hanningmeier 13).
Knight cites the passage in 1641 in New Plymouth of "an act recognizing the principle of the English Poor Law of 1601, that the care of poor children was a public responsibility, and providing that they could be placed in families for proper maintenance, and presumably also for education" (100). This resulted in the apprenticeship of children to sundry trades, with the tradesmasters assuming responsibility for the education of children in their charge. In 1671, New Plymouth ordered public officials to exercise oversight on parents and tradesmasters charged with education of their natural children or apprentices. Those who disregarded these duties were fined (Knight 101, passim). The New England model had analogues in the Middle and Southern colonies. For example, in 1646, the Virginia Colony enacted an apprenticeship act similar to one enacted in 1642 in New England, but focusing less on religious training than on "the necessity of teaching the poor a useful trade" (Johanningmeier 26).
Education as apprenticeship gradually gave rise to the system of education of the underprivileged, but classical education in languages and the liberal arts was by and large the province of the elite. Classmates at Harvard and Yale were listed or seated not alphabetically but according to social rank. As in England, persons of rank were educated to prepare them for leadership of social inferiors.
In the colonial period, childhood education was a product of public and private cosponsorship, with community religious sects a typical locus of control. In Maryland in 1723, the legislature sought to institute a cross-county system of public schools for poor children, but the scheme "failed for lack of funds" (Knight 111). A Delaware law enacted in 1744 provided that local residents should "support at all times as many ministers and schoolmasters as the number of inhabitants shall require" (Knight 111). Even where education was compuls...