ABSTRACT
The quality and the smooth working of democracy in America have been commonly associated with the low percentage of illiteracy and the general diffusion of an elementary education among the people. Serious concern for education was one of the chief characteristics of the Puritans who settled New England in the seventeenth century. The type of education which they wished to promote was indeed of a limited and very carefully guarded sort. The Massachusetts school system is in all essential respects the model upon which the school system of the United States has been fashioned. These essential points are a free primary-school in every local community to teach the rudiments of knowledge to all children who may attend. The establishment of free schools was made an easy thing in America, as many things have been made easy, by the existence of an abundance of public land.
