"Early Education in Medfield"

A Snippet of Medfield History...

"Early Education in Medfield"

By Claire Shaw

"Medfield, deservedly, has a reputation for an outstanding school system, the origins of which may be found in its earliest days. Education for all children was a policy promoted and endorsed by the first English settlers in Massachusetts.

According to David Fischer Hackett, in his excellent book, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, “As early as 1642, the Massachusetts Bay Colony required that all children should be trained to read by their parents or masters.”

That Medfield ascribed to that doctrine may be seen by a record found in Tilden’s History of Medfield 1650–1886, wherein he discloses that in 1655, “The town voted £15 to establish a ‘schoule for the education of the children, to be raised by a rate according as men have taken up lands, and the rest of the maintenance to be raised upon the children that goe to schoule.’”

The criteria for those children attending school may seem a bit arbitrary or inequitable in that the monies necessary for its existence were apparently based on land ownership. It is left to us to determine whether children of those who were not land owners were allowed an opportunity to attend school. Curious, too, is that those children actually in school would be assessed a fee of some sort for the partial upkeep of said school.

Even if no actual school building was available, teaching was done in the homes of qualified individuals such as John Bullen who, in 1721, was employed by the selectmen “. . . to keep school at his house in the north part of the town.” (Tilden) Since that time, Medfield has been steadfast in ensuring that its young citizens receive the best available education."