70. Compulsion Schooling: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org

70. Compulsion Schooling: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org

Compulsion Schooling

The center of the scheme was Massachusetts, the closest thing to a theocracy to have

emerged in America. The list below is a telling record of the long gap between the

Massachusetts compulsory law of 1 852 and similar legislation adopted by the next set of

states. Instructive also in the chronology is the place taken by the District of Columbia,

the seat of federal government.

Compulsory School Legislation

1852 Massachusetts 1875 Maine

1 865 District of Columbia New Jersey

1 867 Vermont 1 876 Wyoming Territory

1 87 1 New Hampshire 1 877 Ohio

Washington Territory 1 879 Wisconsin

1 872 Connecticut 1 883 Rhode Island

New Mexico Territory Illinois

1 873 Nevada Dakota Territory

1 874 New York Montana Territory

Kansas

California

Six other Western states and territories were added by 1890. Finally in 1918, sixty-six

years after the Massachusetts force legislation, the forty-eighth state, Mississippi, enacted

a compulsory school attendance law. Keep in mind Cubberley's words: everywhere there

was "strenuous opposition."

De-Moralizing School Procedure