Education Before 1795

Henry Barnard, as first secretary of the Board of Commissioners, wrote a monograph, "History of the Legislation of Connecticut Respecting Common Schools Down to 1838" (Hartford: Board of Commissioners, 1853). The substance is as dry as the dust on the copy we read at Sterling Memorial Library, but the book is packed with information conveniently collected. Other materials relating to education in Connecticut before the School Fund controversy of 1795:

Frost, J. William. Connecticut Education in the Revolutionary Era.  Bicentennial pamphlet VII (1974). This is a very nice descriptive work, which would be of interest to teachers and students today and certainly ought to find a place in every elementary and secondary school library in Connecticut.

James, May Hall. The Educational History of Old Lyme, Connecticut, 1631-1935. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939. This work, based on a Yale dissertation (1935), has implications far beyond Old Lyme, shedding light on educational development all across the colony and state.

Myers, Minor, Jr. "Letters, Learning, and Politics in Lyme, 1760-1800," in A Lyme Miscellany. Edited by George Willauer. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1977. This book is chiefly a discussion of reading habits. It includes a long list of books owned by Lyme citizens from about 1760 to 1813.

Ward, William. The Early Schools of Naugatuck... from 1730 to 1850. Naugatuck: The Perry Press, c. 1906. District-by-district accounts, with sections on school laws, private schools, school books, etc. Full of hard-to-find data. Many anecdotes, some useful. Naugatuck was divided from Waterbury and surrounding towns in 1844.

Williams, C. A. "Accounts of a School in Norwich, Connecticut, 1775-76." CHS Bulletin 14(April, 1949). An interesting and revealing document.

The funding and administration of the common schools was revolutionized by the General Assembly in 1795, when new funds were obtained from the sale of the Western Reserve. Interested students should see the Western Reserve section of this bibliography for articles by Beasley, Burpee, Collier, and Murdock.