to establish national education, from the death of Whitbread, in 1815, to
about 1835, was Henry, afterwards Lord Brougham. He was aided by such men
as Blackstone, and Bentham and his followers, and, after about 1837, by
such men as Dickens, Carlyle, Macaulay, and John Stuart Mill. Dickens, by
his descriptions, helped materially to create a sentiment favorable to
education, as a right of the people rather than a charity. He stood
strongly for a compulsory and non-sectarian state system of education that
would transform the children of his day into generous, self-respecting,
and intelligent men and women. Carlyle saw in education a cure for social
evils, and held that one of the first functions of government was to
impart the gift of thinking to its future citizens. Writing, in 1840, he
said:
Who would suppose that education were a thing which had to be
advocated on the ground of local expediency, or any ground? As if it
stood not on the basis of everlasting duty as a prime necessity of
man.
Brougham was untiring in his efforts for popular education, and some idea
as to the interest he awakened may be inferred from the fact that his
_Observations on the Education of the People_, published in 1825, went
through twenty editions the first year. He introduced bills, secured
committees of inquiry, made addresses, [27] and used his pen in behalf of
the education of the people. His belief in the power of education to
improve a people was very large. Warning the "Lawgivers of England" to
take heed, he once said:
Let the soldier be abroad, if he will; he can do nothing in this age.
There is another personage abroad, a person less imposing--in the eye
of some insignificant. The Schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust him,
armed with his primer, against the soldier in full uniform array.
The conqueror stalks onward with the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of
war," banners flying, shouts rending the air, guns thundering, and
martial music pealing, to drown the shrieks of the wounded and the
lamentations for the slain. Not thus the schoolmaster in his peaceful
vocation. He meditates and prepares in secret the plans which are to
bless mankind; he slowly gathers around him those who are to further
their execution; he quietly, though firmly, advances in his humble
path laboring steadily, but calmly, till he has opened to the light
all the recesses of ignorance, and torn up by the roots the weeds of
vice. His is a progress not to be compared with anything like a march;
but it leads to a far more brilliant triumph, and to laurels more
imperishable than the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the
world, ever won.
[Illustration: FIG. 190 LORD BROUGHAM (1778-1868)]
[Illustration: FIG. 191. AN ENGLISH VILLAGE SCHOOL IN 1840
(After a drawing by Hablôt K. Browne, and printed in Charles Dickens's
"Master Humphrey's Clock")]
Parallel with the agitation for some state action for education was an
agitation for social and political reform. The basis for the election of
members to the House of Commons was still mediaeval. Boroughs no longer
inhabited still returned members, and sparsely settled regions returned
members out of all proportion to the newly created city populations. Few,
too, could vote. Only about 160,000 persons in a population of 10,000,000
had, early in the century, the right of the franchise. The city
populations were practically disfranchised in favor of rural landlords,
the nobility, and the clergy. In 1828 Protestant Non-Conformists were
relieved of their political disability, and in 1829 a similar
enfranchisement was extended to Catholics. In 1832 came the first real
voting reform in the passage of the so-called _Third Reform Bill_ [28]
after a most bitter parliamentary struggle. This reapportioned the
membership of the House on a more equitable basis, and enfranchised those
who owned or leased lands or buildings of a value of £10 a year. The
result of this was to enfranchise the middle class of the population;
increase the number of voters (1836) from about 175,000 to about 839,500
out of 6,023,000 adult males; and effectively break the power of the House
of Lords to elect the House of Commons. Progressive legislation now became
much easier to secure, and in 1833 a Bill making a grant of £20,000 a year
to aid in building schoolhouses for elementary schools--the first
government aid for elementary education ever voted in England--became a
law (R. 299). During the few years following the passage of the Reform
Bill many progressive measures were enacted, among which should be
mentioned the abolition of slavery in the colonies; the beginnings of
legislation looking to a scientific treatment of poverty and non-
employment; the Municipal Reform Act (1835); the institution of the penny
post (1839); and the abolition of the Corn Laws (1846); while after 1837
education began to take a prominent place in the programs of the new
working-class movement.
PROGRESS AFTER 1833. The Law of 1833, though, made but the merest
beginnings, and up to 1840 the money granted was given to the two great
national school societies, and without regulation. Beginning in 1840, and
continuing up to the beginnings of national education, in 1870, the grants
were state-controlled and distributed through the different educational
societies. The total of these grants, by years, and the proportional share
of the different educational societies are well shown in the chart (Fig.
192.) In 1846 the grants were extended to maintenance as well, and in 1847
Catholic and Wesleyan societies were admitted to share in the grants. Soon
thereafter we note a sharp upward turn of the curve, though the Church-of-
England schools obtained the greater proportion of the increased funds.
Proposals to add local taxation, in 1853 and 1856, were dropped almost as
soon as made. The commercial and manufacturing interests, though, secured
separate aid for art and science instruction (1841, 1853), and the
creation of national art training-schools (1853). Training-schools for
teachers also were begun, and aided by grants. In 1845 the English "pupil-
teacher" system [29] also was begun in an effort to supply teachers of
some little training. A State Department of Education was created, in
1856, though without much power, and the various "Minutes" which were now
adopted were organized into a system and presented to Parliament as a
_School Code_, in 1861, and finally approved.
New Educational Commissions were created to inquire into educational
conditions and needs in 1858 and 1864, and these reported in 1861 and
1867, but without important results. The most notable of these was the
Duke of Newcastle's Commission, appointed in 1858 to review conditions,
progress, and needs, and to make recommendations for the future. This
Commission reported in 1861. It stated that one in every eight of the
population was then in some kind of school; gave statistics as to
conditions (R. 303 a); and held that the plan of leaving popular education
to the voluntary initiative of communities had been justified by the
results. The report presented no plan for national organization, but
recommended a number of minor changes in conditions. In particular it
recommended the introduction of the system of "payment by results"--that
is, of making money grants to schools on the basis of the number of pupils
passing set examinations in reading, writing, and arithmetic (R. 303 b).
This plan was begun in 1862, and the consequent drop in money grants for a
few years thereafter is shown in the curves of the chart. The other
Commission, appointed, known as the Taunton Schools Inquiry Commission
(1864-67), dealt with the old endowed schools, and in particular called
attention to the lack of secondary-school facilities, especially in the
cities, and recommended an extension of secondary-school facilities and a
democratization of the whole system of secondary education. The important
legislation of this period was the freeing of the old universities from
Church-of-England control (R. 305) and making them national in spirit.
[Illustration: FIG. 192. EXPENDITURE FROM THE EDUCATION GRANTS, 1839-70
Between 1833 and 1839 no Government regulation of grants. The above
figures do not include administration expenses, or grants made to Scotland
(about the same in amount as the Br. & F. S. Soc.) or to the Parochial
Schools Union (very small). The drop in the curve between 1862 and 1867
was due to the introduction of the "payment by results" plan.]
[Illustration: FIG. 193 LORD MACAULAY (1800-59)]
DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED. In the meantime liberal leaders, Schools Inquiry
Commissions, official reports, and educational propagandists continued to
pile up evidence as to the inadequacy of the old voluntary system. A few
examples, out of hundreds that might be cited, will be mentioned here.
Lord Macaulay, in an address made in Parliament, in 1847 (R. 300),
defending a "Minute" of the "Committee of Privy Council on Education"
(created in 1839) proposing the nationalization of education, held it to
be "the right and duty of the State to provide for the education of the
common people," as an exercise of self-protection, and warned the Commons
of dangers to come if the progressive tendencies of the time were not
listened to. The Census Returns of 1851, as well as the abundance of data
published by the Schools Inquiry Commissions, were effectively used to
reveal the inadequate provisions for the education of the masses. The
Reports of the school inspectors, too, revealed conditions in need of
being remedied in all phases of educational effort. The Report on the
Apprenticing of Pauper Children (R. 301) is selected as typical of many
similar reports.
FACTS REVEALED BY THE CENSUS OF 1851
Items 1833 1851
(1) Population of England and Wales 14,400,000 17,927,609
(2) Middle and upper classes population 2,000,000 2,489,945
(3) Laboring class populations 12,400,000 15,437,664
(4) Population 3-12 years of age of (2) 420,000 522,888
(5) Population 3-12 years of age of (3) 2,604,000 3,241,919
(6) Number of schools for children of (2) 14,807 16,324
(7) Number of schools for children of (3) 24,074 29,718
(8) Pupils of class (2) in schools 481,728 546,396
(9) Pupils of class (3) in schools 705,219 1,597,982
(10) Percentage of children of class (2) at school 114.6 104.4
(11) Percentage of children of class (3) at school 30.5 49.2
So deeply ingrained, though, was the English conception of education as a
private and voluntary and religious affair and no business of the State;
so self-contained were the English as a people; and so little did they
know or heed the progress made in other lands, that the arguments for
national action encountered tremendous opposition from the Conservative
elements, and often were opposed even by Liberals. The reasoning of Sir
James Kay-Shuttleworth (R. 302), Secretary of the Committee of Council on
Education and one of the clearest heads in England in his day, who held
that a fee for instruction had a moral value and vindicated personal
freedom, and who resented the interference of the State in the matter of a
parent's relation to his child, was typical of thousands of others. Edward
Baines (1774-1848), proprietor of the _Leeds Mercury_, the chief Liberal
organ in northern England, bitterly opposed any action looking toward
nationalizing education. He expressed the feeling of many when he wrote:
Civil government is no fit agency for the training of families or of
souls.... Throw the people on their own resources in education, as you
did in industry; and be assured, that, in a nation so full of
intelligence and spirit, Freedom and Competition will give the same
stimulus to improvement in our schools, as they have done in our
manufactures, our husbandry, our shipping, and our commerce.
THE BEGINNINGS OF NATIONAL ORGANIZATION. By 1865 it had become evident to
a majority that the voluntary system, whatever its merits, would never
succeed in educating the nation, and from this time forth the demand for
some acceptable scheme for the organization of national education became a
part of a still more general movement for political and social reform.
Once more, as in 1832-33, an education law was enacted following the
passage of a bill for electoral reform and the extension of the suffrage.
Though the Liberal Party was in power, it was well satisfied with the
Reform Act of 1832 because through it the middle classes of the
population, which the Liberal Party represented, had gained control of the
government. The country, though, was not--the working-classes in
particular demanding a share in the government. Finally the demand became
too strong to be resisted, and the Second Reform Act, of 1867, became a
law. This abolished a number of the remaining smaller boroughs, and
greatly extended the right to vote. In the country the amount of property
to be owned to vote was reduced from £10 to £5, and the leasehold value
from £50 to £12. In the cities and towns the vote was now given to all
householders, and to all lodgers who paid a yearly rental of £10. This
legislation gave the vote to a vastly increased number of people,
particularly city workers, [30] and was a political revolution for England
of great magnitude.
From the passage of this new Reform Act to 1870, the organization of
national education only awaited the formulation of some acceptable scheme.
"We must educate our new masters," now became a common expression. The
main question was how to create schools to do what the voluntary schools
had shown themselves able to do for a part, but were unable to do for all,
without at the same time destroying the vast denominational system [31]
that, in spite of its defects, had "done the great service of rearing a
race of teachers, spreading schools, setting up a standard of education,
and generally making the introduction of a national system possible." The
way in which these "vested interests" were cared for was typically
English, and characteristic of the strong sense of obligation of the
English people. In 1870 a compromise law was proposed and carried. Mr.
Gladstone, then Prime Minister, stated the attitude of the Government in
framing the new law, when he said: [32]
It was with us an absolute necessity--a necessity of honour and a
necessity of policy--to respect and to favour the educational
establishments and machinery we found existing in the country. It was
impossible for us to join in the language or to adopt the tone which
was conscientiously and consistently taken up by some members of the
House, who look upon these voluntary schools, having generally a
denominational character, as admirable passing expedients, fit,
indeed, to be tolerated for a time, deserving all credit on account of
the motives which led to their foundation, but wholly unsatisfactory
as to their main purpose, and therefore to be supplanted by something
they think better.... That has never been the theory of the
Government.... When we are approaching this great work, which we
desire to make complete, we ought to have a sentiment of thankfulness
that so much has been done for us.
[Illustration: FIG. 194. WORK OF THE SCHOOL BOARDS IN PROVIDING SCHOOL
ACCOMMODATIONS
London taken as a type. Note the deficiency in school accommodation in
1838, that the voluntary schools made no appreciable gain on this
deficiency up to 1870, the attempt to cope with the situation between 1871
and 1874, and the long pull of the new Board schools necessary to provide
sufficient schools and seats.]
Accordingly the Elementary Education Bill of 1870 (R. 304) preserved the
existing Voluntary Schools; divided the country up into school districts;
gave the denominations a short period in which to provide schools, with
aid for buildings; [33] and thereafter, in any place where a deficiency in
school accommodations could be shown to exist; School Boards were to be
elected, and they should have power to levy taxes and maintain elementary
schools. Existing Voluntary Schools might be transferred to the School
Boards, whose schools were to be known as Board Schools. The schools were
not ordered made free, but the fees of necessitous children were to be
provided for by the School Boards, and they might compel the attendance of
all children between the ages of five and twelve. Inspection and grants
were limited to secular subjects, though religious teaching was not
forbidden. The central government was to be secular and neutral; the local
boards might decide as they saw fit. Such were the beginnings of national
education in England. That the new Board Schools met a real need,
especially in the cities, is shown by the chart on the preceding page,
giving the results in London.
IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM
PROGRESS UNDER THE LAW OF 1870. Beginning in 1871 the Board Schools had,
by 1893, come to enroll 41 per cent of the pupils in elementary schools in
England, as against 44 per cent in Voluntary Schools, and by 1903 the
proportions were 49 per cent to 39 per cent. By 1902 the government grants
for maintenance had reached, for all schools, £8,000,000 a year, and the
Board Schools were rapidly outrunning the Voluntary Schools both in
numbers and in per-capita expenditures. The Board Schools had made their
greatest headway in the cities. In 1895 there were still some 11,000 small
parishes which had no Board Schools, and in consequence paid no direct
taxes for schools. Of these, 8000 had only Church-of-England Voluntary
Schools.
In 1880 elementary education had been made fully compulsory, and in 1891
largely free. In 1893 the age for exemption from attendance was fixed at
eleven, and in 1899 this was raised to twelve. In 1888 county and borough
councils had been created, better to enforce the Act and to extend
supervision. The _Annual Codes_, from 1870 to 1902, gradually extended
governmental control through more and more detailed instructions as to
inspection, the addition of new subjects, and better compulsion to attend.
In 1899 a Central Board of Education, under a President and a
Parliamentary Secretary, was created, to consolidate in one body the work
formerly done by:
a. The Committee of Council on Education (established 1839), which
administered the grants for elementary education.
b. The Department of Science and Art (established 1853), which
administered the grants for special and evening instruction in
science and art.
c. The Charity Commissioners, to which had been given (1874)
supervision of the old educational trusts and endowments for
education.
d. The educational functions of the Board of Agriculture.
This new Board unified the administration of elementary and secondary
education for the first time in English history.
By about 1895 the strain on the Voluntary Schools had become hard to bear.
The Church resented the encroachments of the State on its ancient
privilege of training the young, and the larger resources which the Board
Schools could command. In 1895 the Conservative party won the
parliamentary elections, and remained in power for some years. This was
the opportunity of the Voluntary Schools, and in 1897 a special national-
aid grant of five shillings per pupil in average daily attendance was made
to the Voluntary Schools. This simply increased the general
dissatisfaction, and there was soon a general demand for new legislation
that would reconcile the whole question of national education. The Law of
1902 was the ultimate result.
THE ANNEXATION LAW OF 1902. The Balfour Education Act of 1902 marks the
beginning of a new period in English education. For the first time in
English history education of all grades--elementary, secondary, and
higher; voluntary and state--was brought under the control of one single
local authority, and Voluntary Schools were taken over and made a charge
on the "rates" equally with the Board Schools. New local Educational
Committees and Councils replaced the old School Boards, and all secular
instruction in state-aided schools of all types was now placed under their
control. Religious instruction could continue where desired. In addition,
one third of the property of England, which had heretofore escaped all
direct taxation for education, was now compelled to pay its proper share.
The foundation principle that "the wealth of the. State must educate the
children of the State" was now applied, for the first time.
The State now abandoned the old policy of merely supervising and assisting
voluntary associations to maintain schools, in competition with state-
provided schools, and assumed the whole responsibility for the secular
instruction of the people. Though the law awakened intense opposition from
those who felt that it "riveted the hand of the cleric on the schools of
the land," it nevertheless equalized and unified educational provisions;
paved the way for much future progress; made the general provision of
secondary education possible; and represented an important new step in the
process of creating a national system of education for the people. Under
this Law much has been done by the new Central Board of Education, and
subsequent supplementary legislation, to increase materially the
efficiency of the education provided.
Since 1902 the cost for education per pupil has been increased more than
one half. The local authorities, to whom were given large powers of
control, have levied taxes liberally, and the State has also increased its
grants. Since 1902 also there has been a continual agitation for a
resettlement of the educational question along broad national lines. Bills
have been introduced, and important committees have considered the matter,
but no affirmative action was taken. By the time of the opening of the
World War it may be said that English opinion had about agreed upon the
principle of public control of all schools, absolute religious freedom for
teachers, local option as to religious instruction, large local liberty in
management and control, well-trained and well-paid teachers, and the
fusing of all types of schools into a democratic and truly national school
system, strong in its unity and national elements, but free from
centralized bureaucratic control. It was left for the World War to give
emphasis to this national need and to permit the final creation of such an
educational organization.
THE INCORPORATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION INTO THE NATIONAL SYSTEM. For
centuries the education of the small ruling class has been conducted by
the private tutor and the endowed secondary school, and had been completed
by a few years at Oxford or Cambridge. The Reform Bill of 1832 had raised
the middle commercial and industrial classes to power, and had created new
demands for secondary and higher education for the sons of this class. The
old endowed schools were now no longer sufficient in numbers, and the
result was the founding of many private and joint-stock-company secondary
schools to minister to the new educational needs. The Second Reform Bill
of 1867 enfranchised a very much greater number of citizens, and the
increasing wealth and the increasing demands for educational advantages
led to an insistence for a further extension along secondary and higher
lines. The result was seen in the investigation of the nine "Great Public
Schools" of England, [34] by the Lord Clarendon Commission (1861-64); and
the appointment of the British Schools Inquiry Commission of 1864-67, to
inquire into the 820 other endowed schools and the 122 proprietary or
joint-stock-company schools of the land. The Report of the first led to
the Public Schools Act of 1868, reforming abuses and regulating the use of
their old endowments. The second pointed out the great deficiency then
existing in secondary education, [35] and led to the enactment of the
Endowed Schools Act of 1869, placing all endowed schools under centralized
supervision. We see here the beginnings of state supervision and control
of the age-old endowments for Latin grammar schools and other types of
schools for secondary training. The repeal of the old Religious-Tests-for-
Degrees legislation, at the old universities (R. 305), in 1871,
transformed these from Church-of-England into national institutions, and
opened up the whole range of education to all who could meet the standards
and pay the fees.
Under the Act of 1870 many local school boards, especially in the
manufacturing cities, began to satisfy the new needs by the organization
of Higher Grade Schools, or High Schools, to supplement the work of the
elementary schools and to extend upward, in a truly democratic fashion,
the educational ladder. In this movement the manufacturing cities of
Sheffield, Birmingham, and Manchester were the leaders. In these three
cities also, as well as in four others (Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, and
London) [36] new modern-type universities were created. The Department of
Science and Art (created in 1853) also began, in 1872, to give large
grants to the cities for the establishment of a three-years' course in
science, for the encouragement of scientific training. These new
secondary-type schools, providing for the direct passage of children from
the elementary to the secondary schools, with many free places for capable
students, served to increase the friction between rate-aided schools on
the one hand, and voluntary and endowed and proprietary schools on the
other. Carrying out, as they did, Huxley's idea of a broad educational
ladder, [37] they also represented a very democratic innovation in English
educational procedure.
In 1894 a Commission--a favorite English method for considering vexatious
questions--was appointed, under the chairmanship of Mr. James (afterwards
Lord) Bryce, "to consider the best methods of establishing a well-
organized system of secondary education in England." The Report was
important and influential. It recommended the creation of a general Board
of Education under a responsible government Minister, with a permanent
Secretary and a Consultative Educational Council (as was done in 1899);
the establishment of local county and borough boards to provide adequate
secondary-school accommodations, with aid from the "rates"; the inspection
of secondary schools by the Central Board of Education; the professional
training of secondary-school teachers; and a great extension of the free-
scholarship plan to children from the elementary schools. On this last
point the Report said: [38]
We have to consider the means whereby the children of the less well-
to-do classes of our population may be enabled to obtain such
secondary education as may be suitable and needful for them. As we
have not recommended that secondary education shall be provided free
of cost to the whole community, we deem it all the more needful that
ample provision be made by every local authority for enabling selected
children of poorer parents to climb the educational ladder.... The
assistance we have contemplated should be given by means of a
carefully graduated system of scholarships, varying in value in the
age at which they are awarded and the class of school or institution
at which they are tenable.
The Act of 1902 unified control of both elementary and secondary
education. Any private or endowed secondary school was left free to accept
or reject government aid and inspection, but, if the aid were accepted,
inspection and the following of government plans were required. Secondary
education must provide for scholars up to or beyond the age of sixteen. No
attempt was made to unify the work and character of the secondary schools,
it being clearly recognized that, in England at least, these must be
suited to the different requirements of the scholars, the means of the
parents, the age at which schooling will stop, and the probable place in
the social organism of England which the pupils will occupy. By 1910, out
of 841 secondary schools in England receiving grants of state aid, 325
were supported by local authorities and were the creations of the
preceding four decades. Most of the others represented old Latin grammar-
school foundations, thus incorporated into the national system, and
without that violence and destruction of endowments which characterized
the transformations in France and Italy.
[Illustration: FIG. 195. THE ENGLISH EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM AS FINALLY EVOLVED
The years, for the divisions of English education, are only approximate,
as English education is more flexible than that found in most other
lands.]
A NATIONAL SYSTEM AT LAST EVOLVED. It is a little more than two centuries
from the founding of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge
(1699) to the very important Fisher Education Act [39] of August, 1918.
The first marked the beginnings of the voluntary system; the second "the
first real attempt in England to lay broad and deep the foundations of a
scheme of education which would be truly national." This Act, passed by
Parliament in the midst of a war which called upon the English people for
heavy sacrifices, completed the evolution of two centuries and organized
the educational resources--elementary, secondary, evening, adult,
technical, and higher--into one national system, animated by a national
purpose, and aimed at the accomplishment for the nation of twentieth-
century ends on the most democratic basis of any school system in Europe.
In so doing Huxley's educational ladder has not only been changed into a
broad highway, but the educational traditions of England (R. 306) have
been preserved and moulded anew.
The central national supervisory authority has been still further
strengthened; the compulsion to attend greatly extended; and the voice of
the State has been uttered in a firmer tone than ever before in English
educational history. Taxes have been increased; the scope of the school
system extended; all elements of the system better integrated; laggard
local educational authorities subjected to firmer control; the training of
teachers looked after more carefully than ever before; and the foundations
for unlimited improvement and progress in education laid down. Still, in
doing all this, the deep English devotion to local liberties has been
clearly revealed. The dangers of a centralized French-type educational
bureaucracy have been avoided; necessary, and relatively high, minimum
standards have been set up, but without sacrificing that variety which has
always been one of the strong points of English educational effort; and
the legitimate claims of the State have been satisfied without destroying
local initiative and independence. In this story of two centuries and more
of struggle to create a really national system of education for the people
we see strongly revealed those prominent characteristics of English
national progress--careful consideration of new ideas, keen sensitiveness
to vested rights, strong sense of local liberties and responsibilities,
large dependence on local effort and good sense, progress by compromise,
and a slow grafting-on of the best elements of what is new without
sacrificing the best elements of what is old.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Show that the English method of slow progress and after long discussion
would naturally result in a plan bearing evidence of many compromises.
2. What does the extensive Charity-School movement in eighteenth-century
England indicate as to the comparative general interest in learning in
England and the other lands we have previously studied?
3. Show how the Sunday-School instruction, meager as it was, was very
important in England in paving the way for further educational progress.
4. What do all the different late eighteenth-century voluntary educational
movements indicate as to comparative popular interest in education in
England and Prussia? England and France?
5. Can you explain the much greater percentage of city poor in England in
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries than in French or
German lands?
6. Can you explain why periods of prolonged warfare are usually followed
by periods of social and political unrest?
7. Can you explain why Pestalozzian ideas found such slow acceptance in
England?
8. Explain, on the basis of the English adult manufacturing conception of
education, why monitorial instruction was hailed as "a new expedient,
parallel and rival to the modern inventions in the mechanical
departments."
9. To what extent do we now accept Robert Owen's conception of the
influence of education on children?
10. Show how the many philanthropic societies for the education of the
children of the poor came in as a natural transition from church to state
education.
11. Show the importance of the School Societies in accustoming people to
the idea of free and general education.
12. Show how the Lancastrian system formed a natural bridge between
private philanthropy in education and tax-supported state schools.
13. Why were the highly mechanical features of the Lancastrian
organization so advantageous in its day, whereas we of to-day would regard
them as such a disadvantage?
14. Explain how the Lancastrian schools dignified the work of the teacher
by revealing the need for teacher-training.
15. Assuming that there may be some validity to the arguments of Kay-
Shuttleworth, what are the limitations to such reasoning?
16. What theory as to education would naturally lie behind a "payment-by-
results" plan of distributing state aid?
17. Show how English educational development during the nineteenth century
has been deeply modified by the progress of democracy.
18. Show how the English have attained to minimum standards without
imposing uniform requirements that destroy individuality and initiative.
SELECTED READINGS
In the accompanying _Book of Readings_ the following illustrative
selections are reproduced:
291. Parliamentary Report: Charity-School Education described.
292. S.P.C.K.: Cost and Support of Charity-Schools.
293. Raikes: Description of the Gloucester Sunday Schools.
294. Guthrie: Organization, Support, and Work of a Ragged School.
295. Smith, A.: On the Education of the Common People.
296. Malthus: On National Education.
297. Smith, S.: The School of Lancaster described.
298. Philanthropist: Automatic Character of the Monitorial Schools.
299. Montmorency, de: The First Parliamentary Grant for Education.
300. Macaulay: On the Duty of the State to Provide Education.
301. Mosely: Evils of Apprenticing the Children of Paupers.
302. Kay-Shuttleworth: Typical Reasoning in Opposition to Free Schools.
303. Macnamera: The Duke of Newcastle Commission Report.
304. Statute: Elementary Education Act of 1870.
305. Statute: Abolition of Religious Tests at the Universities.
306. Times: The Educational Traditions of England.
QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS
1. Characterize the type of education described by the witness (291).
2. Considering equipment provided and comparative money values, then and
now, about how much of an effort did support (292) involve?
3. What class of children did Raikes (293) make provision for?
4. Characterize the type of education provided (294) in the Ragged
Schools.
5. Would Adam Smith's reasoning (295) still hold true?
6. Would that of Malthus (296)?
7. Indicate the improvements Lancaster had made (297, 298) in organization
and teaching efficiency.
8. Was the first English parliamentary grant (299) expressive of deep
national interest?
9. Would Macaulay's reasoning (300) still be true?
10. Is it probable that the apprenticing of paupers had always given such
(301) results?
11. How sound was Kay-Shuttleworth's reasoning (302)?
12. What merit was there to the "payment-by-results" recommendation of the
Duke of Newcastle Commission (303)?
13. Just what kind of schools did the Act of 1870 (304) make provision
for?
14. Have we ever had such religious requirements as those so long
maintained (305) at the English universities?
SUPPLEMENTARY REFERENCES
Allen, W. O. B. and McClure, E. _Two Hundred Years; History of
S.P.C.K. 1698-1898_.
Adams, Francis. _History of the Elementary School Contest in
England_.
* Binns, H. B. _A Century of Education, 1808-1908, History of the
British and Foreign School Society_.
* Birchenough, C. _History of Elementary Education in England and Wales
since 1800_.
Escott, T. H. S. _Social Transformations of the Victorian Era_.
Harris, J. H. _Robert Raikes; the Man and his Work_.
* Holman, H. _English National Education_.
* Montmorency, J. E. G. de. _The Progress of Education in England_.
* Montmorency, J. E. G. de. _State Intervention in English Education to
1833_.
* Salmon, David. _Joseph Lancaster_.
CHAPTER XXV
AWAKENING AN EDUCATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE UNITED STATES
I. EARLY NATIONAL ATTITUDES AND INTERESTS
THE AMERICAN PROBLEM. The beginnings of state educational organization in
the United States present quite a different history from that traced for
Prussia, France, Italy, or England. While the parochial school existed in
the Central Colonies, and in time had to be subordinated to state ends;
and while the idea of education as a charity had been introduced into all
the Anglican Colonies, and later had to be stamped out; the problem of
educational organization in America was not, as in Europe, one of bringing
church schools and old educational foundations into harmonious working
relations with the new state school systems set up. Instead the old
educational foundations were easily transformed to adapt them to the new
conditions, while only in the Central Colonies did the religious-charity
conception of education give any particular trouble. The American
educational problem was essentially that of first awakening, in a new
land, a consciousness of need for general education; and second, that of
developing a willingness to pay for what it finally came to be deemed
desirable to provide.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, as we have pointed out (p. 438),
the earlier religious interests in America had clearly begun to wane. In
the New England Colonies the school of the civil town had largely replaced
the earlier religious school. In the Middle Colonies many of the parochial
schools had died out. In the Southern Colonies, where the classes in
society and negro slavery made common schools impossible, and the lack of
city life and manufacturing made them seem largely unnecessary, the common
school had tended to disappear. Even in New England, where the Calvinistic
conception of the importance of education had most firmly established the
idea of school support, the eighteenth century witnessed a constant
struggle to prevent the dying-out of that which an earlier generation had
deemed it important to create.
EFFECT OF THE WAR ON EDUCATION. The effect of the American War for
Independence, on all types of schools, was disastrous. The growing
troubles with the mother country had, for more than a decade previous to
the opening of hostilities, tended to concentrate attention on other
matters than schooling. Political discussion and agitation had largely
monopolized the thinking of the time.
With the outbreak of the war education everywhere suffered seriously. Most
of the rural and parochial schools closed, or continued a more or less
intermittent existence. In New York City, then the second largest city in
the country, practically all schools closed with British occupancy and
remained closed until after the end of the war. The Latin grammar schools
and academies often closed from lack of pupils, while the colleges were
almost deserted. Harvard and Kings, in particular, suffered grievously,
and sacrificed much for the cause of liberty. The war engrossed the
energies and the resources of the peoples of the different Colonies, and
schools, never very securely placed in the affections of the people,
outside of New England, were allowed to fall into decay or entirely
disappear. The period of the Revolution and the period of reorganization
which followed, up to the beginning of the national government (1775-89),
were together a time of rapid decline in educational advantages and
increasing illiteracy among the people. Meager as had been the
opportunities for schooling before 1775, the opportunities by 1790, except
in a few cities and in the New England districts, had shrunk almost to the
vanishing point. For Boston (R. 307), Providence (Rs. 309, 310), and a
number of other places we have good pictures preserved of the schools
which actually did exist.
The close of the war found the country both impoverished and exhausted.
All the Colonies had made heavy sacrifices, many had been overrun by
hostile armies, and the debt of the Union and of the States was so great
that many thought it could never be paid. The thirteen States,
individually and collectively, with only 3,380,000 people, had incurred an
indebtedness of $75,000,000 for the prosecution of the conflict. Commerce
was dead, the Government of the Confederation was impotent, petty
insurrections were common, the States were quarreling continually with one
another over all kinds of trivial matters, England still remained more or
less hostile, and foreign complications began to appear. That during such
a crucial period, and for some years following, but little or no attention
was anywhere given to the question of education was only natural.
NO REAL EDUCATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS BEFORE ABOUT 1820. Regardless of the
national land grants for education made to the new States (p. 523), the
provisions of the different state constitutions (R. 259), the beginnings
made here and there in the few cities of the time, and the early state
laws (R. 262), it can hardly be said that the American people had
developed an educational consciousness, outside of New England and New
York, before about 1820, and in some of the States, especially in the
South, a state educational consciousness was not awakened until very much
later. Even in New England there was a steady decline in education during
the first fifty years of the national history.
There were many reasons in the national life for this lack of interest in
education among the masses of the people. The simple agricultural life of
the time, the homogeneity of the people, the absence of cities, the
isolation and independence of the villages, the lack of full manhood
suffrage in a number of the States, the want of any economic demand for
education, and the fact that no important political question calling for
settlement at the polls had as yet arisen, made the need for schools and
learning seem a relatively minor one. The country, too, was still very
poor. The Revolutionary War debt still hung in part over the Nation, and
the demand for money and labor for all kinds of internal improvements was
very large. The country had few industries, and its foreign trade was
badly hampered by European nations. Ways and means of strengthening the
existing Government and holding the Union together, [1] rather than plans
which could bear fruit only in the future, occupied the attention of the
leaders of the time.
When the people had finally settled their political and commercial future
by the War of 1812-14, and had built up a national consciousness on a
democratic basis in the years immediately following, and the Nation at
last possessed the energy, the money, and the interest for doing so, they
finally turned their energies toward the creation of a democratic system
of public schools. In the meantime, education, outside of New England, and
in part even there, was left largely to private individuals, churches,
incorporated school societies, and such state schools for the children of
the poor as might have been provided by private or state funds, or the two
combined.
THE REAL INTEREST IN ADVANCED EDUCATION. In so far as the American people
may be said to have possessed a real interest in education during the
first half-century of the national existence, it was manifested in the
establishment and endowment of academies and colleges rather than in the
creation of schools for the people. The colonial Latin grammar school had
been almost entirely an English institution, and never well suited to
American needs. As democratic consciousness began to arise, the demand
came for a more practical institution, less exclusive and less
aristocratic in character, and better adapted in its instruction to the
needs of a frontier society. Arising about the middle of the eighteenth
century, a number of so-called Academies had been founded before the new
National Government took shape. While essentially private institutions,
arising from a church foundation, or more commonly a local subscription or
endowment, it became customary for towns, counties, and States to assist
in their maintenance, thus making them semi-public institutions. Their
management, though, usually remained in private hands, or under boards or
associations. [2]
Beside offering a fair type of higher training [3] before the days of high
schools, the academies also became training-schools for teachers, and
before the rise of the normal schools were the chief source of supply for
the better grade of elementary teachers. These institutions rendered an
important service during the first half of the nineteenth century, but
were in time displaced by the publicly supported and publicly controlled
American high school, the first of which dates from 1821. This evolution
we shall describe more in detail a little later on.
THE COLLEGES OF THE TIME. Some interest also was taken in college
education during this early national period. College attendance, however,
was small, as the country was still new and the people were poor. As late
as 1815, Harvard graduated a class of but 66; Yale of 69; Princeton of 40;
Williams of 40; Pennsylvania of 15; and the University of South Carolina
of 37. After the organization of the Union the nine old colonial colleges
were reorganized, and an attempt was made to bring them into closer
harmony with the ideas and needs of the people and the governments of the
States. Dartmouth, Kings (now rechristened Columbia), and Pennsylvania
were for a time changed into state institutions, and an unsuccessful
attempt was made to make a state university for Virginia out of William
and Mary. Fifteen additional colleges were organized by 1800, and fourteen
more by 1820. Between 1790 and 1825 there was much discussion as to the
desirability of founding a national university at the seat of government,
and Washington in his will (1799) left, for that time, a considerable sum
to the Nation to inaugurate the new undertaking. Nothing ever came of it,
however. Before 1825 six States--Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Indiana, and Michigan--had laid the foundations of future state
universities. The National Government had also granted to each new Western
State two entire townships of land to help endow a university in each--a
stimulus which eventually led to the establishment of a state university
in every Western State.
A HALF-CENTURY OF TRANSITION. The first half-century of the national life
may be regarded as a period of transition from the church-control idea of
education over to the idea of education under the control of and supported
by the State. Though many of the early States had provided for state
school systems in their constitutions (R. 259), the schools had not been
set up, or set up only here and there. It required time to make this
change in thinking. Up to the period of the beginnings of our national
development education had almost everywhere been regarded as an affair of
the Church, somewhat akin to baptism, marriage, the administration of the
sacraments, and the burial of the dead. Even in New England, which formed
an exception, the evolution of the civic school from the church school was
not yet complete.
The church charity-school had become, as we have seen (p. 449), a familiar
institution before the Revolution. The English "Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" (p. 449), which maintained
schools in connection with the Anglican churches in the Anglican Colonies
and provided an excellent grade of charity-school master, withdrew at the
close of the Revolutionary War from work in this country. The different
churches after the war continued their efforts to maintain their church
charity-schools, though there was for a time a decrease in both their
numbers and their effectiveness.
In the meantime the demand for education grew rather rapidly, and the task
soon became too big for the churches to handle. For long the churches made
an effort to keep up, as they were loath to relinquish in any way their
former hold on the training of the young. The churches, however, were not
interested in the problem except in the old way, and this was not what the
new democracy wanted. The result was that, with the coming of nationality
and the slow but gradual growth of a national consciousness, national
pride, national needs, and the gradual development of national resources
in the shape of taxable property--all alike combined to make secular
instead of religious schools seem both desirable and possible to a
constantly increasing number of citizens.
II. AWAKENING AN EDUCATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Between about 1810 and 1830 a number of new forces--philanthropic,
political, social, economic--combined to change the earlier attitude by
producing conditions which made state rather than church control and
support of education seem both desirable and feasible. The change, too,
was markedly facilitated by the work of a number of semi-private
philanthropic agencies which now began the work of founding schools and
building up an interest in education, the most important of which were:
(1) the Sunday-School movement; (2) the City School Societies; (3) the
Lancastrian movement; and (4) the Infant-School Societies. These will be
described briefly, and their influence in awakening an educational
consciousness pointed out.
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL MOVEMENT. The Sunday School, as a means of providing the
merest rudiments of secular and religious learning, had been made, through
the initiative of Raikes of Gloucester (p. 617), a very important English
institution for providing the beginnings of instruction for the children
of the city poor. Raikes's idea was soon carried to the United States. In
1786 a Sunday School after the Raikes plan was organized in Hanover
County, Virginia. In 1787 a Sunday School for African children was
organized at Charleston, South Carolina. In 1791 "The First Day, or Sunday
School Society," was organized at Philadelphia, for the establishment of
Sunday Schools in that city. In 1793 Katy Ferguson's "School for the Poor"
was opened in New York, and this was followed by an organization of New
York women for the extension of secular instruction among the poor. In
1797 Samuel Slater's Factory School was opened at Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Though there had been some Sunday instruction earlier at a few places in
New England, the introduction of the Sunday School from England, in 1786,
marked the real beginning of the religious Sunday School in America. After
the churches had once caught the idea of a common religious school on
Sundays for the instruction of any one, a number of societies were formed
to carry on and extend the work. The most important of these were:
1808. The Evangelical Society of Philadelphia.
1816. The Female Union for the Promotion of Sabbath Schools (New
York).
1816. The New York Sunday School Union.
1816. The Boston Society for the Moral and Religious Instruction of
the Poor.
1817. The Philadelphia Sunday and Adult School Union.
1824. The American Sunday School Union.
These different types of American Sunday Schools, being open to all
instead of only to the poor and lowly, had a small but an increasing
influence in leveling class distinctions and in making a common day school
seem possible. The movement for secular instruction on Sundays, though,
soon met in America with the opposition of the churches, and before long
they took over the idea, superseded private initiative and control, and
changed the character of the instruction from a day of secular work to an
hour or so of religious teaching. The Sunday School, in consequence, never
exercised the influence in educational development in America that it did
in England.
THE CITY SCHOOL SOCIETIES. These were patterned after the English charity-
school subscription societies, and were formed in a number of American
cities during the first quarter of the nineteenth century for the purpose
of providing the rudiments of an education to those too poor to pay for
schooling. These Societies were usually organized by philanthropic
citizens, willing to contribute something yearly to provide some little
education for a few of the many children in the city having no
opportunities for any instruction. A number of these Societies were able
to effect some financial connection with the city or the State.
One of the first of these School Societies was "The Manumission Society,"
organized in New York, in 1785, for the purpose of "mitigating the evils
of slavery, to defend the rights of the blacks, and especially to give
them the elements of an education." Alexander Hamilton and John Jay were
among its organizers. A free school for colored pupils was opened, in
1787. This grew and prospered and was aided from time to time by the city,
and in 1801 by the State. Finally, in 1834, all its schools were merged
with those of the "Public School Society" of the city. In 1801 the first
free school for poor white children "whose parents belong to no religious
society, and who, from some cause or other, cannot be admitted into any of
the charity schools of the city," was opened. This was provided by the
"Association of Women Friends for the Relief of the Poor," which engaged
"a widow woman of good education and morals as instructor" at £30 per
year. This Association also prospered, and received some city or state aid
up to 1824. By 1823 it was providing free elementary education for 750
children. Its schools also were later merged with those of the "Public
School Society."
"THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY." Perhaps the most famous of all the early
subscription societies for the maintenance of schools for the poor was the
"New York Free School Society," which later changed its name to that of
"The Public School Society of New York." This was organized, in 1805,
under the leadership of De Witt Clinton, then mayor of the city, he
heading the subscription list with a promise of $200 a year for support.
On May 14, 1806, the following advertisement appeared in the daily papers:
FREE SCHOOL
The Trustees of the Society for establishing a Free School in the city
of New York, for the education of such poor children as do not belong
to, or are not provided for by any religious Society, having engaged a
Teacher, and procured a School House for the accommodation of a
School, have now the pleasure of announcing that it is proposed to
receive scholars of the descriptions alluded to without delay;
applications may be made to, &c.
Four days later the officers of the Society issued a general appeal to the
public (R. 311), setting forth the purposes of the Society and soliciting
funds.
[Illustration: FIG. 196. THE FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE BUILT BY THE FREE SCHOOL
SOCIETY IN NEW YORK CITY
Built in 1809, in Tryon Row. Cost, without site, $13,000.]
This Society was chartered by the legislature "to provide schooling for
all children who are the proper objects of a gratuitous education." It
organized free public education in the city, secured funds, built
schoolhouses, provided and trained teachers, and ably supplemented the
work of the private and church schools. By its energy and its persistence
it secured for itself a large share of public confidence, and aroused a
constantly increasing interest in the cause of popular education. In 1853,
after it had educated over 600,000 children and trained over 1200
teachers, this Society, its work done, surrendered its charter and turned
over its buildings and equipment to the public-school department of the
city, which had been created by the legislature in 1842.
SCHOOL SOCIETIES ELSEWHERE. The "Benevolent Society of the City of
Baltimore for the Education of the Female Poor," founded in 1799, and the
"Male Free Society of Baltimore," organized a little later, were other of
these early school societies, though neither became so famous as the
Public School Society of New York. The schools of the city of Washington
were started by subscription, in 1804, and for some time were in part
supported by subscriptions from public-spirited citizens. [4] This society
did an important work in accustoming the people of the capital city to the
provision of some form of free education.
In 1800 "The Philadelphia Society [5] for the Free Instruction of Indigent
Boys" was formed, which a little later changed to "The Philadelphia
Society for the Establishment and Support of Charity Schools." In 1814
"The Society for the Promotion of a Rational System of Education" was
organized in Philadelphia, and four years later the public sentiment
awakened by a combination of the work of this Society and the coming of
the Lancastrian system of instruction enabled the city to secure a special
law permitting Philadelphia to organize a system of city schools for the
education of the children of its poor. Other societies which rendered
useful educational service include the "Mechanics and Manufacturers
Association," of Providence, Rhode Island, organized in 1789 (Rs. 308,
310); "The Albany Lancastrian School Society," organized in 1826, for the
education of the poor of the city in monitorial schools; and the school
societies organized in Savannah in 1818, and Augusta, in 1821, "to afford
education to the children of indigent parents." Both these Georgia
societies received some support from state funds.
The formation of these school societies, the subscriptions made by the
leading men of the cities, the bequests for education, and the grants of
some city and state aid to these societies, all of which in time became
somewhat common, indicate a slowly rising interest in providing schools
for the education of all. This rising interest in education was greatly
stimulated by the introduction from England, about this time, of a new and
what for the time seemed a wonderful system for the organization of
education, the Lancastrian monitorial plan.
THE LANCASTRIAN MONITORIAL SCHOOLS. Church-of-England ideas were not in
much favor in the United States for some time after the close of the
Revolutionary War, and in consequence it was the Lancastrian plan which
was brought over and popularized. In 1806 the first monitorial school was
opened in New York City, and, once introduced, the system quickly spread
from Massachusetts to Georgia, and as far west as Cincinnati, Louisville,
and Detroit. In 1826 Maryland instituted a state system of Lancastrian
schools, with a Superintendent of Public Instruction, but in 1828
abandoned the idea and discontinued the office. A state Lancastrian system
for North Carolina was proposed in 1832, but failed of adoption by the
legislature. In 1829 Mexico organized higher Lancastrian schools for the
Mexican State of Texas. In 1818 Lancaster himself went to America, and was
received with much distinction. Most of the remaining twenty years of his
life were spent in organizing and directing schools in various parts of
the United States.
In many of the rising cities of the eastern part of the country the first
free schools established were Lancastrian schools. The system provided
education at so low a cost (p. 629) that it made the education of all for
the first time seem possible. [6] The first free schools in Philadelphia
(1818) were an outgrowth of Lancastrian influence, as was also the case in
many other Pennsylvania cities. Baltimore began a Lancastrian school six
years before the organization of public schools was permitted by law. A
number of monitorial high schools were organized in different parts of the
United States, and it was even proposed that the plan should be adopted in
the colleges. A number of New England cities, that already had other type
schools, investigated the new monitorial plan and were impressed with its
many important points of superiority over methods then in use. The Report
of the Investigating Committee (1828) for Boston (R. 312), forms a good
example of such. As in England, the system was very popular from about
1810 to 1830, but by 1840 its popularity was over.
THE INTEREST THE NEW PLAN AWAKENED. It is not strange that the new plan
aroused widespread enthusiasm in many discerning men, and for almost a
quarter of a century was advocated as the best system of education then
known. Two quotations will illustrate what leading men of the time thought
of it. De Witt Clinton, for twenty-one years president of the New York
"Free School Society," and later governor of the State, wrote, in 1809:
When I perceive that many boys in our school have been taught to read
and write in two months, who did not before know the alphabet, and
that even one has accomplished it in three weeks--when I view all the
bearings and tendencies of this system--when I contemplate the habits
of order which it forms, the spirit of emulation which it excites, the
rapid improvement which it produces, the purity of morals which it
inculcates--when I behold the extraordinary union of celerity in
instruction and economy of expense--and when I perceive one great
assembly of a thousand children, under the eye of a single teacher,
marching with unexampled rapidity and with perfect discipline to the
goal of knowledge, I confess that I recognize in Lancaster the
benefactor of the human race. I consider his system as creating a new
era in education, as a blessing sent down from heaven to redeem the
poor and distressed of this world from the power and dominion of
ignorance.
In a message to the legislature of Connecticut, a State then fairly well
supplied with schools of the Massachusetts district type, Governor Wolcott
said, in 1825:
If funds can be obtained to defray the expenses of the necessary
preparations, I have no doubt that schools on the Lancastrian model
ought, as soon as possible, to be established in several parts of this
state. Wherever from 200 to 1000 children can be convened within a
suitable distance, this mode of instruction in every branch of
reading, speaking, penmanship, arithmetic, and bookkeeping, will be
found much more efficient, direct, and economical than the practices
now generally pursued in our primary schools.
The Lancastrian schools materially hastened the adoption of the free
school system in all the Northern States by gradually accustoming people
to bearing the necessary taxation which free schools entail. They also
made the common school common and much talked of, and awakened thought and
provoked discussion on the question of public education. They likewise
dignified the work of the teacher by showing the necessity for teacher-
training. The Lancastrian Model Schools, first established in the United
States in 1818, were the precursors of the American normal schools.
COMING OF THE INFANT SCHOOL. A curious early condition in America was
that, in some of the cities where public schools had been established, by
one agency or another, no provision had been made for beginners. These
were supposed to obtain the elements of reading at home, or in the Dame
Schools. In Boston, for example, where public schools were maintained by
the city, no children could be received into the schools who had not
learned to read and write (R. 314 a). This made the common age of
admission somewhere near eight years. The same was in part true of
Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities. When the
monitorial schools were established they tended to restrict their
membership in a similar manner, though not always able to do so.
In 1816 there came to America, also from England, a valuable supplement to
education as then known in the form of the so-called Infant Schools (p.
630). First introduced at Boston (R. 313), the Infant Schools proved
popular, and in 1818 the city appropriated $5000 for the purpose of
organizing such schools to supplement the public-school system. These were
to admit children at four years of age, were to be known as primary
schools, were to be taught by women, were to be open all the year round,
and were to prepare the children for admission to the city schools, which
by that time had come to be known as English grammar schools. Providence,
similarly, established primary (Infant) schools in 1828 for children
between the ages of four and eight, to supplement the work of the public
schools, there called writing schools.
THE DAME SCHOOL ABSORBED. For New England the establishment of primary
schools virtually took over the Dame School instruction as a public
function, and added the primary grades to the previously existing school.
We have here the origin of the division, often still retained at least in
name in the Eastern States, of the "primary grades" and the "grammar
grades" of the elementary school.
[Illustration: FIG. 197 "MODEL" SCHOOL BUILDING OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL
SOCIETY
Erected in 1843. Cost (with site), $17,000. A typical New York school
building, after 1830. The infant or primary school was on the first floor,
the second floor contains the girls' school, and the third floor the boys'
school. Each floor had one large room seating 252 children; the primary
schoolroom could be divided into two rooms by folding doors, so as to
segregate the infant class. This building was for long regarded as the
perfection of the builder's art, and its picture was printed for years on
the cover of the Society's Annual Reports.]
An "Infant-School Society" was organized in New York, in 1827. The first
Infant School was established under the direction of the Public School
Society as the "Junior Department" of School No. 8, with a woman teacher
in charge, and using monitorial methods. A second school was established
the next year. In 1830 the name was changed from Infant School to Primary
Department, and where possible these departments were combined with the
existing schools. In 1832 it was decided to organize ten primary schools,
under women teachers, for children from four to ten years of age, and
after the Boston plan of instruction. This abandoned the monitorial plan
of instruction for the new Pestalozzian form, which was deemed better
suited to the needs of the smaller children. By 1844 fifty-six Primary
Departments had been organized in connection with the upper schools of the
city.
In Philadelphia three Infant-School Societies were founded in 1827-28, and
such schools were at once established there. By 1830 the directors of the
school system had been permitted by the legislature of the State to expend
public money for such schools, and thirty such, under women teachers, were
in operation in the city by 1837.
[Illustration: FIG. 198. EVOLUTION OF THE ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF THE
AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM]
PRIMARY EDUCATION ORGANIZED. The Infant-School idea was soon somewhat
generally adopted by the Eastern cities, and changed somewhat to make of
it an American primary school. Where children had not been previously
admitted to the schools without knowing how to read, as in Boston, they
supplemented the work of the public schools by adding a new school
beneath. Where the reverse had been the case, as in New York City, the
organization of Infant Schools as Junior Departments enabled the existing
schools to advance their work. Everywhere it resulted, eventually, in the
organization of primary and grammar school departments, often with
intermediate departments in between, and, with the somewhat
contemporaneous evolution of the first high schools, the main outlines of
the American free public-school system were now complete.
These four important educational movements--the secular Sunday School, the
semi-public city School Societies, the Lancastrian plan for instruction,
and the Infant-School idea--all arising in philanthropy, came as
successive educational ideas to America during the first half of the
nineteenth century, supplemented one another, and together accustomed a
new generation to the idea of a common school for all.
III. SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMIC INFLUENCES
It is hardly probable, however, that these philanthropic efforts alone,
valuable as they were, could have resulted in the great American battle
for tax-supported schools, at as early a date as this took place, had they
not been supplemented by a number of other movements of a social,
political, and economic character which in themselves materially changed
the nature and direction of our national life. The more important of these
were: (1) The rise of cities and of manufacturing, (2) the extension of
the suffrage, and (3) the rise of new class-demands for schools.
GROWTH OF CITY POPULATION AND MANUFACTURING. At the time of the
inauguration of the National Government nearly every one in America lived
on the farm or in some little village. The first forty years of the
national life were essentially an agricultural and a pioneer period. Even
as late as 1820 there were but thirteen cities of 8000 inhabitants or over
in the whole of the twenty-three States at that time comprising the Union,
and these thirteen cities contained but 4.9 per cent of the total
population of the Nation.
After about 1825 these conditions began to change. By 1820 many little
villages were springing up, and these frequently proved the nuclei for
future cities. In New England many of these places were in the vicinity of
some waterfall, where cheap power made manufacturing on a large scale
possible. Lowell, Massachusetts, which in 1820 did not exist and in 1840
had a population of over twenty thousand people, collected there largely
to work in the mills, is a good illustration. Other cities, such as
Cincinnati and Detroit, grew because of their advantageous situation as
exchange and wholesale centers. With the revival of trade and commerce
after the second war with Great Britain the cities grew rapidly both in
number and size.
The rise of the new cities and the rapid growth of the older ones
materially changed the nature of the educational problem, by producing an
entirely new set of social and educational conditions for the people of
the Central and Northern States to solve. The South, with its plantation
life, negro slavery, and absence of manufacturing was largely unaffected
by these changed conditions until well after the close of the Civil War.
In consequence the educational awakening there did not come for nearly
half a century after it came in the North. In the cities in the coast
States north of Maryland, but particularly in those of New York and New
England, manufacturing developed very rapidly. Cotton-spinning in
particular became a New England industry, as did also the weaving of wool,
while Pennsylvania became the center of the iron manufacturing industries.
[7]
The development of this new type of factory work meant the beginnings of
the breakdown of the old home and village industries, the eventual
abandonment of the age-old apprenticeship system (Rs. 200, 201), the start
of the cityward movement of the rural population, and the concentration of
manufacturing in large establishments, employing many hands to perform
continuously certain limited phases of the manufacturing process. This in
time was certain to mean a change in educational methods. It also called
for the concentration of both capital and labor. The rise of the factory
system, business on a large scale, and cheap and rapid transportation, all
combined to diminish the importance of agriculture and to change the city
from an unimportant to a very important position in our national life. The
13 cities of 1820 increased to 44 by 1840, and to 141 by 1860. There were
four times as many cities in the North, too, where manufacturing had found
a home, as in the South, which remained essentially agricultural.
NEW SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN THE CITIES. The many changes in the nature of
industry and of village and home life, effected by the development of the
factory system and the concentration of manufacturing and population in
the cities, also contributed materially in changing the character of the
old educational problem. When the cities were as yet but little villages
in size and character, homogeneous in their populations, and the many
social and moral problems incident to the congestion of peoples of mixed
character had not as yet arisen, the church and charity and private school
solution of the educational problem was reasonably satisfactory. As the
cities now increased rapidly in size, became more city-like in character,
drew to them diverse elements previously largely unknown, and were
required by state laws to extend the right of suffrage to all their
citizens, the need for a new type of educational organization began slowly
but clearly to manifest itself to an increasing number of citizens. The
church, charity, and private school system completely broke down under the
new strain. School Societies and Educational Associations, organized for
propaganda, now arose in the cities; grants of city or state funds for the
partial support of both church and society schools were demanded and
obtained; and numbers of charity organizations began to be established in
the different cities to enable them to handle better the new problems of
pauperism, intemperance, and juvenile delinquency which arose.
THE EXTENSION OF THE SUFFRAGE. The Constitution of the United States,
though framed by the ablest men of the time, was framed by men who
represented the old aristocratic conception of education and government.
The same was true of the conventions which framed practically all the
early state constitutions. The early period of the national life was thus
characterized by the rule of a class--a very well-educated and a very
capable class, to be sure--but a class elected by a ballot based on
property qualifications and belonging to the older type of political and
social thinking.
Notwithstanding the statements of the Declaration of Independence, the
change came but slowly. Up to 1815 but four States had granted the right
to vote to all male citizens, regardless of property holdings or other
somewhat similar restrictions. After 1815 a democratic movement, which
sought to abolish all class rule and all political inequalities, arose and
rapidly gained strength. In this the new States to the westward, with
their absence of old estates or large fortunes, and where men were judged
more on their merits than in an older society, were the leaders. As will
be seen from the map, every new State admitted east of the Mississippi
River, except Ohio (admitted in 1802), where the New England element
predominated, and Louisiana (1812), provided for full manhood suffrage at
the time of its admission to statehood. Seven additional Eastern States
had extended the same full voting privileges to their citizens by 1845,
while the old requirements had been materially modified in most of the
other Northern States. This democratic movement for the leveling of all
class distinctions between white men became very marked, after 1820; came
to a head in the election of Andrew Jackson as President, in 1828; and the
final result was full manhood suffrage in all the States. This gave the
farmer in the West and the new manufacturing classes in the cities a
preponderating influence in the affairs of government.
[Illustration: FIG. 199. DATES OF THE GRANTING OF FULL MANHOOD SUFFRAGE
Some of the older States granted almost full manhood suffrage at an
earlier date, retaining a few minor restrictions until the date given on
the map. States shaded granted full suffrage at the time of admission to
the Union.]
EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EXTENSION OF SUFFRAGE. The educational
significance of the extension of full manhood suffrage to all was enormous
and far-reaching.
There now took place in the United States, after about 1825, what took
place in England after the passage of the Second Reform Act (p. 642) of
1867. With the extension of the suffrage to all classes of the population,
poor as well as rich, laborer, as well as employer, there came to thinking
men, often for the first time, a realization that general education had
become a fundamental necessity for the State, and that the general
education of all in the elements of knowledge and civic virtue must now
assume that importance in the minds of the leaders of the State that the
education of a few for the service of the Church and of the many for
simple church membership had once held in the minds of ecclesiastics.
This new conception is well expressed in the preamble to the first
(optional) school law enacted in Illinois (1825), which declares:
To enjoy our rights and liberties, we must understand them; their
security and protection ought to be the first object of a free people;
and it is a well-established fact that no nation has ever continued
long in the enjoyment of civil and political freedom, which was not
both virtuous and enlightened; and believing that the advancement of
literature always has been, and ever will be the means of developing
more fully the rights of man, that the mind of every citizen in a
republic is the common property of society, and constitutes the basis
of its strength and happiness; it is therefore considered the peculiar
duty of a free government, like ours, to encourage and extend the
improvement and cultivation of the intellectual energies of the whole.
UTTERANCES OF PUBLIC MEN AND WORKINGMEN. Governors now began to recommend
to their legislatures the establishment of tax-supported schools, and
public men began to urge state action and state control. An utterance by
De Witt Clinton, for nine years governor of New York, may be taken as an
example of many. In a message to the legislature, in 1826, defending the
schools established, he said:
The first duty of government, and the surest evidence of good
government, is the encouragement of education. A general diffusion of
knowledge is a precursor and protector of republican institutions, and
in it we must confide as the conservative power that will watch over
our liberties and guard them against fraud, intrigue, corruption, and
violence. I consider the system of our common schools as the palladium
of our freedom, for no reasonable apprehension can be entertained of
its subversion as long as the great body of the people are enlightened
by education.
After about 1825 many labor unions were formed, and the representatives of
these new organizations joined in the demands for schools and education,
urging the free education of their children as a natural right. In 1829
the workingmen of Philadelphia asked each candidate for the legislature
for a formal declaration of the attitude he would assume toward the
provision of "an equal and a general system of education" for the State.
In 1830 the Workingmen's Committee of Philadelphia submitted a detailed
report (R. 315), after five months spent in investigating educational
conditions in Pennsylvania, vigorously condemning the lack of provision
for education in the State, and the utterly inadequate provision where any
was made. Seth Luther, in an address on "The Education of Workingmen,"
delivered in 1832, declared that "a large body of human beings are ruined
by a neglect of education, rendered miserable in the extreme, and
incapable of self-government." Stephen Simpson, in his _A Manual for
Workingmen_, published in 1831, declared that "it is to education,
therefore, that we must mainly look for redress of that perverted system
of society, which dooms the producer to ignorance, to toil, and to penury,
to moral degradation, physical want, and social barbarism." Many
resolutions were adopted by these organizations demanding free state-
supported schools. [8]
IV. ALIGNMENT OF INTERESTS, AND PROPAGANDA
THE ALIGNMENT OF INTERESTS. The second quarter of the nineteenth century
may be said to have witnessed the battle for tax-supported, publicly
controlled and directed, and non-sectarian common schools. In 1825 such
schools were still the distant hope of statesmen and reformers; in 1850
they had become an actuality in almost every Northern State. The twenty-
five years intervening marked a period of public agitation and educational
propaganda; of many hard legislative fights; of a struggle to secure
desired legislation, and then to hold what had been secured; of many
bitter contests with church and private-school interests, which felt that
their "vested rights" were being taken from them; and of occasional
referenda in which the people were asked, at the next election, to advise
the legislature as to what to do. Excepting the battle for the abolition
of slavery, perhaps no question has ever been before the American people
for settlement which caused so much feeling or aroused such bitter
antagonisms. The friends of free schools were at first commonly regarded
as fanatics, dangerous to the State, and the opponents of free schools
were considered by them as old-time conservatives or as selfish members of
society.
Naturally such a bitter discussion of a public question forced an
alignment of the people for or against publicly supported and controlled
schools, and this alignment of interests may be roughly stated to have
been about as follows:
_I. For Public Schools._
Men considered as:
1. "Citizens of the Republic."
2. Philanthropists and humanitarians.
3. Public men of large vision.
4. City residents.
5. The intelligent workingmen in the cities.
6. Non-taxpayers.
7. Calvinists.
8. "New England men."
_II. Lukewarm, or against Public Schools._
Men considered as:
1. Belonging to the old aristocratic class.
2. The conservatives of society.
3. Politicians of small vision.
4. Residents of rural districts.
5. The ignorant, narrow-minded, and penurious.
6. Taxpayers.
7. Lutherans, Reformed-Church, Mennonites, and Quakers.
8. Southern men.
9. Proprietors of private schools.
10. The non-English-speaking classes.
THE WORK OF PROPAGANDA. To meet the arguments of the objectors, to change
the opinions of a thinking few into the common opinion of the many, to
overcome prejudice, and to awaken the public conscience to the public need
for free and common schools in such a democratic society, was the work of
a generation. To convince the masses of the people that the scheme of
state schools was not only practicable, but also the best and most
economical means for giving their children the benefits of an education;
to convince propertied citizens that taxation for education was in the
interests of both public and private welfare; to convince legislators that
it was safe to vote for free-school bills; and to overcome the opposition
due to apathy, religious jealousies, and private interests, was the work
of years. In time, though, the desirability of common, free, tax-
supported, non-sectarian, state-controlled schools became evident to a
majority of the citizens in the different American States, and as it did
the American State School, free and equally open to all, was finally
evolved and took its place as the most important institution in the
national life working for the perpetuation of a free democracy and the
advancement of the public welfare.
For this work of propaganda hundreds of School Societies and Educational
Associations were organized; many conventions were held, and many
resolutions favoring state schools were adopted; many "Letters" and
"Addresses to the Public" were written and published; public-spirited
citizens traveled over the country, making addresses to the people
explaining the advantages of free state schools; many public-spirited men
gave the best years of their lives to the state-school propaganda; and
many governors sent communications on the subject to legislatures not yet
convinced as to the desirability of state action. At each meeting of the
legislatures for years a deluge of resolutions, memorials, and petitions
for and against free schools met the members.
The invention of the steam printing press came at about this time, and the
first modern newspapers at a cheap price now appeared. These usually
espoused progressive measures, and tremendously influenced public
sentiment. Those not closely connected with church or private-school
interests usually favored public tax-supported schools.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Explain why the development of a national consciousness was practically
necessary before an educational consciousness could be awakened.
2. Show why it was natural, suffrage conditions considered, that the early
interest should have been in advanced education.
3. Why did the Sunday-School movement prove of so much less usefulness in
America than in England?
4. Show the analogy between the earlier school societies for educational
work and other forms of modern associative effort.
5. Explain the great popularity of the Lancastrian schools over those
previously common in America.
6. What were two of the important contributions of the Infant-School idea
to American education?
7. Why are schools and education much more needed in a country
experiencing a city and manufacturing development than in a country
experiencing an agricultural development?
8. Show how the development of cities caused the old forms of education to
break down, and made evident the need for a new type of education.
9. Show how each extension of the suffrage necessitates an extension of
educational opportunities and advantages.
10. Explain the alignment of each class, for or against tax-supported
schools, on historical and on economic grounds.
SELECTED READINGS
In the accompanying _Book of Readings_ the following illustrative
selections are reproduced:
307. Fowle: The Schools of Boston about 1790-1815.
308. Rhode Island: Petition for Free Schools, 1799.
309. Providence: Rules and Regulations for the Schools in 1820.
310. Providence: A Memorial for Better Schools, 1837.
311. Bourne: Beginnings of Public Education in New York City.
312. Boston Report: Advantages of the Monitorial System.
313. Wightman: Establishment of Primary Schools in Boston.
314. Boston: The Elementary-School System in 1823.
315. Philadelphia: Report of Workingmen's Committee on Schools.
QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS
1. Just what advantages for boys and for girls existed in Boston (307 a,
b) before the creation of the reading schools?
2. What improvements and additions did the reading schools (307 c)
introduce?
3. State the main features of the Rhode Island petition (308) of 1799.
4. Just what kind of schools do the Providence regulations (309) of 1820
provide for and describe?
5. Despite the many advances made in public schools since the date of the
Providence Memorial (310), have relative public and private school
expenditures materially changed?
6. Compare the New York Public School Society Address (311) with the
English charity-school organization (237, 238) as to purpose and
instruction.
7. Show that a report on modern classroom organization would present
advantages over the monitorial plan, comparable with those outlined by the
Boston Report (312) comparing the monitorial and individual plans.
8. Just what does the Boston Report on Primary Schools (313) reveal as to
the character of education then provided?
9. Just what kind of elementary schools did Boston have (314) in 1823?
10. Just what kind of schools existed in the cities of Pennsylvania in
1830, judging from the Report (315) of the Workingmen's Committee? Was the
Report correct with reference to "a monopoly of talent"?
SUPPLEMENTARY REFERENCES
Binns, H. B. _A Century of Education, 1808-1908_.
Boese, Thos, _Public Education in the City of New York_.
Cubberley, E. P. _Public Education in the United States_.
* Fitzpatrick, E. A. _The Educational Views and Influences of De Witt
Clinton_.
McManis, J. T. "The Public School Society of New York City," in
_Educational Review_, vol. 29, pp. 303-11. (March, 1905.)
* Palmer, A. E. _The New York Public School System_.
* Reigart, J. F. _The Lancastrian System of Instruction in the Schools
of New York City_.
* Salmon, David. _Joseph Lancaster_.
* Simcoe, A. M. _Social Forces in American History_.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE AMERICAN BATTLE FOR FREE STATE SCHOOLS
The problem which confronted those interested in establishing state-
controlled schools was not exactly the same in any two States, though the
battle in many States possessed common elements, and hence was somewhat
similar in character. Instead of tracing the struggle in detail in each of
the different States, it will be much more profitable for our purposes to
pick out the main strategic points in the contest, and then illustrate the
conflict for these by describing conditions in one or two States where the
controversy was most severe or most typical. The seven strategic points in
the struggle for free, tax-supported, non-sectarian, state-controlled
schools in the United States were:
1. The battle for tax support.
2. The battle to eliminate the pauper-school idea.
3. The battle to make the schools entirely free.
4. The battle to establish state supervision.
5. The battle to eliminate sectarianism.
6. The battle to extend the system upward.
7. Addition of the state university to crown the system.
We shall consider each of these, briefly, in order.
I. THE BATTLE FOR TAX SUPPORT
EARLY SUPPORT AND ENDOWMENT FUNDS. In New England, land endowments, local
taxes, direct local appropriations, license taxes, and rate-bills had long
been common. Land endowments began early in the New England Colonies,
while rate-bills date back to the earliest times and long remained a
favorite means of raising money for school support. These means were
adopted in the different States after the beginning of our national
period, and to them were added a variety of license taxes, while
occupational taxes, lotteries, and bank taxes also were employed to raise
money for schools. A few examples of these may be cited:
Connecticut, in 1774, turned over all proceeds of liquor licenses to the
towns where collected, to be used for schools. New Orleans, in 1826,
licensed two theaters on condition that they each pay $3000 annually for
the support of schools in the city. New York, in 1799, authorized four
state lotteries to raise $100,000 for schools, a similar amount again in
1801, and numerous other lotteries before 1810. New Jersey (R. 246) and
most of the other States did the same. Congress passed fourteen joint
resolutions, between 1812 and 1836, authorizing lotteries to help support
the schools of the city of Washington. Bank taxes were a favorite source
of income for schools, between about 1825 and 1860, banks being chartered
on condition that they would pay over each year for schools a certain sum
or percentage of their earnings. These all represent what is known as
indirect taxation, and were valuable in accustoming the people to the idea
of public schools without appearing to tax them for their support.
The National Land Grants, begun in the case of Ohio in 1802, soon
stimulated a new interest in schools. Each State admitted after Ohio also
received the sixteenth section for the support of common schools, and two
townships of land for the endowment of a state university. The new Western
States, following the lead of Ohio (R. 260) and Indiana (R. 261),
dedicated these section lands and funds to free common schools. The
sixteen older States, however, did not share in these grants, so most of
them now set about building up a permanent school fund of their own,
though at first without any very clear idea as to how the income from the
fund was to be used. [1]
THE BEGINNINGS OF SCHOOL TAXATION. The early idea, which seems for a time
to have been generally entertained, that the income from land grants,
license fees, and these permanent endowment funds would in time entirely
support the necessary schools, was gradually abandoned as it was seen how
little in yearly income these funds and lands really produced, and how
rapidly the population of the States was increasing. By 1825 it may be
said to have been clearly recognized by thinking men that the only safe
reliance of a system of state schools lay in the general and direct
taxation of all property for their support. "The wealth of the State must
educate the children of the State" became a watchword, and the battle for
direct, local, county, and state taxation for education was clearly on by
1825 to 1830 in all the Northern States, except the four in New England
where the principle of taxation for education had for long been
established. [2] Even in these States the struggle to increase taxation
and provide better schools called for much argument and popular education
(R. 316), and occasional backward movements (Rs. 317, 318) were
encountered.
[Illustration: FIG. 200. THE FIRST FREE PUBLIC SCHOOL IN DETROIT
A one-room school, opened in the Second Ward, in 1838. No action was taken
in any other ward until 1842.]
The struggle to secure the first legislation, weak and ineffective as it
seems to us to-day, was often hard and long. "Campaigns of education" had
to be prepared for and carried through. Many thought that tax-supported
schools would be dangerous for the State, harmful to individual good, and
thoroughly undemocratic. Many did not see the need for schools at all.
Portions of a town or a city would provide a free school, while other
portions would not. Often those in favor of taxation were bitterly
assailed, and even at times threatened with personal violence. Often those
in favor of improving the school had to wait patiently for the opposition
slowly to wear itself out (R. 319) before any real progress could be made.
STATE SUPPORT FIXED THE STATE SYSTEM. With the beginnings of state aid in
any substantial sums, either from the income from permanent endowment
funds, state appropriations, or direct state taxation, the State became,
for the first time, in a position to enforce quite definite requirements
in many matters. Communities which would not meet the State's requirements
would receive no state funds.
One of the first requirements to be thus enforced was that communities or
districts receiving state aid must also levy a local tax for schools.
Commonly the requirement was a duplication of state aid. Generally
speaking, and recognizing exceptions in a few States, this represents the
beginnings of compulsory local taxation for education. As early as 1797
Vermont had required the towns to support their schools on penalty of
forfeiting their share of state aid. New York in 1812, Delaware in 1829,
and New Jersey in 1846 required a duplication of all state aid received.
Wisconsin, in its first constitution of 1848, required a local tax for
schools equal to one half the state aid received. The next step in state
control was to add still other requirements, as a prerequisite to
receiving state aid. One of the first of such was that a certain length of
school term, commonly three months, must be provided in each school
district. Another was the provision of free heat, and later on free
schoolbooks and supplies.
When the duplication-of-state-aid-received stage had been reached,
compulsory local taxation for education had been established, and the
great central battle for the creation of a state school system had been
won. The right to tax for support, and to compel local taxation, was the
key to the whole state system of education. From this point on the process
of evolving an adequate system of school support in any State has been
merely the further education of public opinion to see new educational
needs.
II. THE BATTLE TO ELIMINATE THE PAUPER-SCHOOL IDEA
THE PAUPER-SCHOOL IDEA. The pauper-school idea was a direct inheritance
from England, and its home in America was in the old Central and Southern
Colonies, where the old Anglican Church had been in control. New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia were the chief
representatives, though the idea had friends among certain classes of the
population in other of the older States. The new and democratic West would
not tolerate it. The pauper-school conception was a direct inheritance
from English rule, belonged to a society based on classes, and was wholly
out of place in a Republic founded on the doctrine that "all men are
created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights." Still more, it was a very dangerous conception of education for a
democratic form of government to tolerate or to foster. Its friends were
found among the old aristocratic or conservative classes, the heavy
taxpayers, the supporters of church schools, and the proprietors of
private schools. Citizens who had caught the spirit of the new Republic,
public men of large vision, intelligent workingmen, and men of the New
England type of thinking were opposed on principle to a plan which drew
such invidious distinctions between the future citizens of the State. To
educate part of the children in church or private pay schools, they said,
and to segregate those too poor to pay tuition and educate them at public
expense in pauper schools, often with the brand of pauper made very
evident to them, was certain to create classes in society which in time
would prove a serious danger to our democratic institutions.
Large numbers of those for whom the pauper schools were intended would not
brand themselves as paupers by sending their children to the schools, and
others who accepted the advantages offered, for the sake of their
children, despised the system. [3]
The battle for the elimination of the pauper-school idea was fought out in
the North in the States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the struggle
in these two States we shall now briefly describe.
THE PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATION. In Pennsylvania we find the pauper-school
idea fully developed. The constitution of 1790 (R. 259) had provided for a
state system of pauper schools, but nothing was done to carry even this
constitutional direction into effect until 1802. A pauper-school law was
then enacted, directing the overseers of the poor to notify such parents
as they deemed sufficiently indigent that, if they would declare
themselves to be paupers, their children might be sent to some specified
private or pay school and be given free education (R. 315). The expense
for this was assessed against the education poor-fund, which was levied
and collected in the same manner as were road taxes or taxes for poor
relief. No provision was made for the establishment of public schools,
even for the children of the poor, nor was any standard set for the
education to be provided in the schools to which they were sent. No other
general provision for elementary education was made in the State until
1834.
With the growth of the cities, and the rise of their special problems,
something more than this very inadequate provision for schooling became
necessary. "The Philadelphia Society for the Establishment and Support of
Charity Schools" had long been urging a better system, and in 1814 "'The
Society for the Promotion of a Rational System of Education" was organized
in Philadelphia for the purpose of educational propaganda. Bills were
prepared and pushed, and in 1818 Philadelphia was permitted, by special
law, to organize as "the first school district" in the State of
Pennsylvania, and to provide, with its own funds, a system of Lancastrian
schools for the education of the children of its poor. [4]
THE LAW OF 1834. In 1827 "The Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of
Public Schools" began an educational propaganda which did much to bring
about the Free-School Act of 1834. In an "Address to the Public" it
declared its object to be the promotion of public education throughout the
State of Pennsylvania, and the "Address" closed with these words:
This Society is at present composed of about 250 members, and a
correspondence has been commenced with 125 members, who reside in every
district in the State. It is intended to direct the continued attention of
the public to the importance of the subject; to collect and diffuse all
information which may be deemed valuable; and to persevere in their labors
until they shall be crowned with success.
Memorials were presented to the legislature year after year, governors
were interested, "Addresses to the Public" were prepared, and a vigorous
propaganda was kept up until the Free-School Law of 1834 was the result.
This law, though, was optional. It created every ward, township, and
borough in the State a school district, a total of 987 being created for
the State. Each school district was ordered to vote that autumn on the
acceptance or rejection of the law. Those accepting the law were to
organize under its provisions, while those rejecting the law were to
continue under the educational provisions of the old Pauper-School Act.
[Illustration: FIG. 201. THE PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL ELECTIONS OF 1835
Showing the percentage of school districts in each county organizing under
and accepting the School Law of 1834. Percentage of districts accepting
indicated on the map for a few of the counties.]
The results of the school elections of 1834 are shown, by counties, on the
below map. Of the total of 987 districts created, 502, in 46 of the then
52 counties (Philadelphia County not voting), or 52 per cent of the whole
number, voted to accept the new law and organize under it; 264 districts,
in 31 counties, or 27 per cent of the whole, voted definitely to reject
the law; and 221 districts, in 46 counties, or 21 per cent of the whole,
refused to take any action either way. In 3 counties, indicated on the
map, every district accepted the law, and in 5 counties, also indicated
every district rejected or refused to act on the law. It was the
predominantly German counties, located in the east-central portion of the
State, which were strongest in their opposition to the new law. One reason
for this was that the new law provided for English schools; another was
the objection of the thrifty Germans to taxation; and another was the fear
that the new state schools might injure their German parochial schools.
The real fight for free _versus_ pauper schools, though, was yet to come.
Legislators who had voted for the law were bitterly assailed, and, though
it was but an optional law, the question of its repeal and the
reinstatement of the old Pauper-School Law became the burning issue of the
campaign in the autumn of 1834. Many legislators who had favored the law
were defeated for reelection. Others, seeing defeat, refused to run.
Petitions for the repeal of the law, [5] and remonstrances against its
repeal, flooded the legislature when it met. The Senate at once repealed
the law, but the House, largely under the leadership of a Vermonter by the
name of Thaddeus Stevens, [6] refused to reconsider, and finally forced
the Senate to accept an amended and a still stronger bill. This defeat
finally settled, in principle at least, the pauper-school question in
Pennsylvania, [7] though it was not until 1873 that the last district in
the State accepted the new system.
ELIMINATING THE PAUPER-SCHOOL IDEA IN NEW JERSEY. No constitutional
mention of education was made in New Jersey until 1844, and no educational
legislation was passed until 1816. In that year a permanent state school
fund was begun, and in 1820 the first permission to levy taxes "for the
education of such poor children as are paupers" was granted. In 1828 an
extensive investigation showed that one third of the children of the State
were without educational opportunities, and as a result of this
investigation the first general school law for the State was enacted, in
1829. This provided for district schools, school trustees and visitation,
licensed teachers, local taxation, and made a state appropriation of
$20,000 a year to help establish the system. The next year, however, this
law was repealed and the old pauper-school plan reëstablished, largely due
to the pressure of church and private-school interests. In 1830 and 1831
the state appropriation was made divisible among private and parochial
schools, as well as the public pauper schools, and the use of all public
money was limited "to the education of the children of the poor."
Between 1828 and 1838 a number of conventions of friends of free public
schools were held in the State, and much work in the nature of propaganda
was done. At a convention in 1838 a committee was appointed to prepare an
"Address to the People of New Jersey" on the educational needs of the
State (R. 320), and speakers were sent over the State to talk to the
people on the subject. The campaign against the pauper school had just
been fought to a conclusion in Pennsylvania, and the result of the appeal
in New Jersey was such a popular manifestation in favor of free schools
that the legislature of 1838 instituted a partial state school system. The
pauper-school laws were repealed, and the best features of the short-lived
Law of 1829 were reënacted. In 1844 a new state constitution limited the
income of the permanent state school fund exclusively to the support of
public schools.
With the pauper-school idea eliminated from Pennsylvania and New Jersey,
the North was through with it. The wisdom of its elimination soon became
evident, and we hear little more of it among Northern people. The
democratic West never tolerated it. It continued some time longer in
Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia, and at places for a time in other
Southern States, but finally disappeared in the South as well in the
educational reorganizations which took place following the close of the
Civil War.
III. THE BATTLE TO MAKE THE SCHOOLS ENTIRELY FREE
THE SCHOOLS NOT YET FREE. The rate-bill, as we have previously stated, was
an old institution, also brought over from England, as the term "rate"
signifies. It was a charge levied upon the parent to supplement the school
revenues and prolong the school term, and was assessed in proportion to
the number of children sent by each parent to the school. In some States,
as for example Massachusetts and Connecticut, its use went back to
colonial times; in others it was added as the cost for education
increased, and it was seen that the income from permanent funds and
authorized taxation was not sufficient to maintain the school the
necessary length of time. The deficiency in revenue was charged against
the parents sending children to school, _pro rata_, and collected as
ordinary tax-bills (R. 321). The charge was small, but it was sufficient
to keep many poor children away from the schools.
The rising cities, with their new social problems, could not and would not
tolerate the rate-bill system, and one by one they secured special laws
from legislatures which enabled them to organize a city school system,
separate from city-council control, and under a local "board of
education." One of the provisions of these special laws nearly always was
the right to levy a city tax for schools sufficient to provide free
education for the children of the city.
[Illustration: FIG. 202. THE NEW YORK REFERENDUM OF 1850
Total vote: For free schools, 17 counties and 209,346 voters; against free
schools, 42 counties and 184,308 voters.]
THE FIGHT AGAINST THE RATE-BILL IN NEW YORK. The attempt to abolish the
rate-bill and make the schools wholly free was most vigorously contested
in New York State, and the contest there is most easily described. From
1828 to 1868, this tax on the parents produced an average annual sum of
$410,685.66, or about one half of the sum paid all the teachers of the
State for salary. While the wealthy districts were securing special
legislation and taxing themselves to provide free schools for their
children, the poorer and less populous districts were left to struggle to
maintain their schools the four months each year necessary to secure state
aid. Finally, after much agitation, and a number of appeals to the
legislature to assume the rate-bill charges in the form of general state
taxation, and thus make the schools entirely free, the legislature, in
1849, referred the matter back to the people to be voted on at the
elections that autumn. The legislature was to be thus advised by the
people as to what action it should take. The result was a state-wide
campaign for free, public, tax-supported schools, as against partially
free, rate-bill schools.
The result of the 1849 election was a vote of 249,872 in favor of making
"the property of the State educate the children of the State," and 91,952
against it. This only seemed to stir the opponents of free schools to
renewed action, and they induced the next legislature to resubmit the
question for another vote, in the autumn of 1850.
The result of the referendum of 1850 is shown on the map on page 685. The
opponents of tax-supported schools now mustered their full strength,
doubling their vote in 1849, while the majority for free schools was
materially cut down. The interesting thing shown on this map was the clear
and unmistakable voice of the cities. They would not tolerate the rate-
bill, and, despite their larger property interests, they favored tax-
supported free schools. The rural districts, on the other hand, opposed
the idea.
THE RATE-BILL IN OTHER STATES. These two referenda virtually settled the
question in New York, though for a time a compromise was adopted. The
state appropriation for schools was very materially increased, the rate-
bill was retained, and the organization of "union districts" to provide
free schools by local taxation where people desired them was authorized.
Many of these "union free districts" now arose in the more progressive
communities of the State, and finally, in 1867, after rural and other
forms of opposition had largely subsided, and after almost all the older
States had abandoned the plan, the New York legislature finally abolished
the rate-bill and made the schools of New York entirely free.
The dates for the abolition of the rate-bill in the other older Northern
States were:
1834. Pennsylvania. 1867. New York.
1852. Indiana. 1868. Connecticut.
1853. Ohio. 1868. Rhode Island.
1855. Illinois. 1869. Michigan.
1864. Vermont. 1871. New Jersey.
The New York fight of 1849 and 1850 was the pivotal fight; in the other
States it was abandoned by legislative act, and without a serious contest.
In the Southern States free education came with the educational
reorganizations following the close of the Civil War.
IV. THE BATTLE TO ESTABLISH SCHOOL SUPERVISION
BEGINNINGS OF STATE CONTROL. The great battle for state schools was not
only for taxation to stimulate their development where none existed, but
was also indirectly a battle for some form of state control of the local
systems which had already grown up. The establishment of permanent state
school funds by the older States, to supplement any other aid which might
be granted, also tended toward the establishment of some form of state
supervision and control of the local school systems. The first step was
the establishment of some form of state aid; the next was the imposing of
conditions necessary to secure this state aid.
State oversight and control, however, does not exercise itself, and it
soon became evident that the States must elect or appoint some officer to
represent the State and enforce the observance of its demands. It would be
primarily his duty to see that the laws relating to schools were carried
out, that statistics as to existing conditions were collected and printed,
and that communities were properly advised as to their duties and the
legislature as to the needs of the State. We find now the creation of a
series of school officers to represent the State, the enactment of new
laws extending control, and a struggle to integrate, subordinate, and
reduce to some semblance of a state school system the hundreds of little
community school systems which had grown up.
THE FIRST STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS. The first American State to create a
state officer to exercise supervision over its schools was New York, in
1812. In enacting the new law [8] providing for state aid for schools the
first State Superintendent of Common Schools in the United States was
created. So far as is known this was a distinctively American creation,
uninfluenced by the practice in any other land. It was to be the duty of
this officer to look after the establishment and maintenance of the
schools throughout the State. [9] Maryland created the office in 1826, but
two years later abolished it and did not re-create it until 1864. Illinois
directed its Secretary of State to act, _ex officio_, as Superintendent of
Schools in 1825, as did also Vermont in 1827, Louisiana in 1833,
Pennsylvania in 1834, and Tennessee in 1835. Illinois did not create a
real State Superintendent of Schools, though, until 1854, Vermont until
1845, Louisiana until 1847, Pennsylvania until 1857, or Tennessee until
1867. The first States to create separate school officials who have been
continued to the present time were Michigan and Kentucky, both in 1837.
Often quite a legislative struggle took place to secure the establishment
of the office, and later on to prevent its abolition.
[Illustration: FIG. 203. STATUS OF SCHOOL SUPERVISION IN THE UNITED STATES
BY 1861
For a list of the 28 City Superintendencies established up to 1870, see
Cubberley's _Public School Administration_, p. 58. For the history of the
state educational office in each State see Cubberley and Elliott, _State
and County School Administration, Source Book_, pp. 283-87.]
By 1850 there were _ex-officio_ state school officers in nine and regular
school officers in seven of the then thirty-one States, and by 1861 there
were _ex-officio_ officers in nine and regular officers in nineteen of the
then thirty-four States, as well as one of each in two of the organized
Territories. The above map shows the growth of supervisory oversight by
1861--forty-nine years from the time the first American state school
officer was created. The map also shows the ten of the thirty-four States
which had, by 1861, also created the office of County Superintendent of
Schools, as well as the twenty-five cities which had, by 1861, created the
office of City Superintendent of Schools. Only three more cities--Albany,
Washington, and Kansas City--were added before 1870, making a total of
twenty-eight, but since that date the number of city superintendents has
increased to something like fourteen hundred to-day.
THE FIRST STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION. Another important form for state
control which was created a little later was the State Board of Education,
with an appointed Secretary, who exercised about the same functions as a
State Superintendent of Schools. This form of organization first arose in
Massachusetts, in 1837, in an effort to subordinate the district schools
and reduce them to a semblance of an organized system. In 1826 each town
(township) had been required to appoint a School Committee (School Board)
to exercise general supervision over its schools, in 1834 the state
permanent school fund was created, and in 1837 the reform movement reached
its culmination in the creation of the first real State Board of Education
in the United States. Instead of following the usual American practice of
the time, and providing for an elected State School Superintendent,
Massachusetts provided for a small appointed State Board of Education
which in turn was to select a Secretary, who was to act in the capacity of
a state school officer and report to the Board, and through it to the
legislature and the people. Neither the Board nor the Secretary were given
any powers of compulsion, their work being to investigate conditions,
report facts, expose defects, and make recommendations as to action to the
legislature. The permanence and influence of the Board thus depended very
largely on the character of the Secretary it selected.
HORACE MANN THE FIRST SECRETARY. A prominent Brown University graduate and
lawyer in the State Senate, by the name of Horace Mann (1796-1859), who as
president of the Senate had been of much assistance in securing passage of
the bill creating the State Board of Education, was finally induced by the
Governor and the Board to accept the position of Secretary. Mr. Mann now
began a most memorable work of educating public opinion, and soon became
the acknowledged leader in school organization in the United States. State
after State called upon him for advice and counsel, while his twelve
annual Reports to the State Board of Education will always remain
memorable documents. Public men of all classes--lawyers, clergymen,
college professors, literary men, teachers--were laid under tribute and
sent forth over the State explaining to the people the need for a
reawakening of educational interest in Massachusetts. Every year Mr. Mann
organized a "campaign," to explain to the people the meaning and
importance of general education. So successful was he, and so ripe was the
time for such a movement, that he not only started a great common school
revival in Massachusetts which led to the regeneration of the schools
there, but one which was felt and which influenced development in every
Northern State.
His twelve carefully written _Reports_ on the condition of education in
Massachusetts and elsewhere, with his intelligent discussion of the aims
and purposes of public education, occupy a commanding place in the history
of American education, while he will always be regarded as perhaps the
greatest of the "founders" of our American system of free public schools.
No one did more than he to establish in the minds of the American people
the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, and
free, and that its aim should be social efficiency, civic virtue, and
character, rather than mere learning or the advancement of sectarian ends.
Under his practical leadership an unorganized and heterogeneous series of
community school systems was reduced to organization and welded together
into a state school system, and the people of Massachusetts were
effectively recalled to their ancient belief in and duty toward the
education of the people.
HENRY BARNARD IN CONNECTICUT AND RHODE ISLAND. Almost equally important,
though of a somewhat different character, was the work of Henry Barnard
(1811-1900) in Connecticut and Rhode Island. A graduate of Yale, and also
educated for the law, he turned aside to teach and became deeply
interested in education. The years 1835-37 he spent in Europe studying
schools, particularly the work of Pestalozzi's disciples. On his return to
America he was elected a member of the Connecticut legislature, and at
once formulated and secured passage of the Connecticut law (1839)
providing for a State Board of Commissioners for Common Schools, with a
Secretary, after the Massachusetts plan. Mr. Barnard was then elected as
its first Secretary, and reluctantly gave up the law and accepted the
position at the munificent salary of $3 a day and expenses. Until the
legislature abolished both the Board and the position, in 1842, he
rendered for Connecticut a service scarcely less important than the
better-known reforms which Horace Mann was at that time carrying on in
Massachusetts.