This article explores the main features of the provision, organization and funding of nineteenth century European school acts. It indicates that these school acts promoted schooling that was basic, rather than compulsory, and provided a framework for schools funded by a diversity of revenues, and three types of local organization either based on the church, municipalities or several organizations. As a result, this article complements the analysis of determinants of rise of mass schooling, and the debate on decentralization, with an overview of European school acts and a theoretical challenge to further address the varying institutional framework of nineteenth-century schooling.