The History of Education Part 67

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 att.i.tude 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 inst.i.tution 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 cla.s.s 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 "a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.sociation," 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 Ma.s.sachusetts to Georgia, and as far west as Cincinnati, Louisville, and Detroit. In 1826 Maryland inst.i.tuted 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 a.s.sembly 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 cla.s.s. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 cla.s.s-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, Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 ill.u.s.tration. 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, h.o.m.ogeneous 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 a.s.sociations, 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 Const.i.tution 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 const.i.tutions. The early period of the national life was thus characterized by the rule of a cla.s.s--a very well-educated and a very capable cla.s.s, to be sure--but a cla.s.s elected by a ballot based on property qualifications and belonging to the older type of political and social thinking.