According to "Mass Moments" article
On this day,
.......in 1642, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the first law in the New World requiring that children be taught to read and write. The English Puritans who founded Massachusetts believed that the well-being of individuals, along with the success of the colony, depended on a people literate enough to read both the Bible and the laws of the land. Concerned that parents were ignoring the first law, in 1647 Massachusetts passed another one requiring that all towns establish and maintain public schools. It would be many years before these schools were open to all children. Only in the mid-nineteenth century was universal free public schooling guaranteed – in time, made compulsory — for Massachusetts children.
The first was the Boston Latin School opened in 1635, the nation's oldest publicly funded school. Unlike most schools in England, Boston Latin was not established by a church; it was created by the Boston Town Meeting. Voters agreed to use rents collected for Deer, Long, and Spectacle Islands in Boston Harbor to support the school and pay a schoolmaster.
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