Argues that many of the colonial religious and political leaders received their advanced schooling in small academies created and run by schoolmasters trained in Ireland and Scotland. Traces the dissemination of Scots-Irish Enlightenment ideas from these academies through their counterparts in colonial America. (MJP)

Documents and analyzes the emergence of an informal training network that grew out of the Great Awakening religious revival in colonial America. Dissatisfied with traditional instruction in divinity schools, many evangelical clergyman used their apprenticeships as an opportunity to study with ministers more sympathetic to their religious…