Where did Daniel Defoe study instead of attending Oxford or Cambridge?

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Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe, engraving by M. Van der Gucht, after a portrait by J. Taverner, first half of the 18th century.

Because Daniel Defoe was a Nonconformist, or Dissenter, he was barred from attending the University of Oxford or Cambridge. Instead, his father sent him to an excellent academy at Newington Green, which was run by the Reverend Charles Morton.1

This education was considered broader and in many ways superior to what he would have received at a traditional English university at the time, and it is believed that Morton’s influence helped shape Defoe’s own clear and simple literary style.1