Question

A middle-class child attends a free public school that teaches him how to read, write, and do basic mathematical calculations. He then attends a public grammar school in his teens to develop these skills even further in the hopes of one day attending a university. Which of the following regions would most likely have been home to this student during the 19th century?

Question 6 options:

Ohio River Valley


Deep South


Appalachian Mountains


New England

Answer 1

Most likely, this student would have lived and studied in New England. New England, and primarily Boston, was home to the oldest public schools in the U.S. Even in the 18th century, a few grammar schools were founded and followed by prep schools in the 19th century, as well as the famous Ivy-League universities. On the other hand, the South didn't employ organized, wide-scale effort to establish schooling. The existing schools admitted only white children, or segregated blacks from whites - therefore, they didn't only have social criteria (e.g. only middle-class students can afford them), but racial ones too.