Public Schools --- Why On Earth Do We Need Them?
>From the time the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620
until the 1850s, most parents taught their children to read at
home or sent their children to small private or religious
grammar schools. Education was voluntary and local governments
did not force parents to send their children to state-controlled
schools. Yet, literacy rates in colonial America were far higher
than they are today.
In 1765, John Adams wrote that