page_title: Puritans
section_title: Education
hierarchical_section_title: Puritans / Cultural consequences / Education
caption_attribution_description: mezzotint portrait of Cotton Mather (Feb. 12, 1663 - Feb. 13, 1728), American Puritan clergyman.
context_page_description: The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries, who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English history, especially during the Protectorate.
  Puritans were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's toleration of certain practices associated with the Roman Catholic Church. They formed and identified with various religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and corporate piety. Puritans adopted a Reformed theology and, in that sense, were Calvinists. In church polity, some advocated separation from all other established Christian denominations in favour of autonomous gathered churches. These Separatist and independent strands of Puritanism became prominent in the 1640s, when the supporters of a presbyterian polity in the Westminster Assembly were unable to forge a new English national church.
context_section_description: At a time when the literacy rate in England was less than 30 percent, the Puritan leaders of colonial New England believed children should be educated for both religious and civil reasons, and they worked to achieve universal literacy. In 1642, Massachusetts required heads of households to teach their wives, children and servants basic reading and writing so that they could read the Bible and understand colonial laws. In 1647, the government required all towns with 50 or more households to hire a teacher and towns of 100 or more households to hire a grammar school instructor to prepare promising boys for college. Boys interested in the ministry were often sent to colleges such as Harvard (founded in 1636) or Yale (founded in 1707). Aspiring lawyers or doctors apprenticed to a local practitioner, or in rare cases were sent to England or Scotland.
caption: Cotton Mather, influential New England Puritan minister, portrait by Peter Pelham
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