The third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century witnessed nationwide agitation for public schools. While our understanding of this movement is far from complete, it is apparent that the receptivity of American communities to this institution varied considerably. Theoretically, large cities experiencing the shift to capitalist modes of production and the accompanying social disorder should have been most receptive to the common school idea. Indeed, in some cities undergoing these dramatic socioeconomic changes, the proposal to introduce a system of uniform, publicly controlled and operated schools which would instruct children from all classes in the community was adopted with considerable public approval and a minimum of opposition. Stanley Schultz's study of Boston, for example, demonstrates that the 1818 proposal to institute a system of primary schools that would prepare all children in the city for entrance to its well-established public schools met resistance from only a few members of the town's elite, whose protests failed “because an aroused public demanded action.” Carl Kaestle's account of the New York City experience shows that the Free School Society also encountered little opposition, with the exception of its dispute with the Bethel Baptist Church, as it evolved into the Public School Society in 1825, assuming all of New York City's state funding for education and opening its schools to children of all classes in the city.