Colonial Values
A split during the education reform movement between the North and South in the 1800s can be traced back to the colonial period. Differences in values in the North and the South back in the colonial days is one reason that the North and South had different approaches in the education reform movement.
The North
The first college in the US, Harvard College, was founded by Puritans.
The immense effort in the North toward education reform in the 1800s reflected the Puritan value of education. The Puritans in the colonial period were strong supporters of education due to their religion (Puritanism). They wanted children to be able to read the Bible, so they educated them. In 1647, the Massachusetts General Court passed the Old Satan Deluder Act, which required every town with fifty or more people to create a elementary school with a writing and reading teacher. Some of the first colleges in the US (like Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth) were founded by religious men of the North during the colonial period. These schools that were founded during the colonial period are now some of the top schools in the US. It is clear that education was very important in the colonial period for the Puritans, and in the North as a whole. This strong stress on education for the Puritans carried over to the 1800s in the North, making the North more eager to partake in education reform, as they had thought that education was important since the colonial period.
The South
For the most part, only children of wealthy plantation owners got and education.
The strict social hierarchy in colonial South led to a dramatic difference in education opportunities for children, which ultimately led to the belief that only the upper class need an education. A social class system was extremely present in colonial South. In his book Albion's Seed, Fischer writes that a small, elite, rich group of immigrants in colonial south were "destined to play a large role in the history of Virginia-- not merely in politics and economics, but also in society and culture. The formation of southern folkways owed much to their example" (Martin). It is clear that there was a set social ladder in colonial South, where the small upper class had most of the power. Peter Kolchin backs up Fischer's argument, stating that in colonial South there was "a highly stratified world in which the rich and powerful savagely exploited the poor and powerless" (Martin). This social "ladder" in which the rich had all the power created a wide, diverse variety in education for children. Colonial upper class children were taught by private tutors, while lower class children barely learned to read and write, due to differences in socioeconomic status. The strict ladder that made up the colonial society of the South carried on to the 1800s, where wealthy plantation owners with power in Southern society had no need for tax-supported, public education. Therefore, they opposed the education reform movement. And since they had the majority of the power, they were able to successfully combat education reform, while poorer Southerners remained uneducated.