The History of Education Part 98

[26] Whitbread proposed a national system of rate-aided schools to provide all children in England with two years of free schooling, between the ages of seven and fourteen.

[27] See J. E. G. de Montmorency's _State Intervention in English Education_, pp. 248-85, for Brougham's address to the Commons in 1820 on "The Education of the Poor"; and pp. 285-324 for his address before the House of Lords in 1835, on "The Education of the People." Both addresses contain an abundance of data as to existing conditions and needs.

[28] So called because the House of Lords rejected the first two pa.s.sed by the Commons, and finally accepted the third only because the King had agreed to create enough new Lords to pa.s.s the bill unless it was enacted by the upper House.

[29] This was a development of the monitorial system of training, and was virtually an apprenticeship form of teacher-training.

[30] In 1885 the same liberty was extended to rural laborers. This added two million more voters, and gave England almost full manhood suffrage.

Finally, in 1918, some five million women were added to the voting cla.s.ses.

[31] Nearly two million children had been provided with school accommodations, three fourths of which had been done by those a.s.sociated with the Church of England. In doing this the Church had spent some 6,270,000 on school buildings, and had raised some 8,500,000 in voluntary subscriptions for maintenance. The Government had also paid out some 6,500,000 in grants, since 1833. In 1870 it was estimated that 1,450,000 children were on the registers of the state-aided schools, while 1,500,000 children, between the ages of six and twelve, were unprovided for.

[32] Speech before the House of Commons, July 23, 1870.

[33] "The clergy of the National Society exhibited amazing energy and succeeded, according to their own account, in doing in twelve months what in the normal course of events would have taken twenty years. By the end of the year they had lodged claims for 2885 building grants, out of a total of 3342. They also set to work, without any governmental a.s.sistance, to enlarge their schools and so increased denominational accommodation enormously. The voluntary contributions in aid of this work have been estimated at over 3,000,000. At the same time the annual subscriptions doubled.... By 1886, over 3,000,000 places had been added, one-half of which were due to voluntary agencies, and Voluntary Schools were providing rather more than two-thirds of the school places in the country. In 1897 the proportion had fallen to three-fifths." (Birchenough, C., _History of Elementary Education_, pp. 138, 140.)

[34] These were the seven endowed secondary boarding schools--Winchester (1382), Eton (1440), Shrewsbury (1552), Westminster (1560), Rugby (1567), Harrow (1571), and Charterhouse (1611)--and the two endowed day schools,-- Saint Paul's (1510) and Merchant Taylors' (1561).

[35] At least one hundred towns, the Report showed, with a population of five thousand or over had no endowed secondary school, and London, with a population then (1867) of over three million, had but twenty-six schools and less than three thousand pupils enrolled. All the new manufacturing cities were in even worse condition than London.

[36] The University of London was originally founded in 1836, and reorganized in 1900.

[37] The scientist Thomas Huxley was a London School Board member, and, speaking as such, he expressed the views of many when he said: "I conceive it to be our duty to make a ladder from the gutter to the university along which any child may climb."

[38] Royal (Bryce) Commission on Secondary Education, vol. I, p. 299.

London, 1895.

[39] Known as the "Education Act, 1918" (8 and 9 Geo. V, ch. 39). The Act has been reprinted in full in the _Biennial Survey of Education_, 1916-18, of the United States Commissioner of Education, in the chapter on Education in Great Britain. It also has been reprinted as an appendix to Moore, E. C., _What the War teaches about Education_, New York, 1919.

CHAPTER XXV

[1] "The Const.i.tution," as John Quincy Adams expressed it, "was extorted from the grinding necessities of a reluctant people" to escape anarchy and the ultimate entire loss, of independence, and many had grave doubts as to the permanence of the Union. It was not until after the close of the War of 1812 that belief in the stability of the Union and in the capacity of the people to govern themselves became the belief of the many rather than the very few, and plans for education and national development began to obtain a serious hearing.

[2] After the beginning of the national life a number of States founded and endowed a state system of academies. Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1797, granted land endowments to approved academies. Georgia, in 1783, created a system of county academies for the State. New York extended state aid to its academies, in 1813, having put them under state inspection as early as 1787. Maryland chartered many academies between 1801 and 1817, and authorized many lotteries to provide them with funds, as did also North Carolina. The Rhode Island General a.s.sembly chartered many academies, and aided them by lotteries. Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, among western States, also provided for county systems of academies.

[3] The study of Latin and a little Greek had const.i.tuted the curriculum of the old Latin grammar school, and its purpose had been almost exclusively to prepare boys for admission to the colony colleges. In true English style, Latin was made the language of the cla.s.sroom, and even attempted for the playground as well. As a concession, reading, writing, and arithmetic were sometimes taught. The new academies, while retaining the study of Latin, and usually Greek, though now taught through the medium of the English, added a number of new studies adapted to the needs of a new society. English grammar was introduced and soon rose to a place of great importance, as did also oratory and declamation. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry, geography, and astronomy were in time added, and surveying, rhetoric (including some literature), natural and moral philosophy, and Roman antiquities were frequently taught. Girls were admitted rather freely to the new academies, whereas the grammar schools had been exclusively for boys. For better instruction a "female department" was frequently organized.

[4] Thomas Jefferson's name appears in the first subscription list as giving $200, and he was elected a member of the first governing board. The chief sources of support of the schools, which up to 1844 remained pauper schools, were subscriptions, lotteries, a tax on slaves and dogs, certain license fees, and a small appropriation ($1500) each year from the city council.

[5] This organization opened the first schools in Philadelphia for children regardless of religious affiliation, and for thirty-seven years rendered a useful service there.

[6] All at once, comparatively, a new system had been introduced which not only improved but tremendously cheapened education. In 1822 it cost but $1.22 per pupil per year to give instruction in New York City, though by 1844 the per-capita cost, due largely to the decreasing size of the cla.s.ses, had risen to $2.70, and by 1852 to $5.83. In Philadelphia, in 1817, the expense was $3, as against $12 in the private and church schools. One finds many notices in the newspapers of the time as to the value and low cost of the new system.

[7] The cotton-spinning industry ill.u.s.trates the rapid growth of manufacturing in the United States. The 15 cotton mills of 1807 had increased to 801, by 1831; and to 1240, by 1840. The South owed its prosperity chiefly to cotton-growing and shipping, and did not develop factories and workshops until a much more recent period.

[8] Among many resolutions adopted by the laboring organizations the following is typical: "At a General Meeting of Mechanics and Workingmen held in New York City, in 1829, it was

"_Resolved_, that next to life and liberty, we consider education the greatest blessing bestowed upon mankind.

"_Resolved_, that the public funds should be appropriated (to a reasonable extent) to the purpose of education upon a regular system that shall insure the opportunity to every individual of obtaining a competent education before he shall have arrived at the age of maturity."

CHAPTER XXVI

[1] Connecticut and New York both had set aside lands, before 1800, to create such a fund, Connecticut's fund dating back to 1750. Delaware, in 1796, devoted the income from marriage and tavern licenses to the same purpose, but made no use of the fund for twenty years. Connecticut, in 1795, sold its "Western Reserve" in Ohio for $1,200,000, and added this to its school fund. New York, in 1805, similarly added the proceeds of the sale of half a million acres of state lands, though the fund then formally created acc.u.mulated unused until 1812. Tennessee began to build up a permanent state school fund in 1806; Virginia in 1810; South Carolina in 1811; Maryland in 1812; New Jersey in 1816; Georgia in 1817; Maine, New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Louisiana in 1821; Vermont and North Carolina in 1825; Pennsylvania in 1831; and Ma.s.sachusetts in 1834. These were established as permanent state funds, the annual income only to be used, in some way to be determined later, for the support of some form of schools.

[2] Now for the first time direct taxation for schools was likely to be felt by the taxpayer, and the fight for and against the imposition of such taxation was on in earnest. The course of the struggle and the results were somewhat different in the different States, but, in a general way, the progress of the conflict was somewhat as follows:

1. Permission granted to communities so desiring to organize a school taxing district, and to tax for school support the property of those consenting and residing therein.

2. Taxation of all property in the taxing district permitted.

3. State aid to such districts, at first from the income from permanent endowment funds, and later from the proceeds of a small state appropriation or a state or county tax.

4. Compulsory local taxation to supplement the state or county grant.

[3] Concerning the system, "The Philadelphia Society for the Establishment and Support of Charity Schools," in an "Address to the Public," in 1818, said:

"In the United States the benevolence of the inhabitants has led to the establishment of Charity Schools, which, though affording individual advantages, are not likely to be followed by the political benefits kindly contemplated by their founders. In the country a parent will raise children in ignorance rather than place them in charity schools. It is only in large cities that charity schools succeed to any extent. These dispositions may be improved to the best advantage, by the Legislature, in place of Charity Schools, establishing Public Schools for the education of all children, the offspring of the rich and the poor alike."

[4] In 1821 the counties of Dauphin (Harrisburg), Allegheny (Pittsburg), c.u.mberland (Carlisle), and Lancaster (Lancaster) were also exempted from the state pauper-school law, and allowed to organize schools for the education of the children of their poor.

[5] Some 32,000 persons pet.i.tioned for a repeal of the law, 66 of whom signed by making their mark, and "not more than five names in a hundred,"

reported a legislative committee which investigated the matter, "were signed in English script." It was from among the parochial-school Germans that the strongest opposition to the law came.

[6] For Stevens's speech in defense of the Law of 1834, see _Report of the United States Commissioner of Education_, 1898-99, vol. I, pp. 516-24.

[7] By 1836 the new free-school law had been accepted by 75 per cent of the districts in the State, by 1838 by 84 per cent, and by 1847 by 88 per cent.

[8] This State had enacted an experimental school law, and made an annual state grant for schools, from 1795 to 1800. Then, unable to reenact the law, the system was allowed to lapse and was not reestablished until the New England element gained control, in 1812.

[9] By his vigorous work in behalf of schools the first appointee, Gideon Hawley, gave such offense to the politicians of the time that he was removed from office, in 1821, and the legislature then abolished the position and designated the Secretary of State to act, _ex officio_, as Superintendent. This condition continued until 1854, when New York again created the separate office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

[10] When Connecticut sold its Western Reserve, in 1795, and added the sum to the Connecticut school fund, it was stated to be for the aid of "schools and the gospel." In the sales of the first national lands in Ohio (1,500,000 acres to The Ohio Company, in 1787; and 1,000,000 acres in the Symmes Purchase, near Cincinnati, in 1788), section 16 in each township was reserved and given as an endowment for schools, and section 29 "for the purposes of religion."

[11] The Public School Society continued to receive money grants, it being regarded as a non-denominational organization, though chartered to teach "the sublime truths of religion and morality contained in the Holy Scriptures" in its schools. In 1828 the Society was even permitted to levy a local tax to supplement its resources, it being estimated that at that time there were 10,000 children in the city with no opportunities for education.

[12] The question may be regarded as a settled one in our American States.

Our people mean to keep the public-school system united as one state school system, well realizing that any attempt to divide the schools among the different religious denominations (the _World Almanac_ for 1917 lists 49 different denominations and 171 different sects in the United States) could only lead to inefficiency and educational chaos.

[13] The movement gained a firm hold everywhere east of the Missouri River, the States incorporating the largest number being New York with 887, Pennsylvania with 524, Ma.s.sachusetts with 403, Kentucky with 330, Virginia with 317, North Carolina with 272, and Tennessee with 264. Some States, as Kentucky and Indiana, provided for a system of county academies, while many States extended to them some form of state aid. In New York State they found a warm advocate in Governor De Witt Clinton, who urged (1827) that they be located at the county towns of the State to give a practical scientific education suited to the wants of farmers, merchants, and mechanics, and also to train teachers for the schools of the State.

[14] The new emphasis given to the study of English, mathematics, and book-science is noticeable. New subjects appeared in proportion as the academies increased in numbers and importance. Of 149 new subjects for study appearing in the academies of New York, between 1787 and 1870, 23 appeared before 1826, 100 between 1826 and 1840, and 26 after 1840.

Between 1825 and 1828 one half of the new subjects appeared. This also was the maximum period of development of the academies.

[15] The existence of a number of colleges, basing their entrance requirements on the completion of the cla.s.sical course of the academy, and the establishment of a few embryo state universities in the new States of the West and the South, naturally raised the further question of why there should be a gap in the public-school system. The increase of wealth in the cities tended to increase the number who pa.s.sed through the elementary course and could profit by more extended education; the academies had popularized the idea of more advanced education; while the new manufacturing and commercial activities of the time called for more training than the elementary schools afforded, and of a different type from that demanded by the small colleges of the time for entrance.

[16] For an interesting table showing the simple entrance requirements of Harvard in 1642, 1734, 1803, 1825, 1850, 1875, and 1885, see _Report of the United States Commissioner of Education_, 1902, vol. I, pp. 930-33.