The History of Education Part 45

THE TEACHERS. The development of the vernacular school was r.e.t.a.r.ded not only by the dominance of the religious purpose of the school, but by the poor quality of teachers found everywhere in the schools. The evolution of the elementary-school teacher of to-day out of the church s.e.xton, bell- ringer, or grave-digger, [14] or out of the artisan, cripple, or old dame who added school teaching to other employment in order to live, forms one of the interesting as well as one of the yet-to-be-written chapters in the history of the evolution of the elementary school.

Teachers in elementary schools everywhere in the eighteenth century were few in number, poor in quality, and occupied but a lowly position in the social scale. School dames in England (R. 235) and later in the American Colonies, and on the continent of Europe teachers who were more s.e.xtons, choristers, beadles, bell-ringers, grave-diggers, shoemakers, tailors, barbers, pensioners, and invalids than teachers, too often formed the teaching body for the elementary vernacular school (Rs. 231, 232, 233). In Switzerland, the Netherlands, and some of the American Colonies, where schools had become or were becoming local semi-civic affairs, the standards which might be imposed for teaching also were low. The grant of the tailoring monopoly to the elementary teachers of Prussia, [15] in 1738, and Krusi's recollections of how he became a schoolmaster in Switzerland, in 1793 (R. 234), were quite typical of the time. In Catholic France, and in some German Catholic lands as well, teaching congregations (p. 345), some of whose members had some rudimentary training for their work, were in charge of the existing parish schools. These provided a somewhat better type of teaching body than that frequently found in Protestant lands, though by the latter part of the eighteenth century the beginnings of teacher-training are to be seen in some of the German States. The Church of England, too, had by this time organized strong Societies [16] for the preparation of teachers for Church-of-England schools, both at home and abroad. In Dutch, German, and Scandinavian lands, and in colonies founded by these people in America, the parish school, closely tied up with and dependent upon the parish church, was the prevailing type of vernacular school, and in this the teacher was regarded as essentially an a.s.sistant to the pastor (R. 236) and the school as a dependency of the Church.

[FIG. 135. A "CHRISTIAN BROTHERS" SCHOOL La Salle teaching at Gren.o.ble. Note the adult type of dress of the boys.]

In England, in addition to regular parish schools and endowed elementary schools, three peculiar inst.i.tutions, known as the Dame School, the religious charity-school, and the private-adventure or "hedge school" had grown up, and the first two of these had reached a marked development by the middle of the eighteenth century. Because these were so characteristic of early English educational effort, and also played such an important part in the American Colonies as well, they merit a few words of description at this point.

THE DAME SCHOOL. The Dame School arose in England after the Reformation.

By means of it the increasing desire for a rudimentary knowledge of the art of reading could be satisfied, and at the same time certain women could earn a pittance. This type of school was carried early to the American Colonies, and out of it was in time evolved, in New England, the American elementary school. The Dame School was a very elementary school, kept in a kitchen or living-room by some woman who, in her youth, had obtained the rudiments of an education, and who now desired to earn a small stipend for herself by imparting to the children of her neighborhood her small store of learning. For a few pennies a week the dame took the children into her home and explained to them the mysteries connected with learning the beginnings of reading and spelling. Occasionally a little writing and counting also were taught, though not often in England. In the American Colonies the practical situations of a new country forced the employment as teachers of women who could teach all three subjects, thus early creating the American school of the so-called "3 Rs"--"Reading, Riting, Rithmetic." The Dame School appears so frequently in English literature, both poetry and prose, that it must have played a very important part in the beginnings of elementary education in England. Of this school Shenstone (1714-63) writes (R. 235):

In every village marked with little spire, Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame, There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire, A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name, Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 136. AN ENGLISH DAME SCHOOL (From a drawing of a school in the heart of London, after Barclay)]

The Reverend George Crabbe (1754-1832), another poet of homely life, writes (R. 235) of a deaf, poor, patient widow who sits

And awes some thirty infants as she knits; Infants of humble, busy wives who pay, Some trifling price for freedom through the day.

This school flourished greatly in America during the eighteenth century, but with the coming of Infant Schools, early in the nineteenth, was merged into these to form the American Primary School.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 137. GRAVEL LANE CHARITY-SCHOOL, SOUTHWARK Founded in 1687, and one of the earliest of the Non-Conformist English charity-schools. Still carrying on its work in the original schoolroom at the time this picture appeared, in _Londina Ill.u.s.trata_ in 1819.]

THE RELIGIOUS CHARITY-SCHOOL. Another thoroughly characteristic English inst.i.tution was the church charity-school. The first of these was founded in Whitechapel, London, in 1680. In 1699, when the School of Saint Anne, Soho (R. 237), was founded by "Five Earnest Laymen for the Poore Boys of the Parish," it was the sixth of its kind in England. In 1699 the "Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge" (S.P.C.K.) was founded for the purpose, among other things, of establishing catechetical schools for the education of the children of the poor in the principles of the Established Church (R. 238 b). In 1701 the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" (S.P.G.) was also founded to extend the work of the Anglican Church abroad, supply schoolmasters and ministers, and establish schools, to train children to read, write, know and understand the Catechism, and fit into the teachings and worship of the Church. To develop piety and help the poor to lead industrious, upright, self- respecting lives, "to make them loyal Church members, and to fit them for work in that station of life in which it had pleased their Heavenly Father to place them," were the princ.i.p.al objects of the Society.

All were taught reading, spelling, and the Catechism, and instruction in writing and arithmetic might be added. The training might also be coupled with that of the "schools of industry" (workhouse schools, as described by Locke [R. 217]) to augment the economic efficiency of the boy. Girls seem to have been provided for almost equally with boys, and, in addition to being taught to read and spell, were taught "to knit their Stockings and Gloves, to Mark, Sew, and make and mend their Cloathes." Both boys and girls were usually provided with books and clothing, [17] a regular uniform being worn by the boys and girls of each school.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 138. A CHARITY-SCHOOL GIRL IN UNIFORM Saint Anne's, Soho, England]

The chief motive in the establishment of these schools, though, was to decrease the "Prophaness and Debauchery ... owing to a gross Ignorance of the Christian Religion" (R. 237) and to educate "Poor Children in the Rules and Principles of the Christian Religion as professed and taught in the Church of England." Writing, in 1742, Reverend Griffith Jones, an organizer for the S.P.C.K. in Wales, said:

It is but a cheap education that we would desire for them [the poor], only the moral and religious branches of it, which indeed is the most necessary and indispensable part. The sole design of this charity is to inculcate upon such ... as can be prevailed upon to learn, the knowledge and practice, the principles and duties of the Christian religion; and to make them good people, useful members of society, faithful servants of G.o.d, and men and heirs of eternal life.

These schools multiplied rapidly and soon became regular inst.i.tutions, as the following table, showing the growth of the S.P.C.K. schools in London alone, shows:

Year Schools Boys Girls Total 1699 0 0 0 0 1704 54 1386 745 2131 1709 88 2181 1221 3402 1714 117 3077 1741 4818

In England and Ireland combined the Society had, by 1714, a total of 1073 schools, with 19,453 pupils enrolled, and by 1729 the number had increased to 1658, with approximately 34,000 pupils. From England the charity-school idea was early carried to the Anglican Colonies in America and became a fixed inst.i.tution in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and somewhat in the Colonies farther south. In the Pennsylvania const.i.tution of 1790 we find the following directions for the establishment of a state charity-school system to supplement the parish schools of the churches:

Sec. I. The legislature shall, as soon as conveniently may be, provide, by law, for the establishment of schools throughout the State, in such manner that the poor may be taught _gratis_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 130. A CHARITY-SCHOOL BOY IN UNIFORM Saint Anne's, Soho, England]

The first Pennsylvania school law of 1802 carried this direction into effect by providing for pauper schools in the counties, a condition that was not done away with until 1834. In New Jersey the system lasted until 1838.

THE PRIVATE-ADVENTURE, OR "HEDGE," SCHOOL. This was a school a.n.a.logous to the Dame School, but was kept by a man instead of a woman, and usually at his home or shop. Plate 15, showing a shoe cobbler teaching, represents one type of such schools. The term "hedge schools" arose in Ireland, where teaching was forbidden the Catholics, and secret schools arose in which priests and others taught what was possible. Of these McCarthy writes: [18]

On the highways and on the hillsides, in ditches and behind hedges, in the precarious shelter of the ruined walls of some ancient abbey, or under the roof of a peasant's cabin, the priests set up schools and taught the children of their race.

The term soon came to be applied to any kind of a poor school, taught in an irregular manner or place. Similar irregular schools, under equivalent names, also were found in German lands, [19] the Netherlands, and in France, while in the American Colonies "indentured white servants" were frequently let out as schoolmasters. The following advertis.e.m.e.nt of a teacher for sale is typical of private-adventure elementary school-keeping during the colonial period.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 140. ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT FOR A TEACHER TO LET (From the _American Weekly Mercury_ of Philadephia, 1735)]

These schools were taught by itinerant school-keepers, artisans, and tutors of the poorer type, but offered the beginnings of elementary education to many a child who otherwise would never have been able to learn to read. In the early eighteenth century these schools attained a remarkable development in England.

A new influence of tremendous future importance--general reading--was now coming in; the vernacular was fast supplanting Latin; newspapers were being started; little books or pamphlets (tracts) containing general information were being sold; books for children and beginners were being written; the popular novel and story had appeared; [20] and all these educative forces were creating a new and a somewhat general desire for a knowledge of the art of reading. This in turn caused a new demand for schools to teach the long-locked-up art, and this demand was capitalized to the profit of many types of people.

THE APPRENTICING OF ORPHANS AND CHILDREN OF THE POOR. The compulsory apprenticing of the children of the poor, as we have seen (p. 326), was an old English inst.i.tution, and workhouse training, or the so-called "schools of industry" became, by the eighteenth century, a prominent feature of the English care of the poor. These represented the only form of education supported by taxation, and the only form of education to which Parliament gave any attention during the whole of the eighteenth century. This type of inst.i.tution also was carried to the Anglican Colonies in America, as we have seen in the doc.u.ments for Virginia (R. 200 a), and became an established inst.i.tution in America as well.

The apprenticing of boys to a trade, a still older inst.i.tution, was also much used as a means for training youths for a life in the trades, not only in England and the American Colonies, but throughout all European lands as well. The conditions surrounding the apprenticing of a boy had by the eighteenth century become quite fixed. The "Indenture of Apprenticeship" was drawn up by a lawyer, and by it the master was carefully bound to clothe and feed the boy, train him properly in his trade, look after his morals, and start him in life at the end of his apprenticeship. This is well shown in the many records which have been preserved, both in England (R. 242) and the American Colonies (R. 201).

For many boys this type of education was the best possible at the time, and worthily started the possessor in the work of his trade.

In the eighteenth century different English church parishes began to set up workhouse schools of various types, and to maintain these out of parish "rates." The one established in Bishopsgate Street, London, in 1701, is typical. This cared for about 375 children and in it, by 1720, there had been educated and placed forth 1420 children, and in addition 123 had died. Of this school it is recorded that poor children

"being taken into the said Workhouse are there taught to Read and Write, and kept to Work until they are qualified to be put out to be Apprentices, and for the Sea Service, or otherwise disposed; ... The Habit of the Children is all the same, being made of Russit Cloth, and a round Badge worn upon their Breast, representing a poor Boy, and a Sheep; the Motto: '_G.o.d's Providence is our Inheritance_.'" ...

In this workhouse children were "taught to spin Wool and Flax, to Sow and Knit, to make their own Cloaths, Shoes, and Stockings, and the like Employments; to inure them betimes to labour. They are also taught to read, and such as are capable, to write and cast Accounts; and also the Catechism, to ground them in Principles of Religion and Honesty." [21]

The school established by Saint John's parish, Southwark, London, in 1735, and designed to train and "put out" girls for domestic service (R. 241), and which cared for, clothed, and trained forty girls, is also typical of these parish schools "for the children of the industrious poor."

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION. Throughout the eighteenth century the method of instruction commonly employed in the vernacular schools was what was known as the individual method. This was wasteful of both time and effort, and unpedagogical to a high degree (R. 244). Everywhere the teacher was engaged chiefly in hearing recitations, testing memory, and keeping order.

The pupils came to the master's desk, one by one (see Figures 98, 99), and recited what they had memorized. Aside from imposing discipline, teaching was an easy task. The pupils learned the a.s.signed lessons and recited what they had learned. Such a thing as methodology--technique of instruction-- was unknown. The dominance of the religious motive, too, precluded any liberal att.i.tude in school instruction, the individual method was time- consuming, school buildings often were lacking, and in general there was an almost complete lack of any teaching equipment, books, or supplies.

Viewed from any modern standpoint the schools of the eighteenth century attained to but a low degree of efficiency (R. 244). The school hours were long, the schoolmaster's residence or place of work or business was commonly used as a schoolroom, and such regular schoolrooms as did exist were dirty and noisy and but poorly suited to school purposes. Schools everywhere, too, were ungraded, the school of one teacher being like that of any other teacher of that cla.s.s.

So wasteful of time and effort was the individual method of instruction that children might attend school for years and get only a mere start in reading and writing. Paulsen, [22] writing of schools in German lands at an even later date, says that even in the better type of vernacular schools

many children never achieved anything beyond a little reading and knowing a few things by heart.... The instruction in reading was never anything else but a torture, protracted through years, from saying the alphabet and formation of syllables to the deciphering of complete words, without any real success in the end, while writing was nothing but a wearisome tracing of the letters, the net result of all the toil being the gabbling of the Catechism and a few Bible texts and hymns, learned over and over again.

The imparting of information by the teacher to a cla.s.s, or a cla.s.s discussion of a topic, were almost unknown. Hearing lessons, a.s.signing new tasks, setting copies, making quill pens, dictating sums, and imposing order completely absorbed the time and the attention of the teacher.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. The discipline everywhere was severe. "A boy has a back; when you hit it he understands," was a favorite pedagogical maxim of the time. Whipping-posts were sometimes set up in the schoolroom, and practically all pictures of the schoolmasters of the time show a bundle of switches near at hand. Boys in the Latin grammar schools were flogged for petty offenses (R. 245). The ability to impose order on a poorly taught and, in consequence, an unruly school was always an important requisite of the schoolmaster. A Swabian schoolmaster, Hauberle by name, with characteristic Teutonic attention to details, has left on record [23]

that, in the course of his fifty-one years and seven months as a teacher he had, by a moderate computation, given 911,527 blows with a cane, 124,010 blows with a rod, 20,989 blows and raps with a ruler, 136,715 blows with the hand, 10,235 blows over the mouth, 7,905 boxes on the ear, 1,115,800 raps on the head, and 22,763 _notabenes_ with the Bible, Catechism, singing book, and grammar. He had 777 times made boys kneel on peas, 613 times on a triangular piece of wood, had made 3001 wear the jacka.s.s, and 1707 hold the rod up, not to mention various more unusual punishments he had contrived on the spur of the occasion. Of the blows with the cane, 800,000 were for Latin words; of the rod 76,000 were for texts from the Bible or verses from the singing book. He also had about 3000 expressions to scold with, two thirds of which were native to the German tongue and the remainder his invention.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 141. A SCHOOL WHIPPING-POST Drawn from a picture of a five-foot whipping-post which once stood in the floor of a school-house at Sunderland, Ma.s.sachusetts. Now in the Deerfield Museum.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 142. AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GERMAN SCHOOL Reproduction of an engraving by J. Mettenleiter, now in the Kupferstichkabinet, Munich, and printed in Joh. Ferd. Schlez's.

_Dorfschulen zu Langenhausen_. Nuremberg, 1795.]

Another ill.u.s.tration of German school discipline, of many that might be cited, was the reform work of Johann Ernest Christian Haun, who was appointed, in 1783, as inspector of schools in the once famous Gotha (p.

317). Due to warfare and neglect the schools there had fallen into disrepute. Haun drove the incapable teachers from the work, and for a time restored the schools to something of their earlier importance. Among other reforms it is recorded that he forbade teachers to put irons around the boys' necks, to cover them with mud, to make them kneel on peas, or to brutally beat them. Diesterweg (R. 244) describes similar punishments as characteristic of eighteenth-century German schools. The eighteenth- century German schoolmaster shown in Fig. 142 was probably a good sample of his cla.s.s.

Pedagogical writers of the time uniformly complain of the severe discipline of the schools, and the literature of the period abounds in allusions to the prevailing harshness of the school discipline. A few writers condemn, but most approve heartily of the use of the rod. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" had for long been a well-grounded pedagogical doctrine. Among many literary extracts that might be cited ill.u.s.trating this belief, the following poem by the English poet Crabbe (1754-1832) is interesting. He puts the following words into the mouth of his early schoolmaster:

Students like horses on the road, Must be well lashed before they take the load; They may be willing for a time to run, But you must whip them ere the work be done; To tell a boy, that if he will improve, His friends will praise him, and his parents love, Is doing nothing--he has not a doubt But they will love him, nay, applaud without; Let no fond sire a boy's ambition trust, To make him study, let him learn he must.

CONDITIONS SURROUNDING CHILDHOOD. It is difficult for us of today to re- create in imagination the pitiful life-conditions which surrounded children a century and a half ago. Often the lot of the children of the poor, who then const.i.tuted the great bulk of all children, was little less than slavery. Wretchedly poor, dirty, unkempt, hard-worked, beaten about, knowing strong drink early, illiterate, often vicious--their lot was a sad one. For the children of the poor there were few, if any, educational opportunities. Writing on the subject David Salmon says: [24]

The imagination of the twentieth century cannot fathom the poverty of the eighteenth. The great development of mines and manufactures, which has brought ease and independence within the reach of industrious labour everywhere, had hardly begun; employment was so scarce and intermittent, and wages were so low, that the working cla.s.ses lived in hovels, dressed in rags, and were familiar with the pangs of hunger; while those who were forced to look to the rates for hovels, rags, and food sufficient to maintain a miserable life numbered a sixth of the whole population.

In the towns children were apprenticed out early in life, and for long hours of daily labor. Child welfare was almost entirely neglected, children were cuffed about and beaten at their work, juvenile delinquency was a common condition, child mortality was heavy, and ignorance was the rule. Schools generally were pay inst.i.tutions or a charity, and not a birthright, and usually existed only for the middle and lower-middle cla.s.ses in the population who were attendants at the churches and could afford to pay a little for the schooling given. Reading and religion were usually the only free subjects. Only in the New England Colonies, where the beginnings of town and colony school systems were evident, and in a few of the German States where state control was beginning to be exercised, was a better condition to be found.