The American History Podcast, Episode 13, American Colonial Society, Part 2.

Welcome to the American History podcast.

Hosted by Sean Worswick.

Okay, welcome back to the show. Today we continue our bonus series or a series of bonus episodes for those at the $5 a month level and above detailing the history of colonial America.

Now, as always, I appreciate your support. I know there's a ton of podcasts out there and you've

got a choice when it comes to which shows you'll listen to and which ones you'll support.

And I know I've not been as active lately, especially here on Patreon as I would like.

So I really do thank you for your support and for listening

to the show. Now with that being said, let's just jump into this bad boy. And one of the

misconceptions that I've encountered about the colonial era is that there was no education

available back in the day. And that's quite untrue. England was very much dedicated to education.

First of all, they were, at least generally speaking, all about religion, and they stressed the importance of the Bible and the fact that members of the community should read it.

And by the way, that was not England.

It was New England.

My bad.

Now, if you want people to read the Bible, well, you have to make

sure that they can read. To help facilitate this, both primary and secondary schools were established

very early on, thanks to something called the Massachusetts School of Laws of 1647. These laws are

seen as the first step towards compulsory government-directed public education

here in the United States. Now, because of the emphasis on reading, literacy rates in New England

were much higher than in Chesapeake or the Deep South, where only the privileged enjoyed the benefits

of education. Now, the middle colonies also had primary and secondary schools. Some

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