The first organized schools in America were theological seminaries.
This was due to the fact that the New England colonies were
theocracies, church-states. No one not a member of the church had any
political rights. And the heads of the church were the heads of the
state. In this special kind of class government it naturally followed
that theology was the prime study of ambitious youth. But as the
colonies grew more prosperous and the rule of the more godly became as
a matter of fact the rule of the more rich, the theological seminaries
of New England changed by degrees into more easily recognizable
imitations of the great gentlemen’s sons’ schools in old England. Such,
in particular, was the theo-aristocratic genesis of Harvard and Yale.
The gentlemen’s sons’ school was thus our first, and for a long time
our only, educational achievement. The humble theocratic beginnings of
these institutions did indeed leave a quasi-democratic tradition which
made it possible for not only the sons of the well-to-do, but for the
ambitious son of poor parents, to secure the knowledge of Latin and
Greek necessary to fit them to exploit and rule a virgin continent. But
beneath this cultural perfection, to meet the needs of the great mass
of the people, there was no organized or public education whatever.[2]
The result was a vast illiteracy such as still exists in many parts of
the South today. The private and pitiful efforts of the lower classes
to secure an education took the form of paying some old woman to teach
their children “the three R’s.”
Of these three R’s the last has a significance of its own. It is there
by virtue of a realistic conviction, born of harsh experience. A man
may not be able to “figure,” and yet know that he is being cheated.
And so far as getting along in a buying-and-selling age is concerned,
’Rithmetic has an importance even more fundamental than Readin’ and
’Ritin’. Yet in the list it stands modestly last--for it is a late and
vulgar intruder into sacred company. Even in a young commercial nation,
the old belief in the rescuing magic of the Word still holds its place
in the aspiring mind.
But why, you ask, quarrel with this wholesome reverence for books?
Well--suppose the working class acquired such a reverence for books
that it refused to believe it was being Educated unless it was being
taught something out of a book! Suppose it worshipped books so much
that when you offered its children flowers and stars and machinery and
carpenters’ tools and a cook-stove to play with in order to learn how
to live--suppose it eyed you darkly and said: “Now, what are you trying
to put over on me?” But that is to anticipate.
It was due to the organized effort of the working class that public
education was at last provided for American children. Our free public
school system came into existence in the thirties as a result of
trade union agitation.[3] Its coming into existence is a great good
upon which we need not dwell. But its subsequent history needs to be
somewhat elucidated.
The public school system was founded firmly upon the three R’s. But
these were plainly not enough. It had to be enlarged to meet our
needs--and to satisfy our genuine democratic pride in it. So wings
were thrown out into the fields of history and geography. And then?
There was still an earth-full of room for expansion. But no, it
was builded up--Up! And why? The metaphor is a little troublesome,
but you are to conceive, pinnacled dim in the intense inane, or
suspended from heaven itself, the gentlemen’s sons’ school. And this
was what our public school system was striving to make connections
with. And lo! at last it succeeded! The structure beneath was
rickety--fantastic--jerry-built--everything sacrificed to the purpose
of providing a way to climb Up There; but the purpose was fulfilled.
The democratic enthusiasm which created the public school had in fact
been unaccompanied by any far-seeing theory of what education ought
to be. And so that splendid enthusiasm, after its initial conquest
of the three R’s, proceeded to a conquest of Greek and Latin and the
whole traditional paraphernalia of aristocratic education. Every
other purpose of public education was, for the time being lost sight
of, forgotten, ignored, in the proud attempt to create a series of
stairs which led straight up to the colleges. The high school became
a preparatory school for college, and the courses were arranged,
rearranged and deranged, with that intent. Final examinations were
systematized, supervised and regulated to secure the proper penultimate
degree of academic achievement--as for instance by the famous Regents’
examinations. The public school lost its independence--which was worth
nothing; and its opportunity--which was worth everything. It remains a
monument to the caste ideal of education.
For the theory which underlay the scheme was that every American boy
and girl who wanted an education should have the whole thing in bang-up
style. What was good enough for gentlemen’s sons was none too good for
us. That there might be no mistake about it, the states erected their
own colleges, with plenty of free scholarships to rob ignorance of
its last excuse. These state colleges, while furnished with various
realistic and technical adjuncts, and lacking in the authentic
hereditary aura of their great Eastern predecessors, were still echoes,
sometimes spirited and more often forlorn, of the aristocratic
tradition of centuries agone. With the reluctant addition of a kindly
scheme for keeping very young children in school, the system now
stretched from infancy to full manhood, and embraced--in theory--the
whole educable population of the United States.
In its utter thoroughness of beneficent intention, the system was truly
sublime.
The only trouble was that it didn’t work.