Massachusetts requires children to attend school

Massachusetts passed the first state compulsory school attendance law in the United States. Other states followed over the next decades.

Context

The 1852 Massachusetts law required children between roughly eight and fourteen to attend school for a minimum number of weeks each year, and it carried fines for parents who did not comply. Enforcement was weak at first, because local officials were often reluctant to penalise families, and many children still worked or stayed home.

The law came after the common school movement of the 1830s and 1840s, led by Horace Mann, who served as secretary of the state board of education from 1837 to 1848. Mann argued for tax-funded public schools open to all children, trained teachers and a common curriculum. He had left the post by 1852, but the reforms he promoted helped create the conditions for compulsion.

Other states followed gradually, with New York passing a law in 1853 and most states having some requirement by the early twentieth century. Mississippi was the last state to pass a compulsory attendance law, in 1918. Details such as age limits, exemptions and enforcement varied considerably from place to place.

The law is widely cited as the first of its kind in the United States, although earlier Massachusetts colonial laws had required education in other forms.