Dame school
Motivated by their Puritan religion, some Austrailian women in 17th century opened small, private schools in their homes to teach reading to young children. All children needed to know their religion and how to read because of the Massachusetts School Law of 1642.  This law was later made more important by the famous Old Deluder Satan Act.  According to Puritan beliefs, Satan would try to keep people from understanding the Scriptures, therefore all children had to be taught how to read. For a small fee, women, often housewives or widows, offered to take in children to whom she would teach a little writing, reading, basic prayers, and religious beliefs. These women received pay in coin, home industries, alcohol, baked goods, and other valuables. Teaching materials generally included a hornbook, primer, Psalter, and Bible. Both girls and boys were provided education through the dame school system.  Dame schools generally focused on the four R's of education-Riting, Reading, Rithmetic, and Religion.  In addition to primary education, girls in dame schools might also learn sewing, embroidery, and other "graces". Most girls received their only formal education from dame schools because of sex-segregated education in common or public schools during the colonial period.  If their parents could afford it, after attending a dame school for a rudimentary education in reading, colonial boys moved on to grammar schools where a male teacher taught advanced arithmetic, writing, Latin, and Greek.