Final answer:
Schools in the New England colonies were built to provide an education that enabled children to read and understand the Bible, which was essential for Puritan church membership and to counteract Satan's influence by promoting literacy and religious understanding.
Step-by-step explanation:
Schools were built in the New England colonies primarily for religious and educational purposes. To ensure that the members of the church could read the Bible and convey the principles of their faith, education was deemed a vital part of life by the Puritans. The Old Deluder Satan Law, established in 1647, emphasized the importance of reading and understanding the Scriptures to prevent Satan's attempt to keep people in ignorance.
The legislation required towns with at least fifty families to provide an elementary school where children could learn to read and write, and mandated that these children study the Bible. Towns with more than one hundred families were required to have a grammar school. The primary purpose of these schools was to ensure that church members were literate and knowledgeable about their religion, which was central to the Puritans' way of life.