<P> Arguing that universal public education was the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined, judicious republican citizens, Mann won widespread approval for building public schools from modernizers, especially among fellow Whigs . Most states adopted one version or another of the system he established in Massachusetts, especially the program for "normal schools" to train professional teachers . This quickly developed into a widespread form of school which later became known as the factory model school . </P> <P> Free schooling was available through some of the elementary grades . Graduates of these schools could read and write, though not always with great precision . Mary Chesnut, a Southern diarist, mocks the North's system of free education in her journal entry of June 3, 1862, where she derides misspelled words from the captured letters of Union soldiers . </P> <P> By 1900, 34 states had compulsory schooling laws; four were in the South . 30 states with compulsory schooling laws required attendance until age 14 (or higher). As a result, by 1910, 72 percent of American children attended school . Half the nation's children attended one - room schools . In 1918, every state required students to complete elementary school . </P> <P> As the nation was majority Protestant in the 19th century, most states passed a constitutional amendment, called Blaine Amendments, forbidding tax money be used to fund parochial schools . This was largely directed against Catholics, as the heavy immigration from Catholic Ireland after the 1840s aroused nativist sentiment . There were longstanding tensions between Catholic and Protestant believers, long associated with nation states that had established religions . Many Protestants believed that Catholic children should be educated in public schools in order to become American . By 1890 the Irish, who as the first major Catholic immigrant group controlled the Church hierarchy in the U.S., had built an extensive network of parishes and parish schools ("parochial schools") across the urban Northeast and Midwest . The Irish and other Catholic ethnic groups intended parochial schools not only to protect their religion, but to enhance their culture and language . </P>

When did education first became public in the united states