ldren and competent workers. The first New World college, Harvard, was established in 1636 to prepare young men for religious or governmental service.
Around 1826, Josiah Holbrook laid the groundwork for what would become the American Lyceum movement, a public drive to improve and unify schools across the country. Supporters included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Horace Greeley, and Abraham Lincoln. The movement, which thrived for more than 40 years throughout the country, came to center on lecture series and adult education programs, but it provided the groundwork for the common school movement, extending the principles of unive
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