the rod made a whispering sound as it was whipped through the air, the children named them “whispering sticks.”