In Colonial times, many towns
had schools, but attendance was strictly 
voluntary and parents usually paid a
fee. School subjects generally were reading, writing, and
arithmetic. In order for some of children to help out at home they only attend for only a few months each
year.
Nowhere was schooling
entirely tax-supported and compulsory. That gradually began to change in the 19th
century, as states in the new republic moved toward greater financial support
for public schooling, at first in the elementary grades.
At the beginning of the 20th century, a majority of Americans ages 7 to 13 attended school, but only one in 10 remained in school beyond age 14, and fewer than 7 percent of 17-year-olds graduated from high school.
The schoolhouse was the center and focus of the rural communities, hamlets and small towns that composed New York State. Sunday (Sabbath) school classes and church services (meetings) were often held in the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse served as a grange hall, assembly hall, tax office, place for dances and box suppers, quilting bees and the like.
