Compulsion Schooling

The center of the scheme was Massachusetts, the closest thing to a theocracy to have emerged in America. The list below is a telling record of the long gap between the Massachusetts compulsory law of 1852 and similar legislation adopted by the next set of states. Instructive also in the chronology is the place taken by the District of Columbia, the seat of federal government.

Compulsory School Legislation

1852	Massachusetts		1875	Maine
1865	District of Columbia			New Jersey
1867	Vermont		1876	Wyoming Territory
1871	New Hampshire		1877	Ohio
	Washington Territory		1879	Wisconsin
1872	Connecticut		1883	Rhode Island
	New Mexico Territory			Illinois
1873	Nevada			Dakota Territory
1874	New York			Montana Territory
	Kansas
	California

Six other Western states and territories were added by 1890. Finally in 1918, sixty-six years after the Massachusetts force legislation, the forty-eighth state, Mississippi, enacted a compulsory school attendance law. Keep in mind Cubberley’s words: everywhere there was "strenuous opposition."