From 1851, The Common School Journal, published under Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, and outspoken abolitionist wrote...
"OUR COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM.
ONE of the most important features of the Prussian School System is, that all the schools of the kingdom are provided for alike. Ample provision is made for a supply of good teachers, and probably not one in fifty of our New England teachers would pass the examination required there. School-rooms of equal value and fitness are furnished by government, and the children are obliged to attend punctually, if they are able. All this goes upon the ground, that, if it is the duty of a State to educate its members, it is equally the duty of the members to be educated; and if it is the duty of the State to educate the members at all, it is its duty to educate all alike, and educate them well. We are no eulogists of Prussia, and have always wondered how that arbitrary monarchy could risk its very existence by encouraging such a system of general education; for, although the duties of passive obedience and nonresistance to government are undoubtedly enforced with great zeal by the teachers, who depend in a great measure upon the government, and are very strictly watched, still, when a people are educated, and can read, write, and converse intelligently together, no unjust or arbitrary government can long withstand them. The Pilgrim Fathers understood this, and the Independence of these Colonies was actually declared when the Plymouth Company transferred the government from England to the wilderness, and passed the act establishing free schools."