In boyhood, intellectual training through curiosity concerning natural phenomena.
However, between twelve and fifteen, after the demands of the boy’s physical activities and of his senses have somewhat abated, there comes “an interval when his faculties and powers are greater than his desires,” when he displays an insistent curiosity concerning natural phenomena and a constant appetite for rational knowledge. This period, which is dealt with in his third book, Rousseau declares to be intended by nature itself as the time for instruction. But as not much can be learned within three years, the boy is to study only those subjects which are useful and not incomprehensible and misleading, and so is limited to the natural sciences. Later in this third book, in order that Emile may informally learn the interdependence of men and may himself become economically independent, Rousseau adds industrial experience and the acquisition of cabinet-making to his training. The most effective method of instruction, Rousseau holds, comes through appealing to the curiosity and interest in investigation, which are so prominent in the boy at this time. He contrasts the current methods of teaching astronomy and geography by means of globes, maps, and other misleading representations, with the more natural plan of stimulating inquiry through observing the sun when rising and setting during the different seasons, and through problems concerning the topography of the neighborhood. Emileis taught to appreciate the value of these subjects by being lost in the forest, and endeavoring to find a way out. He learns the elements of electricity through meeting with a juggler, who attracts an artificial duck by means of a concealed magnet. He similarly discovers through experience the effect of cold and heat upon solids and liquids, and so comes to understand the thermometer and other instruments. Hence Rousseau feels that all knowledge of real value may be acquired most clearly and naturally without the use of rivalry or textbooks. But he finds an exception to this irrational method in one book,Robinson Crusoe, “where all the natural needs of man are exhibited in a manner obvious to the mind of a child, and where the means of providing for these needs are successively developed with the same facility.”
The fourth book takes Emile from the age of fifteenIn youth, sex interests, as basis of moral and social training.to twenty. At this period the sex interests appear and should be properly guided and trained, especially as they are the basis of social and moral relationships. Emile’s first passion calls him into relations with his species, and he must now learn to live with others. “We have formed his body, his senses, and his intelligence; it remains to give him a heart.” He is to become moral, affectionate, and religious. Here again Rousseau insists that the training is not to be accomplished by the formal method of precepts, but in a natural way by bringing the youth into contact with his fellowmen and appealing to his emotions. Emile is to visit infirmaries, hospitals, and prisons, and witness concrete examples of wretchedness in all stages, although not so frequently as to become hardened. That this training may not render him cynicalor hypercritical, it should be corrected by the study of history, where one sees men simply as a spectator without feeling or passion. Further, in order to deliver Emile from vanity, so common during adolescence, he is to be exposed to flatterers, spendthrifts, and sharpers, and allowed to suffer the consequences. He may at this time also be guided in his conduct by the use of fables, for “by censuring the wrongdoer under an unknown mask, we instruct without offending him.”
The passive and parasitic education of woman.
Emile at length becomes a man, and a life companion must be found for him. A search should be made for a suitable lady, but “in order to find her, we must know her.” Accordingly, the last book of the Emile deals with the model Sophie and the education of woman. It is the weakest part of Rousseau’s work. He entirely misinterprets the nature of women, and does not allow them any individuality of their own, but considers them as simply supplementary to the nature of men. Like men, women should be given adequate bodily training, but rather for the sake of physical charms and of producing vigorous offspring than for their own development. Their instinctive love of pleasing through dress should be made of service by teaching them sewing, embroidery, lacework, and designing. They ought to be obedient and industrious, and they ought early to be brought under restraint. Girls should also be taught singing, dancing, and other accomplishments. They should be instructed dogmatically in religion, and in ethical matters they should be largely guided by public opinion. A woman may not learn philosophy, art, or science, but she should study men. “She must learn to penetrate their feelings through their conversation, their actions,their looks, and their gestures, and know how to give them the feelings which are pleasing to her, without even seeming to think of them.”
Estimate of theEmile.—Such was Rousseau’s notion of the natural individualistic education for a man and the passive and repressive training suitable for a woman, and of the happiness and prosperity that were bound to ensue. To make a fair estimate of theEmileand itsDefects outweighed by merits.influence is not easy. It is necessary to put aside all of one’s prejudices against the weak and offensive personality of the author, and to forget the inconsistencies and contradictions of the work itself. TheEmilehas always been accounted a work of great richness, power, and underlying wisdom, and each of its defects is more than balanced by a corresponding merit. Moreover, the most fundamental movements in modern educational progress—sociological, scientific, and psychological—may be said to have germinated through theEmile.
The Sociological Movements in Modern Education.—The most marked feature of the Rousselian education and the one most subject to criticism has been its extremeRevolt from social control,revolt against civilization and all social control. A state of nature is held to be the ideal condition, and all social relations are regarded as degenerate. The child is to be brought up in isolation by the laws of brute necessity and to have no social education until he is fifteen, when an impossible set of expedients for bringing him into touch with his fellows is devised. One should remember, however, that the times and the cause hadbut extreme doctrine needed,need of just so extreme a doctrine. Such radical individualism alone could enable him to break the bondage to the past. By means of paradoxes and exaggerationshe was able to emphasize the crying need of a natural development of man, and to tear down the effete traditions in educational organization, content, and methods. And many of the social movements in modern educational organization and content were made possible and even suggested by him, after having thus cleared the ground. He held that all members of society should be trained industrially so as to contribute to their own support and should be taught to be sympathetic and benevolent toward their fellows. Thus through him educationand those who followed Rousseau stressed social activities.has been more closely related to human welfare. The industrial work of Pestalozzi and Fellenberg, the moral aim of education held by Herbart, the ‘social participation’ in the practice of Froebel, and the present-day emphasis upon vocational education, moral instruction, and training of defectives and of other extreme variations, alike find some of their roots in theEmile. In fact, the fallacy involved in Rousseau’s isolated education is too palpable to mislead anyone, and those who have best caught his spirit and endeavored to develop his practice have in all cases most insistently stressed social activities in the training of children and striven to make education lead to a closer and more sympathetic coöperation in society.
Opposed to all books, but emphasized observational work.
The Scientific Movement in Modern Education.—Moreover, since Rousseau repudiated all social traditions and accepted nature as his only guide, he was absolutely opposed to all book learning and exaggerated the value of observation. He consequently neglected the past, and would have robbed the pupil of all the experience of his fellows and of those who had gone before. But he emphasized the use of natural objects in the curriculum and developed the details of nature study and observationalwork to an extent never previously undertaken. Partly as a result of this influence, schools and colleges have come to include in their course the study of physical forces, natural environment, plants, and animals. Therein Rousseau not only anticipates somewhat the nature study and geography of Pestalozzi, Basedow, Salzmann, and Ritter, but, in a way, foreshadows the arguments of Spencer and Huxley, and the modern scientific movement in education.
Though defective in knowledge of children, Rousseau saw the need of studying them.
The Psychological Movements in Modern Education.—A matter of even greater importance is Rousseau’s belief that education should be in accordance with the natural interests of the child. Although his knowledge of children was defective, and his recommendations were marred by unnatural breaks and filled with sentimentality, he saw the need of studying the child as the only basis for education. In the Preface to theEmilehe declares that “the wisest among us are engrossed in what the adult needs to know and fail to consider what children are able to apprehend. We are always looking for the man in the child, without thinking of what he is before he becomes a man. This is the study to which I have devoted myself, to the end that, even though my whole method may be chimerical and false, the reader may still profit by my observation.” As a result of such appeals, the child has become the center of discussion in modern training. Despite his limitations and prejudices, this unnatural and neglectful parent stated many details of child development with much force and clearness and gave an impetus to later reformers.
In this connection should especially be considered Rousseau’s theory of stages of development. He makesTheory of ‘delayed maturing.’a sharp division of the pupil’s development into definite periods that seem but little connected with one another, and prescribes a distinct education for each stage. This seems like a breach of the evolution of the individual, and thereductio ad absurdumof such an atomic training is reached in his hope of rendering Emile warm-hearted and pious, after keeping him in the meshes of self-interest and doubt until he is fifteen. But, as in the case of his attitude toward society, Rousseau takes an extreme view, and he has thereby shown that there are characteristic differences at different stages in the child’s life, and that only as the proper activities are provided for each stage will it reach maturity or perfection. He may, therefore, be credited to a great degree with the increasing tendency to cease from forcing upon children a fixed method of thinking, feeling, and acting, and for the gradual disappearance of the old ideas that a task is of educational value according as it is distasteful, and that real education consists in overcoming meaningless difficulties. Curiosity and interest rather are to be used as motives for study, and Rousseau therein points the way for the Herbartians. It is likewise due to him primarilyPhysical activities and sense trainingthat we have recognized the need of physical activities and sense training in the earlier development of the child as a foundation for its later growth and learning. To these recommendations may be traced much of the object teaching of Pestalozzianism and the motor expression of Froebelianism. Thus Rousseau made a large contribution to educational method by showing the value of motivation, of creating problems, and of utilizing the senses and activities of the child, and may be regarded as the father of the psychological movements in moderneducation. He could not, however, have based his study of children and his advanced methods upon any real psychological foundation, for in his day the ‘faculty’ psychology (see p. 182) absolutely prevailed. Instead ofSympathetic understanding of the child.working out his methods from scientific principles, he obtained them, as did Pestalozzi afterwards, through his sympathetic understanding of the child and his ability to place himself in the child’s situation and see the world through the eyes of the child.
The Spread of Rousseau’s Doctrines.—Thus seeds of many modern developments in educational organization, method, and content, were sown by Rousseau, and he isIntellectual progenitor of modern reformers, but influence upon schools not immediate.seen to be the intellectual progenitor of Pestalozzi, Herbart, Froebel, Spencer, and many other modern reformers. But his principles did not take immediate hold on the schools themselves, although their influence is manifest there as the nineteenth century advanced. In France they were apparent in the complaints and recommendations concerning schools in the lists of desired reforms (cahiers) that were issued by the various towns, and afterward clearly formed a basis for much of the legislation concerning the universal, free, and secular organization of educational institutions. In England, since there was no national system of schools, little direct impression was made upon educational practice. But in America this revolutionary thought would seem to have had much to do with causing the unrest that gradually resulted in upsetting the aristocratic and formal training of the young and in secularizing and universalizing the public school system. The first definite attempt, however, to put into actual practice the naturalistic education of Rousseau occurred in Germany throughFirst attempt through Basedow.the writings of Basedow and the foundation of the ‘Philanthropinum,’ and is of sufficient importance to demand separate discussion.
Development of Basedow’s Educational Reforms.—Johann Bernhard Basedow (1723-1790) was by natureNaturally captivated by Rousseau’s doctrines.the very person to be captivated by Rousseau’s doctrines. He was talented, but erratic, unorthodox, tactless, and irregular in life. He had been prepared at the University of Leipzig for the Lutheran ministry, but proved too heretical, and, giving up this vocation, became a tutor in Holstein to a Herr von Quaalen’s children. With these aristocratic pupils he first developed methods of teaching through conversation and play connected with surrounding objects. A few years after this, in 1763, Basedow fell under the spell of Rousseau’sEmile, which was most congenial to his methods of thinking and teaching, and turned all his energy toward educational reform. As in the case of Rousseau with education in France, he realized that German education of theEducation of the day needed naturalism.day was sadly in need of just such an antidote as ‘naturalism’ was calculated to furnish. The schoolrooms were dismal and the work was unpleasant, physical training was neglected, and the discipline was severe. Children were regarded as adults in miniature (Fig. 25), and were so treated both in their dress and their education. The current schooling consisted largely of instruction in artificial deportment. The study of classics composed the entire intellectual curriculum, and the methods were purely grammatical. As a result, suggestions made by Basedow for educational improvement attained as great popularity as his advanced theological propositions had received abuse.
In 1768 by hisAddress on Schools and Studies, and their Influence on the Public Weal, he called generally upon princes, governments, ecclesiastics, and others in power, to assist him financially in certain definite educational reforms. In addition to suggesting that the schools be made nonsectarian and that public instruction be placed under a National Council of Education, he proposed that, in contrast to the formal and unattractive training of the day, education should be rendered practical in contentSuccess of hisAddressand production of his text-books.and playful in method. To assist this reform, he planned to bring out a work on elementary education, which he described in outline. Great interest in his proposals was shown throughout Europe by sovereigns, nobles, prominent men, and others desiring a nonsectarian and more effective education, and a subsidy of some ten thousand dollars was speedily raised, to enable him to perfect his plans. Six years later, Basedow completed his promised text-book,Elementarwerk, and the companion work for teachers and parents known asMethodenbuch. TheElementarwerkwas accompanied by a volume containing ninety-six plates, which illustrated the subject-matter of the text, but were too large to be bound in with it. While in these manuals Basedow included many naturalistic ideas from Rousseau, he also embodied features from other reformers and even additions of his own.
Elementarwerk
Text-books and Other Works.—TheElementarwerkclearly combines many of the principles of Comenius as well as of Rousseau. It has, in fact, been often called ‘theOrbis Pictus(see p. 170) of the eighteenth century,’andMethodenbuch.and gives a knowledge of things and words in the form of a dialogue. TheMethodenbuch, while not followingRousseau completely, contains many ideas concerning natural training that are suggestive of him. In this study of the nature of children, the book makes some advance upon the Rousselian doctrine by finding that they are especially interested in motion and noise, although Basedow would have shocked Rousseau by being so much under the control of tradition as to suggest using these interests in the teaching of Latin. Later, Basedow, together with Campe, Salzmann, and others of his followers, also produced a series of popular story books especially adapted to the character, interests, and needsPopular story books for children.of children. These works are all largely filled with didactics, moralizing, religiosity, and scraps of scientific information. The best known of them isRobinson der Jüngere(Robinson Crusoe Junior), which was published by Campe in 1779. It seems to have been suggested by Rousseau’s recommendation ofRobinson Crusoeas a text-book, and in turn a generation later it became the model forDer Schweizerische Robinson(The Swiss Family Robinson) of Wyss, which has been so popular with children in America and elsewhere.
Course and Methods of the Philanthropinum.—Eight years before this, however, Prince Leopold of Dessau had been induced to allow Basedow to found there a model school called the ‘Philanthropinum,’ which should embody that reformer’s ideas. Leopold granted him aSalary, equipment,generous salary, and three years later gave him an equipment of buildings, grounds, and endowment. At first Basedow had but three assistants, but later the numberteachers,was considerably increased. The staff then included several very able men, such as Campe, formerly chaplain at Potsdam, and Salzmann, who had been a professorat Erfurt. The underlying principle of the Philanthropinum was ‘everything according to nature.’ The natural instincts and interests of the children were only to be directed and not altogether suppressed. They were toand pupils.be trained as children and not as adults, and the methods of learning were to be adapted to their stage of mentality. That all of the customary fashion and unnaturalness might be eliminated, the boys were plainly dressed and their hair cut short.
Universal education, but social distinctions.
While universal education was believed in, and rich and poor alike were to be trained, the traditional idea still obtained that the natural education of the one class was for social activity and leadership, and of the other for teaching. Consequently, the wealthy boys were to spend six hours in school and two in manual labor, while those from families of small means labored six hours andIndustrial trainingstudied two. Every one, however, was taught handicrafts,—carpentry, turning, planing, and threshing, as suggested in the third book of theEmile, and there were also physical exercises and games for all. On the intellectual side, while Latin was not neglected, considerable attention was paid to the vernacular and French. In keeping with theElementarwerk, Basedow planned aand wide objective course.wide objective and practical course very similar to that suggested by Comenius. It was to give some account of man, including bits of anthropology, anatomy, and physiology; of brute creation, especially the uses of domestic animals and their relation to industry; of trees and plants with their growth, culture, and products; of minerals and chemicals; of mathematical and physical instruments; and of trades, history, and commerce. He afterward admitted that he had overestimated theamount of content that was possible for a child, and greatly abridged the material.
The most striking characteristic of the school, however, was its recognition of child interests and the consequentlyLanguages taught by conversation and games.improved methods. Languages were taught by speaking and then by reading, and grammar was not brought in until late in the course. Facility in Latin was acquired through conversation, games, pictures, drawing, acting plays, and reading on practical and interesting subjectsProgressive methods in other subjects.(Fig. 26). His instruction in arithmetic, geometry, geography, physics, nature study, and history was fully as progressive as that in languages, and, while continuing Rousseau’s suggestions, seems to anticipate much of the ‘object teaching’ of Pestalozzi. Arithmetic was taught by mental methods, geometry by drawing figures accurately and neatly, and geography by beginning with one’s home and extending out into the neighborhood, the town, the country, and the continent.
Influence of the Philanthropinum.—The attendance at the Philanthropinum was very small in the beginning, since the institution was regarded as an experiment, but eventually the number of pupils rose to more than fifty.Great expectations.Most visitors were greatly pleased with the school, especially on account of the interested and alert appearance of the pupils. Kant declared that it meant “not a slow reform, but a quick revolution,” although afterward he admitted that he had been too optimistic. While it may not have served well for older pupils, it was certainlyStimulus for younger pupils.excellent in its stimulus to children under ten or twelve, who can be reached by appeals to physical activities and the senses better than by books.
Basedow, however, proved temperamentally unfit toSimilar institutions of Campe,direct the institution. Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746-1818), who first succeeded him, withdrew within a year to found a similar school at Hamburg. Institutions of the same type sprang up elsewhere, and some of them had a large influence upon education. The most striking and enduring of these schools was that established in 1784 bySalzmann,Christian Gotthilf Salzmann (1744-1811) at Schnepfenthal under the patronage of the royal family of Saxe-Gotha. The natural surroundings—mountains, valleys, lakes—were most favorable for the purpose of the institution, and much attention was given to nature study, ‘lessons on things,’ organized excursions, gardening, agricultural work, and care of domestic animals. Manual training, gymnastics, sports, informal moral and religious culture, and other features that anticipated later developments in education also formed part of the course. During the decade before the establishment of Salzmann’s school, institutions embodying many of Basedow’s ideas were also opened at Rechahn and his otherand Rochow.Brandenburg estates by Baron Eberhard von Rochow (1734-1805). His schools were simply intended to improve the peasantry in their methods of farming and living, but, when this step toward universal education proved extraordinarily successful, Rochow advocated the adoption of a complete national system of schools on a nonsectarian basis.
In 1793 the Philanthropinum at Dessau was closed permanently. Its teachers were scattered through Europe, and gave a great impulse to the new education.Becomes a fad, but accomplished some good.An unfortunate result of this popularity was that the Philanthropinum became a fad, and schools with this name were opened everywhere in Germany by educationalmountebanks. These teachers prostituted the system to their own ends, degraded the profession into a mere trade, and became the subject of much satire and ridicule. Nevertheless, the philanthropinic movement seems not to have been without good results, especially when we consider the educational conditions and the pedagogy of the times. It introduced many new ideas concerning methods and industrial training into all parts of France and Switzerland, as well as Germany, and these were carefully worked out by such reformers as Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Herbart. In this way there were embodied in education the first positive results of Rousseau’s ‘naturalism.’
Fig. 25.—The child as a miniature adult.(Reproduced from a French fashion plate of the eighteenth century.)
Fig. 25.—The child as a miniature adult.
(Reproduced from a French fashion plate of the eighteenth century.)
Fig. 26.—A naturalistic school.(Reproduced from theElementarwerkof Basedow.)
Fig. 26.—A naturalistic school.
(Reproduced from theElementarwerkof Basedow.)
Graves,In Modern Times(Macmillan, 1913), chap. II; andGreat Educators(Macmillan, 1912), chaps. VII and VIII; Monroe,Text-book(Macmillan, 1905), chap. X; Parker, S. C.,History of Modern Elementary Education(Ginn, 1912), chaps. VIII-X. TheEmile(Translated by Payne; Appleton, 1895) should be read, and theElementarwerk(Wiegandt, Leipzig, 1909) should be examined. A judicial description of the life and work of Rousseau is that by Morley, J. (Macmillan), while Davidson, T., furnishes an interesting interpretation ofRousseau and Education from Nature(Scribner, 1902), but the standard treatise onThe Educational Theory of Rousseau(Longmans, Green, 1911) at present has been written by Boyd, W. A good brief account ofBasedow: His Educational Work and Principles(Kellogg, New York, 1891) is afforded by Lang, O. H. See also Barnard, H.,American Journal of Education, vol. V, pp. 487-520.
In England, during the eighteenth century, there were numerous attempts to provide education for the poor through charity schools. The most important factor in maintaining these institutions was the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.Among other organizations, there sprang up a Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which supported schools throughout the American colonies, except Virginia. Charity schools were also maintained in America by various other agencies.An attempt was likewise made by Raikes of Gloucester, England, to establish Sunday schools, for training the poor to read, and these institutions spread throughout the British Isles and America.A system of instruction through monitors, developed by Lancaster and Bell, while formal and mechanical, furnished a sort of substitute for national education in England, and, spreading throughout the United States, paved the way for state support, and greatly improved the methods of teaching.‘Infant schools’ for poor children also grew up during the nineteenth century in France, England, and the United States, and found a permanent place in the national systems, but they soon became formalized and mechanical.Philanthropic education proved a first step toward universal and national education.
In England, during the eighteenth century, there were numerous attempts to provide education for the poor through charity schools. The most important factor in maintaining these institutions was the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.
Among other organizations, there sprang up a Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which supported schools throughout the American colonies, except Virginia. Charity schools were also maintained in America by various other agencies.
An attempt was likewise made by Raikes of Gloucester, England, to establish Sunday schools, for training the poor to read, and these institutions spread throughout the British Isles and America.
A system of instruction through monitors, developed by Lancaster and Bell, while formal and mechanical, furnished a sort of substitute for national education in England, and, spreading throughout the United States, paved the way for state support, and greatly improved the methods of teaching.
‘Infant schools’ for poor children also grew up during the nineteenth century in France, England, and the United States, and found a permanent place in the national systems, but they soon became formalized and mechanical.
Philanthropic education proved a first step toward universal and national education.
Reconstructive Tendencies of the Eighteenth Century.—The eighteenth century cannot be regarded altogether as a period of revolution and destruction. Whilesuch a characterization describes the prevailing tendencies, there were also social and educational forces that looked to evolution and reform rather than to a complete disintegration of society and a return to primitiveEven in Rousseau and the philanthropinists,living. Even in Rousseau, the arch-destroyer of traditions, we found many evidences of a reconstruction along higher lines, and such a positive movement was decidedly obvious in Basedow, Salzmann, and other philanthropinists. But in England reforms were especially apparent. In the land of the Briton, progress is proverbially gradual, and sweeping victories and Waterloo defeats in affairs of society and education are alike unwonted. The French tendency to cut short the social and educational process and toand especially in England.substitute revolution for evolution is out of accord with the spirit across the English Channel.
The Rise of Charity Schools in England.—And yet conditions in England at this time might well have incited people to revolution. Wages were low, employmentWretched conditions of laboring class.was irregular, and the laboring classes, who numbered fully one-sixth of the population, were clad in rags, lived in hovels, and often went hungry. Opportunities for elementary education were rare. The few schools that remained after the Reformation had largely lost their endowments or had been perverted into secondary institutions, and had suffered from incompetent and negligent masters and from the religious upheaval of the times. It was as a partial remedy for this situation, that, toward the close of the seventeenth century, there sprang up a succession of ‘charity schools,’ inCharity schools as remedy.which children of the poor were not only taught, but boarded and sometimes provided with clothes, and theboys were prepared for apprenticeship and the girls for domestic service. Probably about one thousand schools upon this general philanthropic basis had been established in England and Wales by the middle of the eighteenth century. Most of these had received substantial endowment, but numbers of them were maintained by private subscriptions.
The Schools of the S. P. C. K.—A factor that was even more important in opening charity schools was the ‘Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge’ (often abbreviated to S. P. C. K.). This society wasFoundation,founded in 1698 by Reverend Thomas Bray, D. D., and four other clergymen and philanthropists. As a rule,management,its schools were established, supported, and managed by local people, but the Society guaranteed their maintenance, and assisted them from its own treasury whenever a stringency in funds arose. The S. P. C. K. also inspected schools, and advised and encouraged the localbooks,managers, and furnished bibles, prayer books, and catechisms at the cheapest rates possible. It made stringent regulations of eligibility for its schoolmasters, requiring,teachers,in addition to the usual religious, moral, pedagogical, and age tests, that they be members of the Church of England and approved by the minister of the parish. Each master was expected to teach the children their catechism, and purge them of bad morals and manners,and course.besides training them in reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic. The pupils were, moreover, clothed, boarded, and at times even lodged.
The number of charity schools of the S. P. C. K. grew by leaps and bounds, and by the close of the first decade there were eighty-eight within a radius of tenDevelopment,miles of London. The gifts made had amounted to almost ten thousand pounds, and nearly one thousand boys and over four hundred girls had been sent out as apprentices. And before the middle of the eighteenth century the total number of these charity schools in England and Wales reached nearly two thousand, with about fifty thousand boys and girls in attendance. This increase in facilities for the education of the poor was not kindly received by many in the upper classes, who often felt that “there is no need for any learning at all for the meanest ranks of mankind: their business is toopposition and advocacy,labour, not to think.” But the charity schools had also many warm supporters, and Addison even believed that as a result of them there would be “few in the next generation who will not at least be able to write and read, and have not an early tincture of religion.” The benefactions for these institutions continued to increase for nearly half a century, but by the middle of the eighteenthdecadence,century popular interest had waned. The subscriptions began to fall off, the system of inspection and the teaching became less effective, and the schools ceased to expand. Nevertheless, the S. P. C. K. had succeededand influence.in impressing the Church of England with a sense of responsibility for the establishment of a national school system upon a religious basis. Its schools were largely continued throughout the eighteenth century, and in most instances after 1811 were absorbed by the new educational organization of the English Church, the so-called ‘National Society’ (see p. 239).
Other British Charity Schools.—These institutions of the Church of England society may be regarded as typical of British charity schools in general. There were, however,Nonconformist schools.also a dozen well-known foundations by nonconformists, including the ‘Gravel Lane School’ of Southwark, London, which was started over a decade before the S. P. C. K. was organized. And an interesting type of philanthropic institution known as ‘circulating‘Circulating schools.’schools’ was founded in Wales. These schools simply aimed to teach pupils to read the Bible in Welsh, and when this had been accomplished in one neighborhood, the school was transferred to another. But a much more important organization was the offshoot of the S. P. C. K., that arose chiefly to carry on charity schools in the American colonies. This association, the ‘Society for the Propagation of the Gospel inFoundation of the S. P. G.Foreign Parts,’ (commonly known as S. P. G.), was founded by Dr. Bray three years after the parent society, but no schools were established for several years.
The Charity Schools of the S. P. G.—The first schoolS. P. G. school in New York City,—of the S. P. G. was opened in New York City in 1709 under William Huddleston, who had been conducting a school of his own there. It was intended that the new school should follow the plan of the charity schools in England, but, while free tuition and free books were granted from the beginning, it was not until many years later that the means of clothing the children gratuitously was provided. Under different masters and with varying fortunes, the school was supported by the society until 1783, when the United States had finally cut loose from the Mother Country and started on a career of its own. Meanwhile Trinity Church had come more and more to take the initiative in the endowment and support of the school, and since the withdrawal of thenow ‘Trinity Church School.’society from America the institution has been known as ‘Trinity Church School.’
Schools of the same type were active throughout the colonies in the eighteenth century. We possess more or less complete accounts of these institutions in NewOther coloniesYork and all the other colonies, except Virginia, where they were not believed to be needed. Except for size and local peculiarities, all of them closely resembledAttendance,the school in New York City. The attendance ranged from eighteen or twenty pupils to nearly four times that number. Girls were generally admitted, and occasionally equalled or exceeded the boys in number. As a rule, children of other denominations were received on the same terms as those of Church of England members, and at times nearly one-half the attendance was composed of dissenters, but often those outside the Church were given secondary consideration, or the catechism was so stressed by the school that the dissenting children were withdrawn and rival schools set up. The charactercourse, and books.of the course of study in these charity schools is further indicated by the books furnished by the society. In packets of various sizes it sent over horn-books, primers, spellers, writing-paper and ink-horns, catechisms, psalters, prayer books, testaments, and bibles. There is also some evidence that secondary instruction was carried on intermittently in the various centers by the missionaries or by the schoolmasters in conjunction with their elementary work.
Throughout its work in the American colonies the S. P.Opposition to the S. P. G.G. met with various forms of opposition. The dissenters, Quakers, and others were often openly hostile through fear of the foundation of an established national churchsimilar to that of England, and both sides displayed considerable sectarianism and bigotry. After 1750 the opposition to the society increased in bitterness and became more general, owing to the feeling that its agents were supporting the king against the colonists. Yet its patronage of schools was most philanthropic and important for American education in the eighteenth century. While it insisted upon the interpretation of Christianity adopted by the Church of England, it stood first and foremost for the extension of religion and education to the virgin soil of America. It carriedIts devotion and generosity,on its labors with devoted interest and showed great generosity in the maintenance of schools, and the supportand influence upon universal education.of schools in the colonies by the S. P. G. must have exerted some influence toward universal education.
Charity Schools among the Pennsylvania Germans.—During the eighteenth century the efforts of the S. P. G. were supplemented by the formation of minor associations and the establishment of other charity schools in various colonies. Perhaps the most noteworthy instance was the organization in 1753 of ‘A Society for Propagating the Knowledge of God among the Germans,’ and the maintenance of schools among the sectsOrganization,of Pennsylvania. These schools were managed by a general colonial board of six trustees, who visited the schools annually and awarded prizes for English orations andcourse, andattainments in civic and religious duties. The course of study included instruction in “both the English and German languages; likewise in writing, keeping of common accounts, singing of psalms, and the true principles of the holy Protestant religion.” Twenty-five schools were planned, but probably there were never more than halfdisappearance of S. P. K. G. schools.that number. The schools lasted only about a decade, as the Germans soon came to feel that this English schooling threatened their language, nationality, and institutions.
The ‘Sunday School’ Movement in Great Britain.—A variety of charity school, quite different from those already mentioned, sprang up toward the close of the century under the name of ‘Sunday Schools.’ To overcome the prevailing ignorance, vice, and squalor in theFoundation,manufacturing center of Gloucester, England, Robert Raikes in 1780 set up a school in Sooty Alley for the instruction of children and adults in religion and the rudiments. Six months later he started a new school in Southgate street, and soon had other schools established. He paid his teachers a shilling each Sunday to train the children to read in the Bible, spell, and write. Thisopposition,charity education, meager as it was, was attacked by many of the upper classes, and was often viewed with suspicion by the recipients themselves. Yet the newadvocacy, and spread.movement had warm supporters among the nobility and such reformers as Wesley, and the schools soon spread to London, and then throughout England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and the Channel Islands. A Sunday School Society was founded in 1785, and within a decade distributed nearly one hundred thousand spellers, twenty-five thousand testaments, and over five thousand bibles, and trained approximately sixty-five thousand pupils in one thousand schools.
The ‘Sunday School’ Movement in the United States.—The Raikes system of Sunday instruction was also soon introduced in America. The first school was organizedIndividual centersin 1786 by Bishop Asbury at the house of ThomasCrenshaw in Hanover County, Virginia, and within a quarter of a century a number of schools arose in variousand permanent associations.cities. Before long, permanent associations were also started to promote Sunday instruction. ‘The First Day or Sunday School Society’ was organized at Philadelphia in 1791, and during the first two decades of the nineteenth century a number of similar societies for secular instruction on Sunday were founded in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. In 1823 these associations were all absorbed into a new and broader organization, known ever since as the ‘American Sunday School Union.’ At the start it published suitable reading-books, and furnished primers, spellers, testaments, and hymn-books to needy Sunday schools at a reasonable rate.
Value of the Instruction in ‘Sunday Schools.’—Both in Great Britain and the United States, however, the Sunday schools gradually tended to abandon theirMakeshift, but prepared the way for universal education.secular instruction and become purely religious. At the same time the teachers came to serve without pay and to instruct less efficiently. And the value of the secular teaching was not large at the best, as the work was necessarily limited to a few hours once a week. Raikes and all others interested in these institutions recognized their inadequacy as a means of securing universal education, and regarded them merely as auxiliary to a more complete system of instruction. But while a makeshift and by no means a final solution for national education, they performed a notable service for the times, and helped point the way to universal education.
The Schools of the Two Monitorial Societies.—While philanthropic education started largely in the eighteenthcentury, some of the schools continued well into the nineteenth. This was especially the case with the ‘monitorial’ system, started at Southwark in 1798. This district of London was thronged with barefoot and unkemptLancasterchildren; and Lancaster, the founder of the school, undertook to educate as many as he could. His schoolroom was soon filled with a hundred or more pupils. In order to teach them all, he used the older pupils as assistants. He taught the lesson first to these ‘monitors,’ and they in turn imparted it to the others, who were divided into equal groups. Each monitor cared for a single group. The work was very successful from the first, but Lancaster, attempting to introduce schools of this kind throughout England, fell so recklessly into debt that an association had to be founded in 1808 to continue the work on a practical basis. Within half a dozen years Lancaster withdrew from the organization,and the British and Foreign Society;but the association, under the name of the ‘British and Foreign Society,’ continued to flourish and found new schools.
So successful was the Lancasterian work that the Church of England, fearing its nonsectarian influence upon education, in 1811 organized ‘The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church.’ This long-named association was to conduct monitorial schools under theBell and the National Society.management of Doctor Andrew Bell, who had experimented with the system in India before Lancaster opened his school. Although they had formed no part of Bell’s original methods, the Anglican catechism and prayer book were now taught dogmatically in the schools founded by the National Society. Bell proved an admirabledirector, and a healthy rivalry sprang up between the societies.
Value of the Monitorial System in England.—TheDifferences in the two systems.plans of the two organizations were similar, but differed somewhat in details. Both used monitors and taught writing by means of a desk covered with sand, but the system of Lancaster was animated by broader motives and had many more devices for teaching. It also instituted company organization, drill, and precision, and developed a system of badges, offices, rewards, and punishments. Monitorial instruction, however, was notBoth were unoriginaloriginal with either Lancaster or Bell. It had long been used by the Hindus and others, although the work of the two societies brought it into prominence. It overemphasizedand mechanical.repetition and recitation mechanics, and consisted of a formal drill rather than a method of instruction.
Yet the monitorial schools were productive of someAfforded substitute for national education.achievements. Most of them afforded a fair education in the elementary school subjects and added some industrial and vocational training. They also did much to awaken the conscience of the English nation to the need of general education for the poor. The British and Foreign and the National Societies afforded a substitute, though a poor one, for national education in the days before England was willing to pay for general education, and they became the avenues through which such appropriations as the government did make were distributed. In 1833 the grant of £20,000, constituting the first government aid to elementary education, was equally divided between the two societies (see p. 388), and this method of administration was continued as the annual grant wasgradually increased, until the system of public education was established. Likewise, in 1839, £10,000 for normal instruction was voted to the societies, and was usedTraining colleges.by the British and Foreign for its Borough Road Training College, and by the National for St. Mark’s Training College. These were followed by several other training institutions, established by each society through government aid. In 1870, when the ‘board,’ or public elementary, schools were at length founded, the schoolsBritish and Foreign schools absorbed, but National a system by themselves.of the British and Foreign Society, with their nonsectarian instruction, fused naturally with them; but the institutions of the National Society, though transferred to school boards in a few cases, have generally come to constitute by themselves a national system on a voluntary basis.
Results of the Monitorial System in the United States.—In the United States the monitorial system was introduced into New York City in 1806. The ‘Society for the Establishment of a Free School,’ after investigating the best methods in other cities and countries, decided to try the system of Lancaster (see p. 260). The methodAdoption by New York and other cities.was likewise introduced into the charity schools of Philadelphia (see p. 261). The monitorial system then spread rapidly through New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and other States. It is almost impossible to trace the exact extent of this organization in the United States, but before long it seems to have affected nearly all cities of any size as far south as Augusta (Georgia), and west as far as Cincinnati. There are still traces of its influence throughout this region,—in Hartford, New Haven, Albany, Washington, and Baltimore, as well as in the places already mentioned (Figs. 27, 28,and 29). In 1818 Lancaster himself was invited to America, and assisted in the monitorial schools of New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia. A dozen years later the system began to be introduced generally into the highIntroduced into high schools and academies.schools and academies. Through the efforts of Dr. John Griscom, who had been greatly pleased with the monitorial high school of Dr. Pillans in Edinburgh, a similar institution was established in New York City in 1825, and the plan was soon adopted by a number of high schools in New York and neighboring states. Likewise, the state systems of academies in Maryland and in Indiana, which became high schools after the Civil War, were organized on this basis. For two decades the monitorial remained the prevailing method in secondary education. Training schools for teachers on the Lancasterian basis also became common.
In fact, the monitorial system was destined to perform a great service for American education. At the time of its introduction, public and free schools were generallyIncreased school facilitieslacking, outside of New England, and the facilities that existed were meager and available during but a small portion of the year. In all parts of the country illiteracy was almost universal among children of the poor. This want of school opportunities was rendered more serious by the rapid growth of American cities. ‘Free school societies,’ like that in New York City, formed to relieve the situation, came to regard the system of Lancaster, because of its comparative inexpensiveness, as a godsend for their purpose. And when the people generally awoke to the crying need of public education, legislators also found monitorial schools the cheapest way out of the difficulty, and the provision made for these schoolsgradually opened the road to the ever increasing expenditures and taxation that had to come before satisfactory schools could be established. Moreover, the Lancasterian schools were not only economical, but most effective, when the educational conditions of the times are taken into consideration. Even in the cities, the one-room and one-teacher school was the prevailing type, and grading was practically unknown. The whole organizationand improved organization and methods.and administration were shiftless and uneconomical, and a great improvement was brought about by the carefully planned and detailed methods of Lancaster. The schools were made over through his definite mechanics of instruction, centralized management, well-trained teachers, improved apparatus, discipline, hygiene, and other features.