Prologue: the founding fathers and education -- Rural schools in the early republic -- Urban education and the expansion of charity schooling -- Social change and education in the American Northeast, 1830-1860 -- The ideology of antebellum common-school reform -- The common-school reform program -- Ins and outs: acquiescence, ambivalence, and resistance to common-school reform -- Regional differences in common-school development -- Epilogue: the legacy of common schooling.