• 27:19 - 32:54
Kerry McDonald | The Unschooling Movement & The Many Pitfalls Of Conventional Education
Massachusetts History, Horace Mann and Compulsory Schooling
The origins of American compulsory education are traced back to 17th-century Massachusetts and the later 1852 statute. Horace Mann is identified as the architect of the "common school" system, which was influenced by the Prussian model and designed to assimilate Irish Catholic immigrants into Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture. The 1925 Supreme Court case Pierce v. Society of Sisters is cited as the landmark decision that prevented states from banning private education.