In late colonial America schooling was plentiful but unorganized; schools were increasing in importance but still supplementary to the family, the church, and apprenticeship. Throughout the colonies schools provided training in rudiments for the many, classical training for the few, and some supplementary schooling in technical subjects for a growing number of town dwellers. Common schooling was not “neglected,” as historians of the public school system once asserted; rather, the legacy of the colonial period was a mode of schooling quite different in structure and operation from that to which we have been accustomed since the mid-nineteenth century. In coastal towns like New York, parents bought schooling as a commodity in an open market. Schoolmasters competing for students offered subjects ranging from the alphabet to astronomy, for children of all ages, at all times of the day. Schooling arrangements were haphazard and temporary; people in all ranks of society gained their education in a patchwork, rather than a pattern, of teachers and experiences.

Historians have recently begun to examine the contribution of education to American economic development during the antebellum period. To a large degree the study of education and its effects on economic productivity during this period is a reflection of similar efforts by economists analyzing education in the 1960s. Unfortunately, the few historical studies of the role of education in American economic and demographic development have suffered from a lack of educational data and the resulting generalizations have been based on very fragmentary evidence. Particularly lacking is any series of educational data over time that might be compared with a series of economic or demographic variables.

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