During the mid-nineteenth century, Americans created the functional equivalent of earlier state religious establishments. Supported by mandatory taxation, purportedly inclusive, and vested with messianic promise, public schooling, like the earlier established churches, was touted as a bulwark of the Republic and as an essential agent of moral and…

This paper traces the development of the Protestant day-school movement, examining its present day status as a rapidly growing phenomenon in American education and delineating some of the issues that must be addressed if such schools are to successfully negotiate the path toward excellence. (Author/SM)