ABSTRACT
American Education attitudes were formed by means of the oral tradition. As Euro-Americans established villages in areas once inhabited only by natives, they began to insist that native children be civilized and Christianized. As soon as the first groups of Europeans began establishing outposts in the new world, they became learners as well as teachers. They and the Native Americans with whom they came in contact engaged in a process of cultural exchange that was educative in the broadest meaning of that term. Cultural Diversity in Pre-Columbian America Until recent years, archeological scholarship has held that the first inhabitants of the North American continent crossed over the Bering Land Bridge around 13,000 b.c. American Education As the original Americans spread across the continent and southward into Central and South America, they developed a variety of indigenous societies. Native American children learned of the essentials of life by being exposed from infancy to the shared wisdom and heritage of their group.
