3587 - Public Schools by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 17, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 41.

3587 — Public Schools

By Editor

When and where was the first public school taught? N. C. R.

We would be glad to reply to our correspondent, but among all our encyclopedias we have nothing which gives any definite information regarding the first public school. We doubt whether, in the very nature of the case, such information can be obtained. The archeological records which have come down to us would seem to indicate that education was quite prevalent in Babylon and Egypt, and in some sort of way the schools were themselves public. While the Hebrews had their home school, and education was generally prevalent, the schools of the prophets seem to have been true public schools. In modern times, going as far back as 1642, twenty-two years after the landing of the Mayflower, the Massachusetts colonists passed a law requiring every citizen, under a penalty of twenty shillings, to teach his children and apprentices, or have them taught, to read perfectly the English language.

Five years later they passed another law, requiring, under penalty, every township containing fifty households to support a teacher to teach their children to read and write; requiring every township containing one hundred households to maintain a grammar school capable of fitting youths for the university. These would seem to be real public schools, not supported in the way they are now, but really open to all children, and maintained by the law of the State. Of course, to go away back of this, God has always been the teacher of the children of earth. The 19th Psalm truly says that "the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." It is, as Bishop Taylor says, "God's great, primary, universal day-and-night-school."