Schooling was a matter of general concern in U.S. communities throughout the nineteenth century. The scope for local investigation is, therefore, considerable and the potential source material very extensive. Possible topics vary from the largely factual to the interpretation of the ideological basis of local educational changes and controversies. A solid investigation of education in a particular area or community should certainly include some statistical assessment of changes over time in the numbers of schools, academies, and colleges (and their division into private – including religious – and public) and of the numbers of students attending them. Other basic information to be sought includes, for the students, age and sex distribution, proportions they form of total age groups in the community, length of schooling experienced, and their social, religious, and ethnic mix.

To these may be added the nature of the curriculum and of classroom management and discipline, the kind of teachers (qualifications, ages, sex, ethnicity, length of service, salaries, and so on), and the organization, founding, and administration of public schooling in the district. The analysis of changing attitudes to schools on the part of parents, voters, employers, politicians, religious leaders, and others should lead to consideration of controversies over educational matters. These may include school funding, compulsory education, the place of the state and the churches in education, community control, child labor, and the rights of states and parents.