lls and knowledge were considered important to the degree that they served religious ends and, of course, "trained" the mind. We call it "wisdom of the heart." These matters, by definition, are anything that the heart is convinced of... so thoroughly convinced that it over-powers the judgement of the mind. Early schools supplied the students with moral lessons, not just reading, writing and arithmetic. Obviously, the founders saw it necessary to apply these techniques, most likely "feeling" that it was necessary that the students learn these particular values. Wisdom of the heart had a profound effect of the curriculum of the early schools. As the spirit of science, commercialism, secularism, and individualism quickened in the Western world, education in the colonies was called upon to satisfy the practical needs of seamen, merchants, artisans, and frontiersmen. The effect of these new developments on the curriculum in American schools was more immediate and widespread than its effect in European schools. Practical content was soon in competition with religious concerns. The academy that Benjamin Franklin helped found in 1751 was the first of a growing number of secondary schools that sprang up in competition with the Latin schools. Franklin's academy continued to offer the humanist-religious curriculum, but it also brought education closer to the needs of everyday life by teaching such courses as history, geography, merchant accounts, geometry, algebra, surveying, modern languages, navigation, and astronomy. These subjects were more practical, seeing as how industry and business were driving forces in the creation of the United States. Religion classes could not support a family or pay the debts. By the mid-19th century this new diversification in the curriculum characterized virtually all American secondary education. America came into its own, educationally, with the movement toward state-supported, secular free schools for all child...
