The problem which confronted those interested in establishing state- controlled schools was not exactly the same in any two States, though the battle in many States possessed common elements, and hence was somewhat similar in character. Instead of tracing the struggle in detail in each of the different States, it will be much more profitable for our purposes to pick out the main strategic points in the contest, and then illustrate the conflict for these by describing conditions in one or two States where the controversy was most severe or most typical. The seven strategic points in the struggle for free, tax-supported, non-sectarian, state-controlled schools in the United States were:
1. The battle for tax support. 2. The battle to eliminate the pauper-school idea. 3. The battle to make the schools entirely free. 4. The battle to establish state supervision. 5. The battle to eliminate sectarianism. 6. The battle to extend the system upward. 7. Addition of the state university to crown the system.
We shall consider each of these, briefly, in order.
EARLY SUPPORT AND ENDOWMENT FUNDS. In New England, land endowments, local taxes, direct local appropriations, license taxes, and rate-bills had long been common. Land endowments began early in the New England Colonies, while rate-bills date back to the earliest times and long remained a favorite means of raising money for school support. These means were adopted in the different States after the beginning of our national period, and to them were added a variety of license taxes, while occupational taxes, lotteries, and bank taxes also were employed to raise money for schools. A few examples of these may be cited:
Connecticut, in 1774, turned over all proceeds of liquor licenses to the towns where collected, to be used for schools. New Orleans, in 1826, licensed two theaters on condition that they each pay $3000 annually for the support of schools in the city. New York, in 1799, authorized four state lotteries to raise $100,000 for schools, a similar amount again in 1801, and numerous other lotteries before 1810. New Jersey (R. 246) and most of the other States did the same. Congress passed fourteen joint resolutions, between 1812 and 1836, authorizing lotteries to help support the schools of the city of Washington. Bank taxes were a favorite source of income for schools, between about 1825 and 1860, banks being chartered on condition that they would pay over each year for schools a certain sum or percentage of their earnings. These all represent what is known as indirect taxation, and were valuable in accustoming the people to the idea of public schools without appearing to tax them for their support.
The National Land Grants, begun in the case of Ohio in 1802, soon stimulated a new interest in schools. Each State admitted after Ohio also received the sixteenth section for the support of common schools, and two townships of land for the endowment of a state university. The new Western States, following the lead of Ohio (R. 260) and Indiana (R. 261), dedicated these section lands and funds to free common schools. The sixteen older States, however, did not share in these grants, so most of them now set about building up a permanent school fund of their own, though at first without any very clear idea as to how the income from the fund was to be used. [1]
THE BEGINNINGS OF SCHOOL TAXATION. The early idea, which seems for a time to have been generally entertained, that the income from land grants, license fees, and these permanent endowment funds would in time entirely support the necessary schools, was gradually abandoned as it was seen how little in yearly income these funds and lands really produced, and how rapidly the population of the States was increasing. By 1825 it may be said to have been clearly recognized by thinking men that the only safe reliance of a system of state schools lay in the general and direct taxation of all property for their support. "The wealth of the State must educate the children of the State" became a watchword, and the battle for direct, local, county, and state taxation for education was clearly on by 1825 to 1830 in all the Northern States, except the four in New England where the principle of taxation for education had for long been established. [2] Even in these States the struggle to increase taxation and provide better schools called for much argument and popular education (R. 316), and occasional backward movements (Rs. 317, 318) were encountered.
[Illustration: FIG. 200. THE FIRST FREE PUBLIC SCHOOL IN DETROIT A one-room school, opened in the Second Ward, in 1838. No action was taken in any other ward until 1842.]
The struggle to secure the first legislation, weak and ineffective as it seems to us to-day, was often hard and long. "Campaigns of education" had to be prepared for and carried through. Many thought that tax-supported schools would be dangerous for the State, harmful to individual good, and thoroughly undemocratic. Many did not see the need for schools at all. Portions of a town or a city would provide a free school, while other portions would not. Often those in favor of taxation were bitterly assailed, and even at times threatened with personal violence. Often those in favor of improving the school had to wait patiently for the opposition slowly to wear itself out (R. 319) before any real progress could be made.
STATE SUPPORT FIXED THE STATE SYSTEM. With the beginnings of state aid in any substantial sums, either from the income from permanent endowment funds, state appropriations, or direct state taxation, the State became, for the first time, in a position to enforce quite definite requirements in many matters. Communities which would not meet the State's requirements would receive no state funds.
One of the first requirements to be thus enforced was that communities or districts receiving state aid must also levy a local tax for schools. Commonly the requirement was a duplication of state aid. Generally speaking, and recognizing exceptions in a few States, this represents the beginnings of compulsory local taxation for education. As early as 1797 Vermont had required the towns to support their schools on penalty of forfeiting their share of state aid. New York in 1812, Delaware in 1829, and New Jersey in 1846 required a duplication of all state aid received. Wisconsin, in its first constitution of 1848, required a local tax for schools equal to one half the state aid received. The next step in state control was to add still other requirements, as a prerequisite to receiving state aid. One of the first of such was that a certain length of school term, commonly three months, must be provided in each school district. Another was the provision of free heat, and later on free schoolbooks and supplies.
When the duplication-of-state-aid-received stage had been reached, compulsory local taxation for education had been established, and the great central battle for the creation of a state school system had been won. The right to tax for support, and to compel local taxation, was the key to the whole state system of education. From this point on the process of evolving an adequate system of school support in any State has been merely the further education of public opinion to see new educational needs.
THE PAUPER-SCHOOL IDEA. The pauper-school idea was a direct inheritance from England, and its home in America was in the old Central and Southern Colonies, where the old Anglican Church had been in control. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia were the chief representatives, though the idea had friends among certain classes of the population in other of the older States. The new and democratic West would not tolerate it. The pauper-school conception was a direct inheritance from English rule, belonged to a society based on classes, and was wholly out of place in a Republic founded on the doctrine that "all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Still more, it was a very dangerous conception of education for a democratic form of government to tolerate or to foster. Its friends were found among the old aristocratic or conservative classes, the heavy taxpayers, the supporters of church schools, and the proprietors of private schools. Citizens who had caught the spirit of the new Republic, public men of large vision, intelligent workingmen, and men of the New England type of thinking were opposed on principle to a plan which drew such invidious distinctions between the future citizens of the State. To educate part of the children in church or private pay schools, they said, and to segregate those too poor to pay tuition and educate them at public expense in pauper schools, often with the brand of pauper made very evident to them, was certain to create classes in society which in time would prove a serious danger to our democratic institutions.
Large numbers of those for whom the pauper schools were intended would not brand themselves as paupers by sending their children to the schools, and others who accepted the advantages offered, for the sake of their children, despised the system. [3]
The battle for the elimination of the pauper-school idea was fought out in the North in the States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the struggle in these two States we shall now briefly describe.
THE PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATION. In Pennsylvania we find the pauper-school idea fully developed. The constitution of 1790 (R. 259) had provided for a state system of pauper schools, but nothing was done to carry even this constitutional direction into effect until 1802. A pauper-school law was then enacted, directing the overseers of the poor to notify such parents as they deemed sufficiently indigent that, if they would declare themselves to be paupers, their children might be sent to some specified private or pay school and be given free education (R. 315). The expense for this was assessed against the education poor-fund, which was levied and collected in the same manner as were road taxes or taxes for poor relief. No provision was made for the establishment of public schools, even for the children of the poor, nor was any standard set for the education to be provided in the schools to which they were sent. No other general provision for elementary education was made in the State until 1834.
With the growth of the cities, and the rise of their special problems, something more than this very inadequate provision for schooling became necessary. "The Philadelphia Society for the Establishment and Support of Charity Schools" had long been urging a better system, and in 1814 "'The Society for the Promotion of a Rational System of Education" was organized in Philadelphia for the purpose of educational propaganda. Bills were prepared and pushed, and in 1818 Philadelphia was permitted, by special law, to organize as "the first school district" in the State of Pennsylvania, and to provide, with its own funds, a system of Lancastrian schools for the education of the children of its poor. [4]
THE LAW OF 1834. In 1827 "The Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Public Schools" began an educational propaganda which did much to bring about the Free-School Act of 1834. In an "Address to the Public" it declared its object to be the promotion of public education throughout the State of Pennsylvania, and the "Address" closed with these words:
This Society is at present composed of about 250 members, and a correspondence has been commenced with 125 members, who reside in every district in the State. It is intended to direct the continued attention of the public to the importance of the subject; to collect and diffuse all information which may be deemed valuable; and to persevere in their labors until they shall be crowned with success.
Memorials were presented to the legislature year after year, governors were interested, "Addresses to the Public" were prepared, and a vigorous propaganda was kept up until the Free-School Law of 1834 was the result.
This law, though, was optional. It created every ward, township, and borough in the State a school district, a total of 987 being created for the State. Each school district was ordered to vote that autumn on the acceptance or rejection of the law. Those accepting the law were to organize under its provisions, while those rejecting the law were to continue under the educational provisions of the old Pauper-School Act.
[Illustration: FIG. 201. THE PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL ELECTIONS OF 1835 Showing the percentage of school districts in each county organizing under and accepting the School Law of 1834. Percentage of districts accepting indicated on the map for a few of the counties.]
The results of the school elections of 1834 are shown, by counties, on the below map. Of the total of 987 districts created, 502, in 46 of the then 52 counties (Philadelphia County not voting), or 52 per cent of the whole number, voted to accept the new law and organize under it; 264 districts, in 31 counties, or 27 per cent of the whole, voted definitely to reject the law; and 221 districts, in 46 counties, or 21 per cent of the whole, refused to take any action either way. In 3 counties, indicated on the map, every district accepted the law, and in 5 counties, also indicated every district rejected or refused to act on the law. It was the predominantly German counties, located in the east-central portion of the State, which were strongest in their opposition to the new law. One reason for this was that the new law provided for English schools; another was the objection of the thrifty Germans to taxation; and another was the fear that the new state schools might injure their German parochial schools.
The real fight for freeversuspauper schools, though, was yet to come. Legislators who had voted for the law were bitterly assailed, and, though it was but an optional law, the question of its repeal and the reinstatement of the old Pauper-School Law became the burning issue of the campaign in the autumn of 1834. Many legislators who had favored the law were defeated for reelection. Others, seeing defeat, refused to run. Petitions for the repeal of the law, [5] and remonstrances against its repeal, flooded the legislature when it met. The Senate at once repealed the law, but the House, largely under the leadership of a Vermonter by the name of Thaddeus Stevens, [6] refused to reconsider, and finally forced the Senate to accept an amended and a still stronger bill. This defeat finally settled, in principle at least, the pauper-school question in Pennsylvania, [7] though it was not until 1873 that the last district in the State accepted the new system.
ELIMINATING THE PAUPER-SCHOOL IDEA IN NEW JERSEY. No constitutional mention of education was made in New Jersey until 1844, and no educational legislation was passed until 1816. In that year a permanent state school fund was begun, and in 1820 the first permission to levy taxes "for the education of such poor children as are paupers" was granted. In 1828 an extensive investigation showed that one third of the children of the State were without educational opportunities, and as a result of this investigation the first general school law for the State was enacted, in 1829. This provided for district schools, school trustees and visitation, licensed teachers, local taxation, and made a state appropriation of $20,000 a year to help establish the system. The next year, however, this law was repealed and the old pauper-school plan reëstablished, largely due to the pressure of church and private-school interests. In 1830 and 1831 the state appropriation was made divisible among private and parochial schools, as well as the public pauper schools, and the use of all public money was limited "to the education of the children of the poor."
Between 1828 and 1838 a number of conventions of friends of free public schools were held in the State, and much work in the nature of propaganda was done. At a convention in 1838 a committee was appointed to prepare an "Address to the People of New Jersey" on the educational needs of the State (R. 320), and speakers were sent over the State to talk to the people on the subject. The campaign against the pauper school had just been fought to a conclusion in Pennsylvania, and the result of the appeal in New Jersey was such a popular manifestation in favor of free schools that the legislature of 1838 instituted a partial state school system. The pauper-school laws were repealed, and the best features of the short-lived Law of 1829 were reënacted. In 1844 a new state constitution limited the income of the permanent state school fund exclusively to the support of public schools.
With the pauper-school idea eliminated from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the North was through with it. The wisdom of its elimination soon became evident, and we hear little more of it among Northern people. The democratic West never tolerated it. It continued some time longer in Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia, and at places for a time in other Southern States, but finally disappeared in the South as well in the educational reorganizations which took place following the close of the Civil War.
THE SCHOOLS NOT YET FREE. The rate-bill, as we have previously stated, was an old institution, also brought over from England, as the term "rate" signifies. It was a charge levied upon the parent to supplement the school revenues and prolong the school term, and was assessed in proportion to the number of children sent by each parent to the school. In some States, as for example Massachusetts and Connecticut, its use went back to colonial times; in others it was added as the cost for education increased, and it was seen that the income from permanent funds and authorized taxation was not sufficient to maintain the school the necessary length of time. The deficiency in revenue was charged against the parents sending children to school,pro rata, and collected as ordinary tax-bills (R. 321). The charge was small, but it was sufficient to keep many poor children away from the schools.
The rising cities, with their new social problems, could not and would not tolerate the rate-bill system, and one by one they secured special laws from legislatures which enabled them to organize a city school system, separate from city-council control, and under a local "board of education." One of the provisions of these special laws nearly always was the right to levy a city tax for schools sufficient to provide free education for the children of the city.
[Illustration: FIG. 202. THE NEW YORK REFERENDUM OF 1850 Total vote: For free schools, 17 counties and 209,346 voters; against free schools, 42 counties and 184,308 voters.]
THE FIGHT AGAINST THE RATE-BILL IN NEW YORK. The attempt to abolish the rate-bill and make the schools wholly free was most vigorously contested in New York State, and the contest there is most easily described. From 1828 to 1868, this tax on the parents produced an average annual sum of $410,685.66, or about one half of the sum paid all the teachers of the State for salary. While the wealthy districts were securing special legislation and taxing themselves to provide free schools for their children, the poorer and less populous districts were left to struggle to maintain their schools the four months each year necessary to secure state aid. Finally, after much agitation, and a number of appeals to the legislature to assume the rate-bill charges in the form of general state taxation, and thus make the schools entirely free, the legislature, in 1849, referred the matter back to the people to be voted on at the elections that autumn. The legislature was to be thus advised by the people as to what action it should take. The result was a state-wide campaign for free, public, tax-supported schools, as against partially free, rate-bill schools.
The result of the 1849 election was a vote of 249,872 in favor of making "the property of the State educate the children of the State," and 91,952 against it. This only seemed to stir the opponents of free schools to renewed action, and they induced the next legislature to resubmit the question for another vote, in the autumn of 1850.
The result of the referendum of 1850 is shown on the map on page 685. The opponents of tax-supported schools now mustered their full strength, doubling their vote in 1849, while the majority for free schools was materially cut down. The interesting thing shown on this map was the clear and unmistakable voice of the cities. They would not tolerate the rate- bill, and, despite their larger property interests, they favored tax- supported free schools. The rural districts, on the other hand, opposed the idea.
THE RATE-BILL IN OTHER STATES. These two referenda virtually settled the question in New York, though for a time a compromise was adopted. The state appropriation for schools was very materially increased, the rate- bill was retained, and the organization of "union districts" to provide free schools by local taxation where people desired them was authorized. Many of these "union free districts" now arose in the more progressive communities of the State, and finally, in 1867, after rural and other forms of opposition had largely subsided, and after almost all the older States had abandoned the plan, the New York legislature finally abolished the rate-bill and made the schools of New York entirely free.
The dates for the abolition of the rate-bill in the other older NorthernStates were:
1834. Pennsylvania. 1867. New York. 1852. Indiana. 1868. Connecticut. 1853. Ohio. 1868. Rhode Island. 1855. Illinois. 1869. Michigan. 1864. Vermont. 1871. New Jersey.
The New York fight of 1849 and 1850 was the pivotal fight; in the otherStates it was abandoned by legislative act, and without a serious contest.In the Southern States free education came with the educationalreorganizations following the close of the Civil War.
BEGINNINGS OF STATE CONTROL. The great battle for state schools was not only for taxation to stimulate their development where none existed, but was also indirectly a battle for some form of state control of the local systems which had already grown up. The establishment of permanent state school funds by the older States, to supplement any other aid which might be granted, also tended toward the establishment of some form of state supervision and control of the local school systems. The first step was the establishment of some form of state aid; the next was the imposing of conditions necessary to secure this state aid.
State oversight and control, however, does not exercise itself, and it soon became evident that the States must elect or appoint some officer to represent the State and enforce the observance of its demands. It would be primarily his duty to see that the laws relating to schools were carried out, that statistics as to existing conditions were collected and printed, and that communities were properly advised as to their duties and the legislature as to the needs of the State. We find now the creation of a series of school officers to represent the State, the enactment of new laws extending control, and a struggle to integrate, subordinate, and reduce to some semblance of a state school system the hundreds of little community school systems which had grown up.
THE FIRST STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS. The first American State to create a state officer to exercise supervision over its schools was New York, in 1812. In enacting the new law [8] providing for state aid for schools the first State Superintendent of Common Schools in the United States was created. So far as is known this was a distinctively American creation, uninfluenced by the practice in any other land. It was to be the duty of this officer to look after the establishment and maintenance of the schools throughout the State. [9] Maryland created the office in 1826, but two years later abolished it and did not re-create it until 1864. Illinois directed its Secretary of State to act,ex officio, as Superintendent of Schools in 1825, as did also Vermont in 1827, Louisiana in 1833, Pennsylvania in 1834, and Tennessee in 1835. Illinois did not create a real State Superintendent of Schools, though, until 1854, Vermont until 1845, Louisiana until 1847, Pennsylvania until 1857, or Tennessee until 1867. The first States to create separate school officials who have been continued to the present time were Michigan and Kentucky, both in 1837. Often quite a legislative struggle took place to secure the establishment of the office, and later on to prevent its abolition.
[Illustration: FIG. 203. STATUS OF SCHOOL SUPERVISION IN THE UNITED STATES BY 1861 For a list of the 28 City Superintendencies established up to 1870, see Cubberley'sPublic School Administration, p. 58. For the history of the state educational office in each State see Cubberley and Elliott,State and County School Administration, Source Book, pp. 283-87.]
By 1850 there wereex-officiostate school officers in nine and regular school officers in seven of the then thirty-one States, and by 1861 there wereex-officioofficers in nine and regular officers in nineteen of the then thirty-four States, as well as one of each in two of the organized Territories. The above map shows the growth of supervisory oversight by 1861—forty-nine years from the time the first American state school officer was created. The map also shows the ten of the thirty-four States which had, by 1861, also created the office of County Superintendent of Schools, as well as the twenty-five cities which had, by 1861, created the office of City Superintendent of Schools. Only three more cities—Albany, Washington, and Kansas City—were added before 1870, making a total of twenty-eight, but since that date the number of city superintendents has increased to something like fourteen hundred to-day.
THE FIRST STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION. Another important form for state control which was created a little later was the State Board of Education, with an appointed Secretary, who exercised about the same functions as a State Superintendent of Schools. This form of organization first arose in Massachusetts, in 1837, in an effort to subordinate the district schools and reduce them to a semblance of an organized system. In 1826 each town (township) had been required to appoint a School Committee (School Board) to exercise general supervision over its schools, in 1834 the state permanent school fund was created, and in 1837 the reform movement reached its culmination in the creation of the first real State Board of Education in the United States. Instead of following the usual American practice of the time, and providing for an elected State School Superintendent, Massachusetts provided for a small appointed State Board of Education which in turn was to select a Secretary, who was to act in the capacity of a state school officer and report to the Board, and through it to the legislature and the people. Neither the Board nor the Secretary were given any powers of compulsion, their work being to investigate conditions, report facts, expose defects, and make recommendations as to action to the legislature. The permanence and influence of the Board thus depended very largely on the character of the Secretary it selected.
HORACE MANN THE FIRST SECRETARY. A prominent Brown University graduate and lawyer in the State Senate, by the name of Horace Mann (1796-1859), who as president of the Senate had been of much assistance in securing passage of the bill creating the State Board of Education, was finally induced by the Governor and the Board to accept the position of Secretary. Mr. Mann now began a most memorable work of educating public opinion, and soon became the acknowledged leader in school organization in the United States. State after State called upon him for advice and counsel, while his twelve annual Reports to the State Board of Education will always remain memorable documents. Public men of all classes—lawyers, clergymen, college professors, literary men, teachers—were laid under tribute and sent forth over the State explaining to the people the need for a reawakening of educational interest in Massachusetts. Every year Mr. Mann organized a "campaign," to explain to the people the meaning and importance of general education. So successful was he, and so ripe was the time for such a movement, that he not only started a great common school revival in Massachusetts which led to the regeneration of the schools there, but one which was felt and which influenced development in every Northern State.
His twelve carefully writtenReportson the condition of education in Massachusetts and elsewhere, with his intelligent discussion of the aims and purposes of public education, occupy a commanding place in the history of American education, while he will always be regarded as perhaps the greatest of the "founders" of our American system of free public schools. No one did more than he to establish in the minds of the American people the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, and free, and that its aim should be social efficiency, civic virtue, and character, rather than mere learning or the advancement of sectarian ends. Under his practical leadership an unorganized and heterogeneous series of community school systems was reduced to organization and welded together into a state school system, and the people of Massachusetts were effectively recalled to their ancient belief in and duty toward the education of the people.
HENRY BARNARD IN CONNECTICUT AND RHODE ISLAND. Almost equally important, though of a somewhat different character, was the work of Henry Barnard (1811-1900) in Connecticut and Rhode Island. A graduate of Yale, and also educated for the law, he turned aside to teach and became deeply interested in education. The years 1835-37 he spent in Europe studying schools, particularly the work of Pestalozzi's disciples. On his return to America he was elected a member of the Connecticut legislature, and at once formulated and secured passage of the Connecticut law (1839) providing for a State Board of Commissioners for Common Schools, with a Secretary, after the Massachusetts plan. Mr. Barnard was then elected as its first Secretary, and reluctantly gave up the law and accepted the position at the munificent salary of $3 a day and expenses. Until the legislature abolished both the Board and the position, in 1842, he rendered for Connecticut a service scarcely less important than the better-known reforms which Horace Mann was at that time carrying on in Massachusetts.
[Illustration: PLATE 17. TWO LEADERS IN THE EDUCATIONAL AWAKENING IN THEUNITED STATES.
HORACE MANN (1796-1859)(From the painting at the Westfield, Massachusetts, Normal School)
In 1843 he was called to Rhode Island to examine and report upon the existing schools, and from 1845 to 1849 acted as State Commissioner of Public Schools there, where he rendered a service similar to that previously rendered in Connecticut. In addition he organized a series of town libraries throughout the State. For his teachers' institutes he devised a traveling model school, to give demonstration lessons in the art of teaching. From 1851 to 1855 he was again in Connecticut, as principal of the newly established state normal school andex-officioSecretary of the Connecticut State Board of Education. He now rewrote the school laws, increased taxation for schools, checked the power of the districts, there known as "school societies," and laid the foundations of a state system of schools. The work of Mann and Barnard had its influence throughout all the Northern States, and encouraged the friends of education everywhere. Almost contemporaneous with them were leaders in other States who helped fight through the battles of state establishment and state organization and control, and the period of their labors has since been termed the period of the "great awakening."
THE SECULARIZATION OF AMERICAN EDUCATION. The Church, it will be remembered, was from the earliest colonial times in possession of the education of the young. Not only were the earliest schools controlled by the Church and dominated by the religious motive, but the right of the Church to dictate the teaching in the schools was clearly recognized by the State. Still more, the State looked to the Church to provide the necessary education, and assisted it in doing so by donations of land and money. The minister, as a town official, naturally examined the teachers and the instruction in the schools. After the establishment of the National Government this relationship for a time continued. [10] New York and the New England States specifically set aside lands to help both church and school. After about 1800 these land endowments for religion ceased, but grants of state aid for religious schools continued for nearly a half-century longer. Then it became common for a town or city to build a schoolhouse from city taxation, and let it out rent-free to any responsible person who would conduct a tuition school in it, with a few free places for selected poor children. Still later, with the rise of the state schools, it became quite common to take over church and private schools and aid them on the same basis as the new state schools.
In colonial times, too, and for some decades into our national period, the warmest advocates of the establishment of schools were those who had in view the needs of the Church. Then gradually the emphasis shifted to the needs of the State, and a new class of advocates of public education now arose. Still later the emphasis has been shifted to industrial and civic and national needs, and the religious aim has been almost completely eliminated. This change is known as the secularization of American education. It also required many a bitter struggle, and was accomplished in the different States but slowly. The two great factors which served to produce this change were:
1. The conviction that the life of the Republic demanded an educated and intelligent citizenship, and hence the general education of all in common schools controlled by the State; and
2. The great diversity of religious beliefs among the people, which forced tolerance and religious freedom through a consideration of the rights of minorities.
The secularization of education must not be regarded either as a deliberate or a wanton violation of the rights of the Church, but rather as an unavoidable incident connected with the coming to self-consciousness and self-government of a great people.
THE FIGHT IN MASSACHUSETTS. The educational awakening in Massachusetts, brought on largely by the work of Horace Mann, was to many a rude awakening. Among other things, it revealed that the old school of the Puritans had gradually been replaced by a new and purely American type of school, with instruction adapted to democratic and national rather than religious ends. Mr. Mann stood strongly for such a conception of public education, and being a Unitarian, and the new State Board of Education being almost entirely liberal in religion, an attack was launched against them, and for the first time in our history the cry was raised that "The public schools are Godless schools." Those who believed in the old system of religious instruction, those who bore the Board or its Secretary personal ill-will, and those who desired to break down the Board's authority and stop the development of the public schools, united their forces in this first big attack against secular education. Horace Mann was the first prominent educator in America to meet and answer the religious onslaught.
A violent attack was opened in both the pulpit and the press. It was claimed that the Board was trying to eliminate the Bible from the schools, to abolish correction, and to "make the schools a counterpoise to religious instruction at home and in Sabbath schools." The local right to demand religious instruction was insisted upon.
Mr. Mann felt that a great public issue had been raised which should be answered carefully and fully. In three public statements he answered the criticisms and pointed out the errors in the argument (R. 322). The Bible, he said, was an invaluable book for forming the character of children, and should be read without comment in the schools, but it was not necessary to teach it there. He showed that most of the towns had given up the teaching of the Catechism before the establishment of the Board of Education. He contended that any attempt to decide what creed or doctrine should be taught would mean the ruin of the schools. The attack culminated in the attempts of the religious forces to abolish the State Board of Education, in the legislatures of 1840 and 1841, which failed dismally. Most of the orthodox people of the State took Mr. Mann's side, and Governor Briggs, in one of his messages, commended his stand by inserting the following:
Justice to a faithful public officer leads me to say that the indefatigable and accomplished Secretary of the Board of Education has performed services in the cause of common schools which will earn him the lasting gratitude of the generation to which he belongs.
THE ATTEMPT TO DIVIDE THE SCHOOL FUNDS. As was stated earlier, in the beginning it was common to aid church schools on the same basis as the state schools, and sometimes, in the beginnings of state aid, the money was distributed among existing schools without at first establishing any public schools. In many Eastern cities church schools at first shared in the public funds. In Pennsylvania church and private schools were aided from poor-law funds up to 1834. In New Jersey the first general school law of 1829 had been repealed a year later through the united efforts of church and private-school interests, who unitedly fought the development of state schools, and in 1830 and 1831 new laws had permitted all private and parochial schools to share in the small state appropriation for education.
After the beginning of the forties, when the Roman Catholic influence came in strongly with the increase in Irish immigration to the United States, a new factor was introduced and the problem, which had previously been a Protestant problem, took on a somewhat different aspect in the form of a demand for a division of the school funds. Between 1825 and 1842 the fight was especially severe in New York City. In 1825 the City Council refused to grant public money to any religious Society, [11] and in 1840 the Catholics carried the matter to the State Legislature.
The legislature deferred action until 1842, and then did the unexpected thing. The heated discussion of the question in the city and in the legislature had made it evident that, while it might not be desirable to continue to give funds to a privately organized corporation, to divide them among the quarreling and envious religious sects would be much worse. The result was that the legislature created for the city a City Board of Education, to establish real public schools, and stopped the debate on the question of aid to religious schools by enacting that no portion of the school funds was in the future to be given to any school in which "any religious sectarian doctrine or tenet should be taught, inculcated, or practiced." Thus the real public-school system of New York City was evolved out of this attempt to divide the public funds among the churches. The Public School Society continued for a time, but its work was now done, and, in 1853, surrendered its buildings and property to the City Board of Education and disbanded.
THE CONTEST IN OTHER STATES. As early as 1830, Lowell, Massachusetts, had granted aid to the Irish Catholic parochial schools in the city, and in 1835 had taken over two such schools and maintained them as public schools. In 1853 the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church made a demand on the state legislature for a division of the school fund of the State. To settle the question once for all a constitutional amendment was submitted by the legislature to the people, providing that all state and town moneys raised or appropriated for education must be expended only on regularly organized and conducted public schools, and that no religious sect should ever share in such funds. This measure failed of adoption at the election of 1853 by a vote of 65,111 for and 65,512 against, but was re-proposed and adopted in 1855. This settled the question in Massachusetts, as Mann had tried to settle it earlier, and as New Hampshire had settled it in its constitution of 1792, Connecticut in its constitution of 1818, and Rhode Island in its constitution of 1842.
Other States now faced similar demands, but no demand for a share in or a division of the public-school funds, after 1840, was successful. The demand everywhere met with intense opposition, and with the coming of enormous numbers of Irish Catholics after 1846, and German Lutherans after 1848, the question of the preservation of the schools just established as unified state school systems now became a burning one. Petitions for a division of the funds deluged the legislatures (R. 323), and these were met by counter-petitions (R. 324). Mass meetings on both sides of the question were held. Candidates for office were forced to declare themselves. Anti-Catholic riots occurred in a number of cities. The Native-American Party was formed, in 1841, "to prevent the union of Church and State," and to "keep the Bible in the schools." In 1841 the Whig Party, in New York, inserted a plank in its platform against sectarian schools. In 1855 the national council of the Know-Nothing Party, meeting in Philadelphia, in its platform favored public schools and the use of the Bible therein, but opposed sectarian schools. This party carried the elections that year in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Kentucky.
To settle the question in a final manner legislatures now began to propose constitutional 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 constitution. [12]
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 masses 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 institutions—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.
[Illustration: FIG. 204. A TYPICAL NEW ENGLAND ACADEMYPittsfield 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 Massachusetts, 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 class 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 institutions, 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 title. In this respect, also, these institutions 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 (Massachusetts) Seminary, founded by Mary Lyon, in 1836, though not the first institutions 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 classes, and the academies had represented a transition period and marked the growth of a middle class, 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 coöperative effort on the part of the people to provide something for themselves.
[Illustration: FIG. 205. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THEUNITED STATESThe 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 Classical 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 206 THE FIRST HIGH SCHOOL IN THE UNITED STATESEstablished at Boston in 1821.]
THE MASSACHUSETTS LAW OF 1827. Though Portland, Maine, established a high school in 1821, Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1824, and New Bedford, Haverhill, and Salem, Massachusetts, in 1827, copying the Boston idea, the real beginning of the American high school as a distinct institution dates from the Massachusetts Law of 1827 (R. 328), enacted through the influence of James G. Carter. This law formed the basis of all subsequent legislation in Massachusetts, 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 Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts, and not more than an equal number in the other States. The Academy was the dominant institution, 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. Massachusetts 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).
[Illustration: FIG. 207. HIGH SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES BY 1860 Based on the table given in theReport 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 Massachusetts (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 Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts 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.
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 Massachusetts 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 institution, 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 godly 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 areSocieties of Ministers, for training up Persons for the Work of theMinistry" and that "The great design of founding this School (Yale), was to Educate Ministers in ourown Way." In the advertisement 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 Childrento know God in Jesus Christ, and to love and serve him in allSobriety, Godliness, andRichness 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 institutions 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 assistant 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"—assisted by a few tutors who received only class fees, and the graduating classes 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; Sophomores, 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 208. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ESTABLISHED BY 1860 Compiled from data given in theReports of the United States Commissioner of Education. Of the 246 colleges shown on the map, but 17 were state institutions, 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 classes 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 institutions, and but two or three others had any state connections.
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 ATTITUDE 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 class, 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 institutions 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 institutions, 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 institution 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 institution. 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 constitution, in 1819, and the institution opened for instruction in 1831. Michigan, in framing its first constitution 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 constitution 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 constitution.
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 institution of three professors, one tutor, one assistant, 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-class 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 209. THE AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL LADDERCompare this with the figure on page 577, and the democratic nature of theAmerican school system will be apparent.]
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? Illustrate.
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?
6. Why were the pauper-school and the rate-bill so hard to eliminate?
7. Explain why, in America, schools naturally developed from the community outward.
8. State your explanation for the older States beginning to establish permanent school funds, often before they had established a state system of schools.
9. Show the gradual transition from church control of education, through state aid of church schools, to secularized state schools.
10. Show why secularized state schools were the only possible solution for the United States.
11. Show that secularization would naturally take place in the textbooks and the instruction, before manifesting itself in the laws.
12. Show how the American academy was a natural development in the national life.
13. Show how the American high school was a natural development after the academy.
14. Show why the high school could be opposed by men who had accepted tax- supported elementary schools. Why has such reasoning been abandoned now?
15. Explain the difference, and illustrate from the history of American educational development, between establishing a thing in principle and carrying it into full effect.
16. Was the early argument as to the influence of higher education on the State a true argument? Why?
17. What would have been the probable results had the Dartmouth College case been decided the other way?
18. Show how the opening of collegiate instruction to women was a phase of the new democratic movement.
19. Show how college education has been a unifying force in the national life.
In the accompanyingBook of Readingsthe following illustrative selections are reproduced:
316. Mann: The Ground of the Free-School System. 317. Governor Cleveland: Repeal of the Connecticut School Law. 318. Mann: On the Repeal of the Connecticut School Law. 319. Gulliver: The Struggle for Free Schools in Norwich. 320. Address: The State and Education. 321. Michigan: A Rate-Bill, and a Warrant for Collection. 322. Mann: On Religious Instruction in the Schools. 323. Michigan: Petition for a Division of the School Fund. 324. Michigan: Counter-Petition against a Division. 325. Connecticut: Act of Incorporation of Norwich Free Academy, 326. Boston: Establishment of the First American High School. 327. Boston: The Secondary-School System in 1823. 328. Massachusetts: The High School Law of 1827. 329. Gulliver: An Example of the Opposition to High Schools. 330. Michigan: The Kalamazoo Decision. 331. Michigan: Program of Studies at University, 1843. 332. Tappan: The Michigan State System of Public Instruction.