The History of Education Part 71

To settle the question in a final manner legislatures now began to propose const.i.tutional amendments to the people of their several States which forbade a division or a diversion of the funds, and these were almost uniformly adopted at the first election after being proposed. No State admitted to the Union after 1858, except West Virginia, failed to insert such a provision in its first state const.i.tution. [12]

VI.

THE BATTLE TO ESTABLISH THE AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL

The elementary or common schools which had been established in the different States, by 1850, supplied an elementary or common school education to the children of the ma.s.ses of the people, and the primary schools which were added, after about 1820, carried this education downward to the needs of the beginners. In the rural schools the American school of the 3 Rs provided for all the children, from the little ones up, so long as they could advantageously partake of its instruction. Education in advance of this common school training was in semi-private inst.i.tutions--the academies and colleges--in which a tuition fee was charged. The next struggle came in the attempt to extend the system upward so as to provide to pupils, free of charge, a more complete education than the common schools afforded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 204. A TYPICAL NEW ENGLAND ACADEMY Pittsfield Academy, New Hampshire.]

THE TRANSITION ACADEMY. About the middle of the eighteenth century a tendency manifested itself, in Europe as well as in America, to establish higher schools offering a more practical curriculum than the old Latin schools had provided. In America it became particularly evident, after the coming of nationality, that the old Latin grammar-school type of instruction, with its limited curriculum and exclusively college- preparatory ends, was wholly inadequate for the needs of the youth of the land. The result was the gradual dying-out of the Latin school and the evolution of the tuition Academy, previously referred to briefly on page 463.

The academy movement spread rapidly during the first half of the nineteenth century. By 1800 there were 17 academies in Ma.s.sachusetts, 36 by 1820, and 403 by 1850. By 1830 there were, according to Hinsdale, 950 incorporated academies in the United States, and many unincorporated ones, and by 1850, according to Inglis, there were, of all kinds, 1007 academies in New England, 1636 in the Middle Atlantic States, 2640 in the Southern States, 753 in the Upper Mississippi Valley States, and a total reported for the entire United States of 6085, with 12,260 teachers employed and 263,096 pupils enrolled. [13]

The greatest period of their development was from 1820 to 1830, though they continued to dominate secondary education until 1850, and were very prominent until after the Civil War.

CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES. The most characteristic features of these academies were their semi-public control (R. 325), their broadened curriculum and religious purpose, and the extension of their instruction to girls. The Latin Grammar School was essentially a town free school, maintained by the towns for the higher education of certain of their male children. It was aristocratic in type, and belonged to the early period of cla.s.s education. With the decline in zeal for education, after 1750, these tax-supported higher schools largely died out, and in their place private energy and benevolence came to be depended upon to supply the needed higher education.

One of the main purposes expressed in the endowment or creation of the academies was the establishment of courses which should cover a number of subjects having value aside from mere preparation for college, particularly subjects of a modern nature, useful in preparing youths for the changed conditions of society and government and business. The study of real things rather than words about things, and useful things rather than subjects merely preparatory to college, became prominent features of the new courses of study. Among the most commonly found new subjects were algebra, astronomy, botany, chemistry, general history, United States history, English literature, surveying, intellectual philosophy, declamation, and debating. [14]

Not being bound up with the colleges, as the earlier Latin grammar schools had largely been, the academies became primarily independent inst.i.tutions, taking pupils who had completed the English education of the common school and giving them an advanced education in modern languages, the sciences, mathematics, history, and the more useful subjects of the time, with a view to "rounding out" their studies and preparing them for business life and the rising professions. They thus built upon instead of running parallel to the common school course, as the old Latin grammar school had done (see Figure 198, p. 666) and hence clearly mark a transition from the aristocratic and somewhat exclusive college-preparatory Latin grammar school of colonial times to the more democratic high school of to-day. The academies also served a very useful purpose in supplying to the lower schools the best-educated teachers of the time.

The old Latin grammar school, too, had been maintained exclusively for boys. Girls had been excluded as "Improper & inconsistent w'th such a Grammar Schoole as ye law injoines, and is ye Designe of this Settlem't."

The new academies soon reversed this situation. Almost from the first they began to be established for girls as well as boys, and in time many became co-educational. In New York State alone 32 academies were incorporated between 1819 and 1853 with the prefix "Female" to their t.i.tle. In this respect, also, these inst.i.tutions formed a transition to the modern co- educational high school. The higher education of women in the United States clearly dates from the establishment of the academies. Troy (New York) Seminary, founded by Emma Willard, in 1821, and Mt. Holyoke (Ma.s.sachusetts) Seminary, founded by Mary Lyon, in 1836, though not the first inst.i.tutions for girls, were nevertheless important pioneers in the higher education of women.

THE DEMAND FOR HIGHER SCHOOLS. The different movements tending toward the building-up of free public-school systems in the cities and States, which we have described in this and the preceding chapter, and which became clearly defined in the Northern States after 1825, came just at the time when the Academy had reached its maximum development. The settlement of the question of general taxation for education, the elimination of the rate-bill by the cities and later by the States, the establishment of the American common school as the result of a long native evolution, and the complete establishment of public control over the entire elementary-school system, all tended to bring the semi-private tuition academy into question. Many asked why not extend the public-school system upward to provide the necessary higher education for all in one common state- supported school. [15]

The demand for an upward extension of the public school, which would provide academy instruction for the poor as well as the rich, and in one common public higher school, now made itself felt. As the colonial Latin grammar school had represented the educational needs of a society based on cla.s.ses, and the academies had represented a transition period and marked the growth of a middle cla.s.s, so the rising democracy of the second quarter of the nineteenth century now demanded and obtained the democratic high school, supported by the public and equally open to all, to meet the educational needs of a new society built on the basis of a new and aggressive democracy. Where, too, the academy had represented in a way a missionary effort--that of a few providing something for the good of the people (Rs. 319, 325)--the high school on the other hand represented a cooperative effort on the part of the people to provide something for themselves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 205. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES The transitional character of the Academy is well shown in this diagram.]

THE FIRST AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL. The first high school in the United States was established in Boston, in 1821 (R. 326). For three years it was known as the "English Cla.s.sical School" (R. 327), but in 1824 the school appears in the records as the "English High School." In 1826 Boston also opened the first high school for girls, but abolished it in 1828, due to its great popularity, and instead extended the course of study for girls in the elementary schools.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 206 THE FIRST HIGH SCHOOL IN THE UNITED STATES Established at Boston in 1821.]

THE Ma.s.sACHUSETTS LAW OF 1827. Though Portland, Maine, established a high school in 1821, Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1824, and New Bedford, Haverhill, and Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1827, copying the Boston idea, the real beginning of the American high school as a distinct inst.i.tution dates from the Ma.s.sachusetts Law of 1827 (R. 328), enacted through the influence of James G. Carter. This law formed the basis of all subsequent legislation in Ma.s.sachusetts, and deeply influenced development in other States. The law is significant in that it required a high school in every town having 500 families or over, in which should be taught United States history, bookkeeping, algebra, geometry, and surveying, while in every town having 4000 inhabitants or over, instruction in Greek, Latin, history, rhetoric, and logic must be added. A heavy penalty was attached for failure to comply with the law. In 1835 the law was amended so as to permit any smaller town to form a high school as well.

This Boston and Ma.s.sachusetts legislation clearly initiated the public high-school movement in the United States. It was there that the new type of higher school was founded, there that its curriculum was outlined, there that its standards were established, and there that it developed earliest and best.

THE STRUGGLE TO ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN HIGH SCHOOLS. The development of the American high school, even in its home, was slow. Up to 1840 not much more than a dozen high schools had been established in Ma.s.sachusetts, and not more than an equal number in the other States. The Academy was the dominant inst.i.tution, the cost of maintenance was a factor, and the same opposition to an extension of taxation to include high schools was manifested as was earlier shown toward the establishment of common schools. The early state legislation, as had been the case with the common schools, was nearly always permissive and not mandatory. Ma.s.sachusetts forms a notable exception in this regard. The support for the schools had to come practically entirely from increased local taxation, and this made the struggle to establish and maintain high schools in any State for a long time a series of local struggles. Years of propaganda and patient effort were required, and, after the establishment of a high school in a community, constant watchfulness was necessary to prevent its abandonment (R. 329).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 207. HIGH SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES BY 1860 Based on the table given in the _Report of the United States Commissioner of Education_, 1904, vol. II, pp. 1782-1989. This table is only approximately correct, as exact information is difficult to obtain. This table gives 321 high schools by 1860, and all but 35 of these were in the States shown on the above map. There were two schools in California and three in Texas, and the remainder not shown were in the Southern States.

Of the 321 high schools reported, over half (167) were in the three States of Ma.s.sachusetts (78), New York (41), and Ohio (48).]

In many States, legislation providing for the establishment of high schools was attacked in the courts. One of the clearest cases of this came in Michigan, in a test case appealed from the city of Kalamazoo, and commonly known as the Kalamazoo case. The opinion of the Supreme Court of the State (R. 330) was so favorable and so positive that this decision deeply influenced development in almost all of the Upper Mississippi Valley States. The struggle to establish and maintain high schools in Ma.s.sachusetts and New York preceded the development in most other States, because there the common school had been established earlier. In consequence, the struggle to extend and complete the public-school system came there earlier also. The development was likewise more peaceful there, and came more rapidly. In Ma.s.sachusetts this was in large part a result of the educational awakening started by James G. Carter and Horace Mann. In New York it was due to the early support of Governor De Witt Clinton, and the later encouragement and state aid which came from the Regents of the University of the State of New York. Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire were like Ma.s.sachusetts in spirit, and followed closely its example. In Rhode Island and New Jersey, due to old conditions, and in Connecticut, due to the great decline in education there after 1800, the high school developed much more slowly, and it was not until after 1865 that any marked development took place in these States. The democratic West soon adopted the idea, and established high schools as soon as cities developed and the needs of the population warranted. In the South the main high- school development dates from relatively recent times.

Gradually the high school has been accepted as a part of the state common- school system by all the American States, and the funds and taxation originally provided for the common schools have been extended to cover the high school as well. The new States of the West have based their legislation largely on what the Eastern and Central States earlier fought out.

VII. THE STATE UNIVERSITY CROWNS THE SYSTEM

THE COLONIAL COLLEGES. The earlier colleges--Harvard, William and Mary, Yale--had been created by the religious-state governments of the earlier colonial period, and continued to retain some state connections for a time after the coming of nationality. As it early became evident that a democracy demands intelligence on the part of its citizens, that the leaders of democracy are not likely to be too highly educated, and that the character of collegiate instruction must ultimately influence national development, efforts were accordingly made to change the old colleges or create new ones, the final outcome of which was the creation of state universities in all the new and in most of the older States. The evolution of the state university, as the crowning head of the free public school system of the State, represents the last phase which we shall trace of the struggle of democracy to create a system of schools suited to its peculiar needs.

The close of the colonial period found the Colonies possessed of nine colleges. These, with the dates of their foundation, the Colony founding them, and the religious denomination they chiefly represented were:

1636. Harvard College Ma.s.sachusetts Puritan 1693. William and Mary Virginia Anglican 1701. Yale College Connecticut Congregational 1746. Princeton New Jersey Presbyterian 1753-55 Academy and College Pennsylvania Non-denominational 1754. King's College (Columbia) New York Anglican 1764. Brown Rhode Island Baptist 1765. Rutgers New Jersey Reformed Dutch 1769. Dartmouth New Hampshire Congregational

The religious purpose had been dominant in the founding of each inst.i.tution, though there was a gradual shading-off in strict denominational control and insistence upon religious conformity in the foundations after 1750. Still the prime purpose in the founding of each was to train up a learned and G.o.dly body of ministers, the earlier congregations at least "dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust." In a pamphlet, published in 1754, President Clap of Yale declared that "Colleges are _Societies of Ministers_, for training up Persons for the Work of the _Ministry_" and that "The great design of founding this School (Yale), was to Educate Ministers in our _own Way_." In the advertis.e.m.e.nt published in the New York papers announcing the opening of King's College, in 1754, it was stated that:

IV. The chief Thing that is aimed at in this College, is, to teach and engage the Children _to know G.o.d in Jesus Christ_, and to love and serve him in all _Sobriety, G.o.dliness_, and _Richness of Life_, with a perfect Heart and a Willing Mind: and to train them up in all Virtuous Habits, and all such useful Knowledge as may render them creditable to their Families and Friends, Ornaments to their Country, and useful to the Public Weal in their generation.

These colonial inst.i.tutions were all small. For the first fifty years of Harvard's history the attendance at the college seldom exceeded twenty, and the President did all the teaching. The first a.s.sistant teacher (tutor) was not appointed until 1699, and the first professor not until 1721, when a professorship of divinity was endowed. By 1800 the instruction was conducted by the President and three professors--divinity, mathematics, and "Oriental languages"--a.s.sisted by a few tutors who received only cla.s.s fees, and the graduating cla.s.ses seldom exceeded forty. The course was four years in length, and all students studied the same subjects. The first three years were given largely to the so-called "Oriental languages" Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. In addition, Freshmen studied arithmetic; Soph.o.m.ores, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry; and Juniors, natural (book) science; and all were given much training in oratory, and some general history was added. The Senior year was given mainly to ethics, philosophy, and Christian evidences. [16] The instruction in the eight other older colleges, before 1800, was not materially different.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 208. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ESTABLISHED BY 1860 Compiled from data given in the _Reports of the United States Commissioner of Education_. Of the 246 colleges shown on the map, but 17 were state inst.i.tutions, and but two or three others had any state connections.]

GROWTH OF COLLEGES BY 1860. Fifteen additional colleges were founded before 1800, and it has been estimated that by that date the two dozen American colleges then existing did not have all told over one hundred professors and instructors, not less than one thousand nor more than two thousand students, or property worth over one million dollars. Their graduating cla.s.ses were small. No one of the twenty-four admitted women in any way to its privileges. After 1820, with the firmer establishment of the Nation, the awakening of a new national consciousness, the development of larger national wealth, and a court decision which safeguarded the endowments, interest in the founding of new colleges perceptibly quickened, as may be seen from the adjoining table, and between 1820 and 1880 came the great period of denominational effort. The map shows the colleges established by 1860, from which it will be seen how large a part the denominational colleges played in the early history of higher education in the United States. Up to about 1870 the provision of higher education, as had been the case earlier with the provision of secondary education by the academies, had been left largely to private effort. There were, to be sure, a few state universities before 1870, though usually these were not better than the denominational colleges around them, and often they maintained a non-denominational character only by preserving a proper balance between the different denominations in the employment of their faculties. Speaking generally, higher education in the United States before 1870 was provided very largely in the tuitional colleges of the different religious denominations, rather than by the State. Of the 246 colleges founded by the close of the year 1860, as shown on the map, but 17 were state inst.i.tutions, and but two or three others had any state connections.

COLLEGES FOUNDED UP TO 1900

Before 1780 10 1780-89 7 1790-99 7 1800-09 9 1810-19 5 1820-29 22 1830-39 38 1840-49 42 1850-59 92 1860-69 73 1870-79 61 1880-89 74 1890-99 54 --- Total 494

(After a table by Dexter corrected by U.S. Comr. Educ. data. Only approximately correct.)

THE NEW NATIONAL ATt.i.tUDE TOWARD THE COLLEGES. After the coming of nationality there gradually grew up a widespread dissatisfaction with the colleges as then conducted, because they were aristocratic in tendency, because they devoted themselves so exclusively to the needs of a cla.s.s, and because they failed to answer the needs of the States in the matter of higher education. Due to their religious origin, and the common requirement that the president and trustees must be members of some particular denomination, they were naturally regarded as representing the interests of some one sect or faction within the State rather than the interests of the State itself. With the rise of the new democratic spirit after about 1820 there came a demand, felt least in New England and most in the South and the new States in the West, for inst.i.tutions of higher learning which should represent the State. It was argued that colleges were important instrumentalities for moulding the future, that the kind of education given in them must ultimately influence the welfare of the State, and that higher education cannot be regarded as a private matter.

The type of education given in these higher inst.i.tutions, it was argued, "will appear on the bench, at the bar, in the pulpit, and in the senate, and will unavoidably affect our civil and religious principles." For these reasons, as well as to crown our state school system and to provide higher educational advantages for its leaders, it was argued that the State should exercise control over the colleges.

This new national spirit manifested itself in a number of ways. In New York we see it in the reorganization of King's College, the rechristening of the inst.i.tution as Columbia, and the placing of it under at least the nominal supervision of the governing educational body of the State. In Pennsylvania an attempt was made to bring the university into closer connection with the State, but this failed. In New Hampshire the legislature tried, in 1816, to transform Dartmouth College into a state inst.i.tution. This act was contested in the courts, and the case was finally carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. There it was decided, in 1819, that the charter of a college was a contract, the obligation of which a legislature could not impair.

EFFECT OF THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE DECISION. The effect of this decision manifested itself in two different ways. On the one hand it guaranteed the perpetuity of endowments, and the great period of private and denominational effort (see table) now followed. On the other hand, since the States could not change charters and transform old establishments, they began to turn to the creation of new state universities of their own.

Virginia created its state university the same year as the Dartmouth case decision. The University of North Carolina, which had been established in 1789, and which began to give instruction in 1795, but which had never been under direct state control, was taken over by the State in 1821. The University of Vermont, originally chartered in 1791, was rechartered as a state university in 1838. The University of Indiana was established in 1820. Alabama provided for a state university in its first const.i.tution, in 1819, and the inst.i.tution opened for instruction in 1831. Michigan, in framing its first const.i.tution preparatory to entering the Union, in 1835, made careful provisions for the safeguarding of the state university and for establishing it as an integral part of its state school system, as Indiana had done in 1816. Wisconsin provided for the creation of a state university in 1836, and embodied the idea in its first const.i.tution when it entered the Union in 1848, and Missouri provided for a state university in 1839, Mississippi in 1844, Iowa in 1847, and Florida in 1856. The state university is today found in every "new" State and in some of the "original" States, and practically every new Western and Southern State followed the patterns set by Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin and made careful provision for the establishment and maintenance of a state university in its first state const.i.tution.

There was thus quietly added another new section to the American educational ladder, and the free public-school system was extended farther upward. Though the great period of state university foundation came after 1860, and the great period of state university expansion after 1885, the beginnings were clearly marked early in our national history. Of the sixteen States having state universities by 1860 (see Figure 208), all except Florida had established them before 1850. For a long time small, poorly supported by the States, much like the church colleges about them in character and often inferior in quality, one by one the state universities have freed themselves alike from denominational restrictions on the one hand and political control on the other, and have set about rendering the service to the State which a state university ought to render. Michigan, the first of our state universities to free itself, take its proper place, and set an example for others to follow, opened in 1841 with two professors and six students. In 1844 it was a little inst.i.tution of three professors, one tutor, one a.s.sistant, and one visiting lecturer, had but fifty-three students, and offered but a single course of study, consisting chiefly of Greek, Latin, mathematics, and intellectual and moral science (R. 331). As late as 1852 it had but seventy-two students, but by 1860, when it had largely freed itself from the incubus of Baptist Latin, Congregational Greek, Methodist intellectual philosophy, Presbyterian astronomy, and Whig mathematics, and its remarkable growth as a state university had begun, it enrolled five hundred and nineteen.

THE AMERICAN FREE PUBLIC-SCHOOL SYSTEM NOW ESTABLISHED. By the close of the second quarter of the nineteenth century, certainly by 1860, we find the American public-school system fully established, in principle at least, in all our Northern States (R. 332). Much yet remained to be done to carry into full effect what had been established in principle, but everywhere democracy had won its fight, and the American public school, supported by general taxation, freed from the pauper-school taint, free and equally open to all, under the direction of representatives of the people, free from sectarian control, and complete from the primary school through the high school, and in the Western States through the university as well, was established permanently in American public policy. It was a real democratic educational ladder that had been created, and not the typical two-cla.s.s school system of continental European States. The establishment of the free public high school and the state university represent the crowning achievements of those who struggled to found a state-supported educational system fitted to the needs of great democratic States. Probably no other influences have done more to unify the American People, reconcile diverse points of view, eliminate state jealousies, set ideals for the people, and train leaders for the service of the States and of the Nation than the academies, high schools, and colleges scattered over the land. They have educated but a small percentage of the people, to be sure, but they have trained most of the leaders who have guided the American democracy since its birth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 209. THE AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL LADDER Compare this with the figure on page 577, and the democratic nature of the American school system will be apparent.]

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Explain the theory of "vested rights" as applied to private and parochial schools.

2. Does every great advance in provisions for human welfare require a period of education and propaganda? Ill.u.s.trate.

3. Explain just what is meant by "the wealth of the State must educate the children of the State."

4. Show how the retention of the pauper-school idea would have been dangerous to the life of the Republic.

5. Why were the cities more anxious to escape from the operation of the pauper-school law than were the towns and rural districts?