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The literacy rate in Europe from the 17th century to the 18th century grew significantly. The definition of the term "literacy" in the 17th and 18th centuries is different from our current definition of literacy. Historians measured the literacy rate during the 17th and 18th century centuries by people's ability to sign their names.
Education in the Thirteen Colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries varied considerably. Public school systems existed only in New England. In the 18th Century, the Puritan emphasis on literacy largely influenced the significantly higher literacy rate (70 percent of men) of the Thirteen Colonies, mainly New England, in comparison to Britain (40 percent of men) and France (29 percent of men).
Overall literacy rates were slightly higher than in England as a whole, but female rates were much lower than for their English counterparts. [8] There were some notable aristocratic female writers, including included Lady Elizabeth Wardlaw (1627–1727) and Lady Grizel Baillie (1645–1746). [ 9 ]
Literacy rates are disputed, but one estimate is that at the end of the Colonial era about 80% of males and 50% of females were "fully literate," i.e., able to both read and sign their names. Historian David McCullough has said that the literacy rate in Massachusetts was higher in colonial times than it is today. [15]
Consequently, Pietists helped form the principles of the modern public school system, including the stress on literacy, while more Calvinism-based educational reformers (English and Swiss) asked for externally oriented, utilitarian approaches and were critical of internally soul searching idealism.
They were frequently taught reading, sewing and knitting, but not writing. Female illiteracy rates based on signatures among female servants were around 90 percent, from the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth centuries and perhaps 85 percent for women of all ranks by 1750, compared with 35 per cent for men. [15]
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While school participation rates in the early- to mid-19th century are somewhat hard to assess, a lower proportion of the population were enrolled in day schools in Wales than in England or Scotland. [29] Sunday schools were often used as a substitute for full-time schooling. [30] Literacy rates were also lower. [31]