Reading, writing, arithmetic, science, and social studies. These are some of the subjects of a child’s education. But do you know what education was like long ago? It was really different than it is today!
The first school in New Jersey was founded in 1664 in the city of Newark. Similar to other earlier schools, the first school was held in a private home and had only six students! Schoolmasters were hired to teach students without any education or training.
During this time, public education did not exist in New Jersey. Parents had to pay for their children to attend school. Children who could not afford to go to school stayed home to do chores around the house. However in 1874, a law was passed requiring children in New Jersey to go to school.
The oldest schoolhouse in New Jersey was built in 1766. The inside of a one-room schoolhouse was small and contained only one teacher. Often, teachers in a one-room schoolhouse taught students of different ages. On average, 30 students attended one small schoolhouse. Most one-room schoolhouse rules were about being respectful and anger free. They had little heat and the teacher’s desk had to be next to the fireplace.
Young boys and girls would go to “Dame” school. It was called Dame School because a woman in the neighborhood would invite young students to her house. This was similar to what we call Kindergarten today. A “hornbook” was a piece of wood that served as a primer for study. After completing Dame School, boys would move on to grade school. In colonial times, boys attended school and girls stayed home with their mothers.
Boys learned their lessons from The New England Primer and The Bible. They learned reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and religion. New England Primers became the most successful educational textbook of its time.
One of the first known teachers in New Jersey was A.E. Sanderson. She made a decision to leave home and go to New Jersey to find a teaching job. She became a teacher in Lebanon, New Jersey. Teachers were different back then. They were very strict and disciplined their students with whips and forced students who did know their lessons to wear dunce caps. The dunce caps were similar to witch’s hats. Students were made to sit in the corner wearing their hats.
In the Colonial Times, they went to school for more than ten hours a day and they did their chores before school. If they had too many chores to do at home, they did not go to school that day. They attended school six days a week because Saturday was not a church day!
I am so fortunate to be able to attend school in New Jersey. I am thankful that I go to school in the year 2017 because school in the Colonial Times differed from school today! I now realize how lucky I am to have proper classrooms, nice teachers, and shorter school days!
Thank You
