Historical Events

Running Head: GUIDED RESPONSE 1

GUIDED RESPONSE 73

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See the attached example. Please list five significant historical events/leaders from this era (Chapters Three and Four) and choose two to compare and contrast. Your Discussion Forum response will satisfy the following requirements:

a. Five events and the date each event occurred is listed.

b. Two events are chosen and a Venn Diagram is completed showing (at least three in each category) the similarities and differences of each chosen event.

c. Three of the following five questions have been answered.

· These events are still significant today because____. 

· If I could change the outcome of one of my listed events I would change___ because____. 

· If only one of these events/individuals could have taken place; I would chose ___ because____. 

· If I could change the outcome of one of my chosen events I would choose___ because____.

· What would you say is the most important result of each of your chosen events? 

Chaper 3

3.1 Education Under the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution

The first attempt at self-governance, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, were adopted by the Continental Congress and went into effect after their ratification in 1781. With the Articles of Confederation, Congress attempted to organize the 13 separate colonies under a national government that was given little authority and included no executive or judicial branches. It was also unable to tax, regulate commerce, or enforce civil law. This weak government could not bring 13 disparate governments into a unified whole, and popular unrest, particularly over issues of money and debt, erupted with increasing frequency.

Fearing that the confederation would collapse and that anarchy would prevail, delegates from each state (except Rhode Island, which declined to send any representatives) met in the summer of 1787 and drafted the Constitution. After its ratification in 1789, it launched the new republic.

Neither the Articles of Confederation nor the Constitution mention education. It is thus one of the powers reserved to the states by the 10th Amendment, which states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." And, in fact, by 1800, 7 of the then 16 states had adopted constitutions that contained formal statements regarding their responsibility for education. Eventually, all the states adopted specific provisions for education. The language of these provisions range from a very general statement that the state provides a system of free public schools to very specific provisions specifying school terms and finance.

Northwest Land Ordinances of 1785 and 1787

Despite reserving education for the states, there can be no doubt that the nation's founders recognized its importance to a form of government in which the quality of representation depended on citizens' abilities to make informed choices at the ballot box. To ensure that the settlers in the Northwest Territory did not neglect education, Congress passed perhaps the most important piece of legislation under the Articles of Confederation: the Land Ordinance of 1785.

This ordinance established that the Northwest Territory would be surveyed into square townships, which would be 6 miles on each side. Each township would be further divided into 36 sections of a square mile each, and the law required that the 16th section of land in each township in the Territory be set aside for the support of education. The land could be sold or leased, but the proceeds were to go to fund education. The 16th section, which was the section closest to the geographical center of the township (see Figure 3.1), was also a strategic choice for the possible location of a school.

The 16th section of each township in the Northwest Territory was set aside for the support of education. Modern-day state of Ohio shown with a small square imposed over a small area of

the state. This small area is enlarged at left to show how each township was

divided into 36 1 square mile sections and the 16th section was reserved for the

support of education. Inset map at top left shows the states of Ohio, Indiana,

Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

Although it would be three quarters of a century before the federal government again participated in any meaningful way in the support of public education (with passage of the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act), the Land Ordinance of 1785 established the principle of federal support for education. The precedent of setting aside land for the support of education was followed in all subsequent federal grants to states and territories and provided the basis for the permanent school funds that still exist in most of these states. Ultimately, the federal government distributed 80 million acres of land for the support of public education under the terms of the Land Ordinance of 1785.

Two years after the first ordinance, Congress reiterated the importance of education in Article Three of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which incorporated the Northwest Territory: "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged."

Nationalism and Education

The spirit of nationalism that dominated the new republic shaped the view of the Founding Fathers regarding education. Whereas the primary purpose of colonial education had been sectarian, political leaders now emphasized citizenship and the nation-state. They saw education as the best way to both prepare citizens to participate in a republican form of government and maintain order.

The Founding Fathers were well aware (and were reminded by popular uprisings like Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1787 and the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania in 1794) of the uncertain existence of the national government. Although influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, they also knew the lessons of history, which suggested that republics had a tenuous existence. Education, they believed, especially if based on Protestant principles and morals, was essential to preparing virtuous and orderly citizens.

At the same time, they sought to preserve the principles of liberty and equality for which they had fought. In their search for ordered liberty they accepted a paradox: "the free America was to be, in political convictions, the uniform America," and in the end they "saw conformity as the price of liberty" (Tyack, 1967, pp. 84–85).

Although they differed on many details, the republican leaders held at least four beliefs in common regarding education: (1) that education must be relative to the form of government—hence, a republic needs an educational system that prepares citizens to function effectively in a republican form of government; (2) that what was needed was a truly American education purged of all vestiges of older, monarchical forms and dedicated to the creation of a cohesive and patriotic citizenry; (3) that education should be genuinely practical, aimed at the improvement of the human condition, with the new sciences at its heart; and (4) that American education should be exemplary and a means through which the nation could teach the world the glories of liberty and learning (Cremin, 1982).

3.2 Republican Educational Theorists

The nation's leaders, along with most other Americans, acknowledged that the condition of education at the end of the revolutionary period was deplorable. This conviction led a number of the Founding Fathers to draft legislation or make other formal proposals designed to improve and extend schooling and to make it increasingly state supported.

This is not to say that their ideas of publicly supported education systems were immediately adopted in the new republic, but as the historian David Tyack (1967) reminds us, "The concept of uniform, systematic education serving republican purposes did not disappear. Later, when challenges confronted society during the period of the common school crusade, the ideas would emerge again, fortified by added sanctions and new anxieties" (p. 92).

Although many of the Founding Fathers expressed their views on the importance of education, the three who stand out as having the greatest influence on the education that developed in the new republic are Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, and Noah Webster.

Thomas Jefferson

Of the Founding Fathers, perhaps none is so well known for his views on education as Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), who wrote letters, authored legislation, and spoke publicly on education throughout his life. Strongly influenced by his classical education (Boutin & Rodgers, 2011) and the philosophy of John Locke, he believed that government must be by the consent of the governed and that men were entitled to certain rights that could not be abridged.

Jefferson was also one of the chief proponents of the addition of a Bill of Rights to the Constitution. According to one educational historian, "Few statesmen in American history have so vigorously strived for an ideal [liberty]; perhaps none has so consistently viewed education as the indispensable cornerstone of freedom" (Rippa, 1984, p. 68).

Plan for a State Education System

Jefferson's Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, introduced in the Virginia legislature in 1779, proposed the establishment of a system of public schools for the state. In its preamble Jefferson gave the prototypical republican, nationalistic argument for the importance of state-supported education:

When it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance; but the indigence of the greater number disabling them from so educating, at their own expense, those of their children who nature hath fitly formed and disposed to become useful instruments for the public, it is better that such should be sought for and educated at the common expense of all than that the happiness of all should be confined to the weak or wicked.

The bill called for each county to be subdivided into parts called hundreds; each hundred was to provide a tax-supported elementary school. Attendance would be free for all White children, male and female, for 3 years. The curriculum would focus on reading, writing, arithmetic, and history. Jefferson believed that through the study of history students would learn to recognize tyranny and support democracy.

The bill went on to propose that the state be divided into 20 districts and that a boarding grammar school be built at public expense in each district. Those attending would be not only those boys whose families could afford the tuition, but also the brightest of the poorer students from the elementary schools, whose tuition would be paid by the state. The curriculum of the grammar school was to include Latin, Greek, geography, English, grammar, and higher mathematics.

Finally, upon completion of grammar school, 10 of the scholarship students would receive 3 years' study at the College of William and Mary at state expense to prepare them for professional careers as statesmen or clergy. The remaining scholarship students, according to Jefferson, would most likely become masters in the grammar schools.

This plan, viewed in today's light, appears strikingly elitist, limiting access to secondary and higher education to only a small number of the brightest students. But in Jefferson's day it was considered excessively philanthropic and reflected Jefferson's commitment to the concept of a system of universal, free public education, if only for 3 years, and his belief in its necessity for a democracy. The bill's opponents defeated it in the Virginia legislature in 1789, in 1797, and again in 1817. Its defeat can be attributed in large part to the unwillingness of the wealthy landowners to pay property taxes for the education of the poor.

While Jefferson did not succeed in his campaign for public education, he still had a major influence on education in the United States. His "true success came in his becoming part of the tradition which inspired him. As the ideas of Socrates, Quintilian, and others influenced Jefferson, the ideas of Jefferson influenced Mann, Dewey and other great American educators" (Boutin & Rodgers, 2011, p. 210).

Founding the University of Virginia

Jefferson's interests also extended to higher education. After leaving the presidency of the United States in 1809, he devoted much of his energy to establishing the University of Virginia. He created the project (sometimes called "Mr. Jefferson's University") in every detail: He designed the buildings and landscape (even buying the bricks and picking out the trees to be used as lumber), chose the library books, designed the curriculum, and selected the students and faculty.

In the selection of the faculty and textbooks, what has been described as Jefferson's "rigid liberalism" (Tyack, 1967) was much in evidence. That is, Jefferson's liberal position on tolerance did not extend to what he considered political "heresy": He insisted that students be protected from exposure to Federalist faculty and texts that supported a strong federal government as opposed to Jefferson's republican position.

The University of Virginia opened in 1825. In addition to the classical curriculum dominant in higher education at the time, the university offered a much-publicized experimental elective system that included a nonclassical track of modern languages, natural sciences, law, government, and medicine (Pak, 2008). So important was the University of Virginia to Jefferson that he requested that its founding be included on his tombstone among what he considered his other greatest accomplishments: writing the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and authoring the Declaration of Independence. Serving as President of the United States was not included.

.

The Founding Father Dr. Benjamin Rush was an advocate of education of both females and African Americans.

Benjamin Rush (1746–1813), a medical doctor and professor, was a graduate of both the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and Princeton. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War he was a professor at the College of Philadelphia. Rush was deeply interested in education as well as a broad range of social issues: He was strongly opposed to the death penalty and encouraged penal reform and the establishment of institutions for the mentally ill. A former slave owner himself, he later co-founded of one of America's first abolition societies, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.

Free Schools

Rush wanted to establish a system in Pennsylvania, and eventually the entire nation, that would provide public support for free schools. In his "A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools and the Diffusion of Knowledge in Pennsylvania," which was similar to Jefferson's plan for Virginia, Rush proposed that in every town of 100 or more families a free school be established where children would be taught to read and write English and German (widely spoken in Pennsylvania at the time) as well as arithmetic. An academy was to be established in each county "for the purpose of instructing youth in the learned languages (Latin and Greek), and thereby preparing them to enter college."

The higher education provisions of the plan included four colleges where males would be instructed in mathematics and the "higher branches of science," as well as one university located in the state capital where "law, physic, divinity, the law of nature and nations economy, etc. be taught . . . by public lectures in the winter season, after the manner of the European universities."

Rush's education plan, which, like Jefferson's, was too revolutionary to be accepted in its day, was intended to tie together the whole education system: The university would supply the masters for the academies and free schools, and the free schools, in turn, would supply the students for the academies. More than perhaps the other leading republican theorists, Rush was concerned about the quality and character of the teachers and the financial support they might receive:

It will be no purpose to adopt this or any other mode of education unless we make choice of suitable masters to carry our plans into execution. Let our teachers be distinguished for their abilities and knowledge. Let them be grave in their manners, gentle in their tempers, exemplary in their morals, and of sound principles in religion and government. Let us not leave their support to the precarious resources to be derived from their pupils, but let such funds be provided for our schools and colleges as will enable us to allow them liberal salaries. (Rush, cited in Rudolph, 1965, p. 21)

Education for Women and African Americans

Rush was an advocate for the education of women and founded one of the first female academies in the United States, the Young Ladies Academy of Philadelphia. However, he was not an egalitarian. In fact, in his opinion, education would make women more subservient to men and help them to recognize and accept their natural inferiority and that men were by intent and design the natural leaders of the world (Campbell, 2000).

To a large extent Rush's support of women's education was based on his view of their particular duties in a republic. In his "Thoughts Upon Female Education" (1787), Rush espoused the idea of "republican motherhood," the idea that women's primary duty was to bring up their sons to be virtuous citizens and instruct them in the principles of liberty and government. Other major duties were to be "stewards and guardians of their husband's property" and the educators of their children.

To best prepare females for these duties, Rush proposed that women be instructed in not only reading and writing, but also "some knowledge of figures and bookkeeping . . . [and, since] there are certain occupations in which she may assist her husband with this knowledge, and should she survive him and agreeably to the custom of our country be the executrix of his will, she cannot fail of deriving immense advantage of it" (p. 9); geography; "the first principles of astronomy and natural philosophy, particularly with such parts of them as are calculated to prevent superstition" (p. 9); history; vocal music and dance; English literature; moral philosophy; and the Christian religion.

Rush was also an advocate for the education of African Americans, which he saw as a moral and economic imperative: "Let the young negroes be educated in the principles of virtues and religion . . . let them be taught to read and write—and afterward instructed in some business whereby they may be able to maintain themselves" (Blinderman, 1976, p. 21).

Rush was perhaps the most demanding of the republican theorists in terms of seeking discipline and political conformity—indeed, indoctrination—through education. The following quotes from Rush provide what Kaestle (1983) called a "chilling reminder of the harsh side of revolutionary educational thought":

In the education of youth, let the authority of our masters be as absolute as possible. The government of schools like the government of private families should be arbitrary, that it may not be severe. By this mode of education, we prepare our youth for the subordination of laws and thereby qualify them for becoming good citizens of the republic. I am satisfied that the most useful citizens have been formed from those youth who have never known or felt their own wills till they were one and twenty years of age. . . .

From the observations that have been made it is plain that I consider it is possible to convert men into republican machines. (pp. 16–17)

A National University

A major goal for Rush, one he shared with all the presidents from George Washington to Andrew Jackson, was to establish a national university. In the view of Rush, Washington, and many others, such an institution would train the nation's future leaders in every field, especially politics, and would be a means of promoting nationalism. Rush went so far as to propose that Congress pass a law, to take effect 30 years after the founding of the university, to prevent any person from holding office who had not graduated from it (Tyack, 1967).

An equally strong proposal by Jefferson included bringing the entire faculty of the College of Geneva, Switzerland, to become the core for a national university (Butts & Cremin, 1953), and Washington repeatedly proposed a national university in his public addresses and even pledged personal financial support (Pangle & Pangle, 1993).

Many of the other leaders of the new nation also supported the creation of a national university. In fact, the proposal was considered by the drafters of the Constitution but was rejected because it would require the inclusion of too much detail in that concise document. Nevertheless, each of the first six presidents of the United States voiced his support for what historian David Madsen (1966) called an "Enduring Dream of the U.S.A."—a national university. Although not to be realized in the form envisioned by its early proponents, the national military academies realized at least part of the dream, to train leaders for the "militia" and the navy.

Noah Webster

Jefferson and Rush proposed systems of public education, but it was a teacher, Noah Webster (1758–1843), who had the most influence on education in the new republic. Although Webster could probably be considered more a Federalist than a Jeffersonian Republican, he shared the view of his contemporaries that education was central to ensuring stability and liberty in the nascent republic. Webster believed that the primary purpose of education should be the inculcation of patriotism, and that what was needed was a truly American education rid of its European influence (Madsen, 1974). These goals could best be accomplished, he believed, by creating a distinctive national (American) language and curriculum.

Spelling Books

Title page of the first edition of Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the

English Language.

Everett Collection/SuperStock

Through his dictionary and textbooks, Webster sought to create a distinctive American language.

To further this goal, Webster prepared a speller, a grammar, and a reader to replace the English texts then in use. Of these, the most popular was the American Spelling Book, published in 1783 and often referred to as the blue-backed speller. Books were called spellers because spelling was the way children were taught to read at the time. "The spelling-for-reading approach, better known to us as the "alphabet method" was then the standard way to teach beginning reading. Children learning to read were taught to spell words out, in syllables, in order to pronounce them (Denham, 1983, p. 178).

The speller soon became the most widely used in the United States. Its success and royalties allowed Webster to devote his time and attention to his other major project intended to standardize the American language, the American Dictionary of the English Language (Kendall, 2011).

After the publication of the dictionary, Webster dramatically revised the spelling book, which was reprinted in 1829 as the Elementary Spelling Book. Although within a decade reading instruction began to rely on sequenced readers, Webster's Elementary Spelling Book "which could be purchased at virtually every little country store across the nation" (Monaghan, 2005, p. 361) remained very popular.

And for one special population it was especially popular: the enslaved and newly freed. Both the American Spelling Book and the Elementary Spelling Book are mentioned over and over in slaves' accounts of how they tried to teach themselves to read before the Civil War. In 1866, the year after the war ended, nearly 600,000 newly freed African Americans bought copies of the blue-backed speller, "which had attained a reputation of mythic proportions among African American communities for the role it played in teaching the novice to read (Monaghan, 2005, p. 361).

Webster's speller continues to be sold and used today, more than 200 years after its original publication. Probably no other single-volume textbook has sold as many copies in the United States.

3.3 New Providers of Elementary Education

Although most of the specific education proposals made by Jefferson, Rush, and others were not adopted, other proposals for expanding educational opportunities were implemented in the early republic. However, despite the fact that Webster and others promoted the establishment of a uniquely American education, some of the major innovations in American education in this period were of European origin. Among these were the monitorial school, the Sunday school, and the infant school. None of them survived in their initial form, but they promoted the common school movement by both illuminating the need for education and giving the common people a taste for learning.

Monitorial Schools

Monitorial schools originated in England and were brought to America by a Quaker, Joseph Lancaster. In the Lancasterian monitorial system, one paid teacher instructed hundreds of pupils through the use of monitors, or student teachers, who were chosen for their academic abilities. Monitorial education was concerned with teaching only the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. The first monitorial school in the United States was opened in New York City in 1806, and the system spread rapidly. One such school in Pennsylvania designed to accommodate 450 students was described as follows:

The teacher sits at the head of the room on a raised platform. Beneath and in front of the teacher are three rows of monitors' desks placed directly in front of the pupils' desks. The pupils' desks are divided into three sections . . . and each section is in line with one of the rows of monitors' desks. . . . A group of pupils would march to the front of the room and stand around the monitors' desks, where they would receive instruction from the monitors. When they finished, they would march to the rear part of their particular section and recite or receive further instruction from another monitor. While this group was marching to the rear, another group would be marching up to the front to take their places around the monitors. When finished, the pupils would march to the rear, and the group in the rear would move forward to the second part of their section to receive instruction from yet another monitor. Because each of the three sections had a group in front, one in the rear, and one in the middle working on different things, a total of nine different recitations could be carried on at one time. (Spring, 2010 p. 73)

The monitorial system was attractive not only because it provided an inexpensive system for educating the poor, but also because submission to the system was supposed to instill the virtues of orderliness, obedience, and industriousness. The system gained wide appeal. In fact, Kaestle (1983) asserts that it was "the most wide-spread and successful educational reform in the Western world during the first 30 years of the nineteenth century" (pp. 41–42).

The monitorial format was considered ideal for charity schools operated by free school societies for the children of the poor in urban areas not being served by denominational charity schools. Overall, these free schools were not a major factor in the history of education; nonetheless, for a period they did provide the only education some children received. For example, by 1820 the Free School Society of New York City (renamed the Public School Society in 1826 and placed under the city department of education in 1853) was teaching more than 2,000 children (Cremin, 1982). Indeed, the free schools provided the basis for the public school systems that developed in many American cities in the mid-19th century (Kaestle, 1983).

In time the monitorial system declined. It appeared to be better suited to large cities with large numbers of students than to the small towns and rural areas where many Americans still lived. Even in the large cities it was not always considered successful. Among the many criticisms of the system were that often the peer monitors were not able to command respect and maintain discipline and that the schools afforded only the most basic education. Yet, instead of being an educational dead end, as depicted by many educational historians, Lancasterian monitorial-ism may have been the model for the factory-like urban schools that emerged in the United States in the late 19th century (Gutek, 1986).

Sunday Schools

The Sunday school, a form of charity school, was begun in 1780 in England by Robert Raikes. The first Sunday school in America opened in 1786 in Virginia. Its purpose was to offer moral instruction and the rudiments of reading and writing to children who worked during the week, primarily in the factories of the larger cities. Historians have estimated that as many as 40% of the laborers in the factories in the late 18th century were children. The Sunday school was seen as serving a secular purpose by providing these working children—boys and girls aged 6 to 12 or 14—with an alternative to roaming the streets on Sunday.

By 1800 Sunday schools in Philadelphia enrolled more than 2,000 students. They were also in operation in New York, Richmond, and other eastern cities. In some locations Sunday schools obtained some public support for their operations. The Sunday and Adult School Union, a national organization established in 1817 that was reorganized as the American Sunday School Union in 1824, promoted the movement across the country. The Union published and distributed reading and spelling books, religious books, and books for moral guidance and instruction. It also distributed sets of "Sunday School Libraries" which served, de facto, as the only public libraries in many rural communities (Boylan, 1988).

It has been estimated that, by 1827, 200,000 children attended Sunday schools (Kaestle, 1983). In a number of communities, mainly in cities but even on plantations until the education of slaves was forbidden by law, African American adults and children were among those who took advantage of the opportunity to learn to read and write on Sunday, albeit in separate classes from Whites.

The typical Sunday school operated from 6:00 to 10:00 in the morning and from 2:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon. The remainder of the day was spent at morning and evening worship. Classes were small and typically taught by young female volunteers. Like the other forms of charity education, the curriculum of the Sunday school emphasized basic literacy with a heavy emphasis on reading and memorizing the scriptures.

The original Sunday schools were not adjuncts of churches but were established by laypeople. However, by 1830 the initial secular purpose of the Sunday school had been superseded by religious interests, and, although they continued to teach reading, they came to be religious institutions operated by Sunday school societies with primarily evangelical missions. They grew in number, reaching out to the frontier and becoming available to children from homes of all sorts.

Like the monitorial schools, the free schools, and the infant schools discussed next, although the Sunday schools had a limited existence, at least as secular institutions, they were important to the evolution of the American educational system because they expanded educational opportunities to many children and focused attention on formal learning. In many communities Sunday schools not only served as the precursor of the common school but also, according to historian Ann Boylan (1988), rivaled the common school in importance.

Infant Schools

The last of the major educational innovations introduced in the early republic was the infant school, first established in England in 1816 by Robert Owen to provide for the children of mothers working in his factory. Within a decade the concept had crossed the Atlantic. In 1827 infant schools opened in New York and Philadelphia and later in other eastern cities. The infant schools were taught by women and were designed for poor children aged 2 to 7. They provided basic literacy and moral training to those who, because they would go to work in a factory at a very early age, probably would not receive any other schooling.

Like the Sunday school, the infant school was a product of the charity school movement and reflected the sentiment that early education, especially moral education and instruction in the fixed habits of industry, decency, and order were necessary to mitigate against the pernicious effects of poverty.

Most primary schools designed along the infant school model did not survive. In fact, by 1840 infant schools had basically vanished from the American educational scene. However, they were important in serving as another vehicle for drawing public attention to early childhood education, and, more generally, to the need to support education. In the few cities where infant schools had been designed by those who advocated early childhood education for all children, poor or not, as preparatory to the elementary school, the infant schools survived and became part of the town school system. And, as discussed in Chapter 6 in the 1850s the infant school was revived in the form of the kindergarten by the followers of Friedrich Froebel.

3.4 Town and District Schools: Organization and Instruction

The monitorial school, the Sunday school, and the infant school all played roles in bringing an elementary education to the young people of the new nation, but it was the town and district schools, the so-called common schools, that really grew in number and enrollment throughout the early national period. This was in large part a result of the rapid growth in the population, especially of urban centers. Between 1790 and 1830 the nation's population more than tripled, from 3.9 million to 12.9 million (see Figure 4.1). In 1790 no city in the United States had a population of 50,000, but by 1830 seven cities had populations larger than that.

The growth of the common schools also reflected the demands of the ever larger immigrant population that saw education as the vehicle for upward social and economic mobility. Finally, it reflected the demands for skilled workers in the growing industrial sector. Also contributing to the increased enrollment in the common schools was the increased admission of females, especially in the rural areas and small towns.

Enrollments were further encouraged by the decentralized district system of control, whereby each community took responsibility for the provision of education. The district system received legal status in several of the former colonies in the late 18th century (such as, Connecticut in 1760, Vermont in 1782, Massachusetts in 1789, and Rhode Island in 1799) and moved west with the passage of the Northwest Ordinance. The district system meant that schools were located closer to pupils' homes, and therefore were more convenient to attend. Also, because they were "local schools," people were more willing to pay taxes for their support.

The enrollment and curriculum in the district schools varied greatly. Although the urban schools of the period are generally thought of as having large classes and being overcrowded, it was also not unusual, in the winter months, for 60 or 70 students to be shut up in a one-room rural school barely large enough for 30. Because there was no standard age for beginning school, it was also not unusual in rural areas, more so than in urban areas, for children to begin attending as early as 3 years old. The range in age of the students added to the challenges facing the rural schoolteacher.

Another pedagogical challenge to district schoolteachers was that children often studied from the texts their families supplied them. According to one historian, in some Wisconsin schools there were sometimes as many different textbooks in use as there were children (Kaestle, 1983).

The pedagogical challenges combined with the low pay did not attract or keep the most qualified persons in the ranks of the rural teacher, or keep them in the job for very long. The New England district school described in the Primary Source Readings for this chapter had at least 37 different teachers in 30 years. Rural schoolmasters of the period are most often described using terms such as "ignorant" or "transient."

Typically, because of the low wages, teachers worked at another job to make ends meet. In rural areas, little more than reading, spelling, writing, and basic arithmetic might be taught. And, given the tie between the school and the community in rural areas, the teacher often taught in a foreign language if it was the dominant language in the community (for example, German in parts of Pennsylvania) or emphasized the religious principles or practices dominant in the community.

In some cases the public Latin grammar schools functioned as de facto common schools, teaching a wide range of pupils. As previously noted, a smaller town might insist that the schoolmaster teach English and offer Latin only to boys whose parents specifically requested it (Herbst, 1996). As a result, in towns with only a few Latin pupils, the schoolmaster would spend most of his time teaching reading and writing to children of all ages, and often to both sexes.

3.5 Growth of the Academy

By the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, though, the Latin grammar school tradition had virtually collapsed. Towns refused to support them, and the courts, in turn, refused to enforce the laws requiring their support. At the same time, the academy movement continued to grow.

Although today the term academy brings to mind an exclusive private institution with a college preparatory curriculum, or perhaps providing military training, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries the term was more broadly applied. Some academies were indeed prestigious and exclusive. Others were little more than log cabins. Stimulated by the founding of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1802 and the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1848, many were in fact established as military schools.

Admission to some academies was open to all comers; others catered to special clients. Some were boarding schools; some were day schools. Some were teacher owned, others were organized by groups of parents or individuals, and yet others were organized by denominations or philanthropic individuals or groups.

Academies were encouraged in many states by the public support given them, sometimes by grants of land and sometimes by state funds. For example, Georgia and Tennessee developed academy plans for counties that involved both grants of land and public funds. In part because of this support, over 100 academies had been established in Georgia by 1831 (Kraushaar, 1976).

The Academies' Curriculum

The curriculum of the academy usually depended, at least in part, on the students enrolled: Some students' preparation was seriously lacking and therefore needed remediation, and adjustments had to be made for other students whose attendance alternated seasonally between the farm and the academy. The better academies were on par with the colleges, whereas the poorer ones offered little more than the common schools (Kraushaar, 1976). In the larger academies, a classical department offered a curriculum of Latin and Greek and an English department offered English grammar, geography, arithmetic, and other studies deemed "practical" or in demand. (See, for example, the 1818 curriculum for the Phillips Exeter Academy in the From the Archives feature box.)

3.6 Emergence of the Public High School

Public secondary schools offering education beyond the elementary school did not become a firmly established part of the American educational scene until the last quarter of the 19th century. However, the beginnings of the movement occurred well before the Civil War. Boston inaugurated the high school movement in 1821 with the opening of the English Classical School for Boys, renamed the Boston English High School in 1824.

In calling for community support, the Boston school committee made it clear that they wished to provide an alternative to the Latin grammar school and to provide locally "an education that shall fit him [the child] for active life, and shall serve as a foundation for eminence in his profession, whether Mercantile or Mechanical" (Binder, 1974, p. 107). Such an education could otherwise be obtained only by sending the child to a private academy, an expense many parents could not afford. The school committee proposed a 3-year course of study, that the age of admission be not less than 12 years, and that the "Masters and Ushers (assistants)" be university educated.

The English High School became an instant success, with demand exceeding capacity. As will be discussed in Chapter 5 other towns soon followed this example. The success of the high school for boys encouraged Boston's school reformers to attempt to convince taxpayers and city officials that a high school for girls would be equally beneficial. They made the case that the city would benefit if girls received further education for their roles as wives and mothers. In addition, they argued, "before marriage and motherhood or as widows and spinsters, women, young and old, could aid the city as teachers in the common schools" (Herbst, 1996, p. 44). Their arguments were persuasive, and in 1826 the city opened a high school for girls.

Like the boys' school, the girls' school was an immediate success. In fact, it was too successful, according to some city politicians:

"From the known circumstances of females, between the age of eleven and sixteen," complained Mayor Quincy, "there is no reason for believing that any one, once admitted to the school, would voluntarily quit it for the whole three years; unless, indeed, in the case of marriage." As Quincy saw it, sending girls to high school was not cost-efficient. Girls were neither trade- nor profession-minded and, unlike boys, rarely obtained employment or other opportunities before they graduated from school. Thus their stay in school, argued the mayor, was but a waste of the taxpayers' money. (Herbst, 1996, p. 44)

Other city officials apparently agreed with the mayor, and the school was closed after only 3 years of operation. It would be a quarter of a century before a public secondary education was again made available to the girls of Boston. However, other public high schools for girls opened in towns such as Worcester (1824); New York City (1826); East Hartford, Connecticut (1828); and Buffalo, New York (1828), and these did remain open.

In 1827, largely through the efforts of James G. Carter, Massachusetts passed the first law in the United States to require the establishment of public high schools. The law read, in part:

Be it enacted, That each town or district within this Commonwealth, containing fifty families, or householders, shall be provided with a teacher or teachers, of good morals, to instruct children in orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, arithmetic, and good behavior, for such terms of time as shall be equivalent to six months for one school in each year . . . one hundred families, or householders . . . equivalent to eighteen months . . . five hundred families, or householders . . . twenty-four months . . . shall also be provided with a master of good morals, competent to instruct, in addition to the branches of learning aforesaid, in the history of the United States, bookkeeping by single entry, geometry, surveying, algebra; and shall employ such a master . . . at least ten months in each year . . . and in every city, or town, and district containing four thousand inhabitants, such master shall be competent in addition to all foregoing branches, to instruct the Latin and Greek languages, history, rhetoric, and logic.

Like the earlier Massachusetts Law of 1647, initially this law was not rigidly enforced, and the number of high schools in the state only grew slowly. In fact, 10 years after its passage, fewer than 20 high schools had been established in Massachusetts. In one sense the law was ahead of its time. In a period when the majority of the population had not completed an elementary education, there was limited popular demand for the high school. As will be discussed in Chapter 5, it was not until after the Civil War that various political, social, and economic factors converged to create this demand.

3.7 Developments in Higher Education in the Early National Period

In the period following the Revolutionary War, the same nationalistic, democratic spirit that gave rise to the common school also produced an increase in institutions of higher education, including the first public institutions. The first state institutions of higher education were established in the South: the University of Georgia in 1785, the University of North Carolina in 1789, the University of Tennessee in 1794, and the University of South Carolina in 1801. In the second quarter of the 19th century, the movement spread to the Midwest: Indiana University in 1820, the University of Michigan in 1837, and the University of Wisconsin in 1848.

The increase in the number of public and private institutions was a result of several factors, including that in most states the policies governing the granting of college charters were very liberal and as people moved westward they wanted colleges close at hand. Between 1800 and 1860 the proportion of the nation's colleges located in the Southwest and Midwest increased from 16% to 60% (Kelley, 2006). Another contributing factor, one mentioned in Chapter 2, was that many denominations chose to establish their own colleges rather than have their members educated at colleges operated by other denominations. The combination of these forces produced a supply of colleges that exceeded the demand.

A large number of the new private institutions did not survive, primarily because of insufficient funding. By and large those that did survive, like the more established private and public colleges, were very small. Despite the growing number of students attending college, by midcentury the average enrollment per college stood at around 50 students (Pak, 2008). Even Harvard did not have a graduating class of 100 until after the Civil War.

In both public and private institutions lecture and recitation (the practice of students taking turns reciting passages from the textbook) remained the most common modes of instruction, and discipline remained strict. The curriculum of public institutions gave more emphasis to the sciences and modern languages than the curriculum of the denominational institutions, but, over growing objection, the classical curriculum remained dominant in both public and private institutions of higher education in the early national period.

Defense of the Classical Curriculum: The Yale Report of 1828

As had already happened at the secondary level, the 19th century brought increasing pressures on colleges to make the curriculum more relevant to the demands of commerce, industry, and agriculture. The classical curriculum, its critics charged, was useless to a generation that was to subdue mountains, dig canals, construct turnpikes and railroads, throw bridges across rivers, and turn woods and plains into granaries and pastures. Moreover, the critics complained, the colleges were unwilling to admit the sons and daughters of farmers and workingmen; rather, all they did was promote the snobbishness of the upper class and reinforce the traditional class structure (Herbst, 1996).

In response to such charges, and in response to a request of Judge Noyes Darling, one of Yale's own alumni and a member of the college corporation, the faculty of Yale prepared what came to be called the Yale Report of the 1828 Committee of Corporation and the Academic Faculty. In the report the scholars defended the study of the classics on the basis that they provided the foundation of the literature of every Western nation, their study helped develop mental discipline and proper character, they provided the best preparation for professional study, and to abandon them would devalue the degree.

However, rather than being intransient traditionalists as they have historically been depicted, more recent interpretations contend that the authors' main reason for retaining the classical requirements was that some portion of their cliental demanded it (Pak, 2008). A more careful reading of the report shows that the authors did not, in fact, reject the changes that had been made in the curriculum since the colonial period but supported a dual curriculum strategy, retaining the classical curriculum and supplementing it with new subjects, courses, and materials (Pak, 2008).

The Yale Report was a major contributor to the debate over the appropriate curriculum for the new nation's colleges and universities. It also provided the rationale for the continuation and inclusion of the liberal arts or "college prep" curriculum in the secondary schools.

Dartmouth College Case

In 1816 the New Hampshire legislature, concerned about the Dartmouth College board of trustees' removal of the president of the college over a religious controversy, enacted legislation to convert the school from a private to a state institution, thereby allowing the governor to appoint the trustees who would then reinstate the president. Dartmouth had been established in 1769 under the authority of a royal charter from King George of England. The legislature based its legal claim for taking control on the fact that the majority of the funds for the operation of the college came from public coffers.

Dartmouth appealed the law, and its famous alumnus, Daniel Webster, successfully argued the Dartmouth College case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In its decision (Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 1819), the Court upheld the original contract from the king of England that had given private status to the college. The case was important not only in affirming the constitutional principle that states could not impair contracts, but also in providing a foundation for the system of private colleges secure from government control that we have today.

3.8 Education of Women in the New Republic: The Cult of Domesticity

As discussed earlier, the early national period was one of uncertainty and concern about what was necessary to maintain the stability of the new nation's republican form of government. The lessons from classical history suggested that the health and welfare of republics depended on their ability to maintain virtue and discipline. Because the new republic had no standing army and had rejected the establishment of religion, the family assumed a significant political role. It was the only social unit that could provide both moral training and discipline for the young (Conway, 1978).

At the same time that the family unit was beginning to be seen as having this critical role, the growing and changing market economy led many men to work outside of the home. As a result, a new division of labor between the sexes developed: Men were to have economic (and political) responsibility, and women were to have the primary responsibility for managing the household, educating the young, and serving as teachers and guardians of morals for the young.

The role of guardian of society's moral standards was critically important to the new republic, but it clearly placed women in a position of servitude. This apparently did not trouble the republican males who had espoused that all men were created equal. It also apparently did not cause consternation among the first generation of women educators born in the new republic: Both Emma Willard and Catharine Beecher celebrated the new calling that republican culture had created for the patriotic woman teacher (Conway, 1978). Similarly, numerous articles appearing in such education reform journals as the Common School Journal and the American Journal of Education supported the model of the educated woman based on the importance of her role as wife and mother (Woody, 1929).

The cult of domesticity, as this understanding of the female role has come to be known, became a way of pacifying women with a doctrine of "separate but equal": Women were said to be equally as important as men, but separate and different (Zinn, 1980).

The ideology of the cult of domesticity was reinforced in the 19th century by "scientific" observations of male and female differences, which led to the conclusion that females were both physically and mentally inferior to men. Included among these observations were that women were generally physically smaller than men, women menstruated and therefore were believed physically incapacitated every month, and women had smaller brains than men (scientists measured cranial capacity and brain weight and correlated these with intelligence) ("The Cult of Domesticity and True Womanhood," n.d.).

The more positive side of the cult of domesticity was that it created a need for women, who were to be the early childhood educators and guardians of society's morals, to become more educated. As a result, most schools, especially those in New England, began admitting girls, if only before or after the regular program or during the summer session. As a consequence, from 1780 to 1840 women's literacy doubled. As elementary education became more universal, advocates of women's education directed their efforts to securing equality of educational opportunity for women at the secondary level.

Another positive result of delegating to women the responsibility for educating the young was that it opened wide the door for women to become teachers of the young of both sexes. It also helped make possible the increased representation of female teachers in the winter schools—schools that girls were also attending in increasing numbers (Perlman & Margo, 2001). Now it was argued that women were naturally suited to be teachers and that because the law, medicine, religion, and politics were exclusively (and rightfully) men's professions, teaching was a women's profession.

CHAPTER 4

4.1 Moving Forces Behind the Common School Movement

The spread of the common school movement was made possible by the convergence of a number of demographic, economic, social, and political factors in the first half of the 19th century. Among the most important were the demands of a larger and more urban population as well as the demand for education by those who went in the opposite direction from the urban centers to the frontier, the educational demands of a growing working class, the extension of suffrages to the "common man," and the growing popularity and accessibility of journals and organizations which supported the ideology of the common school. The common school was also supported by those at the opposite end of the social spectrum from the working class who saw the common school as an instrument of social control over the lower class.

Changing Demographics: A Larger, More Diverse, and Urban Population

Between 1830 and 1860, 1,220,178 square miles of territory were added to the United States. During the same period the population exploded from 13 million to 31.5 million (see Figure 4.1). Of these, 4 million were immigrants. Before this time the majority of immigrants had come from Northern Europe and shared much the same language and cultural and religious backgrounds of native-born Americans.

Beginning in the 1830s and 1840s larger numbers came from Ireland, Germany, and Southern Europe; they were often Roman Catholic and sometimes spoke a language other than English. Most settled in the larger cities of the Northeast and Midwest, providing the much-needed labor for the growing industrial complex, but at the same time contributing to the challenges faced by growing urban areas.

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1975). Historical statistics of the United States, colonial times to 1970 (p. 8). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

As the United States grew rapidly in size, it became increasingly urban. The new immigrants tended to settle in the cities, while still more people moved from the farm to the city. Improved methods of agriculture made farming less labor intensive at the same time that the growing numbers of factories created new employment opportunities. In 1820 only 12 cities in the then 23 states had populations of over 10,000; by 1860 the number of cities had increased to 101, and eight had populations of over 100,000 (Binder, 1974).

Urban growth was a result of industrial growth. For example, in 1807 only 15 cotton mills operated in the United States; by 1831 there were 801 mills employing 70,000 workers (Rippa, 1984). Industrial growth was promoted by inventions such as the steam engine, which powered not only industrial equipment but also the boats and railroads that traversed the country, moving people and materials in ever shorter times.

Demands of a Growing Working Class

The increasing urbanization of America resulted in concentrations of children, and a more industrialized economy required a more literate and skilled workforce. Many among the working class, who could not afford to educate their children privately, saw the common schools as avenues for upward social and economic mobility without the taint of pauperism associated with the charity schools.

The newly emerging workingmen's organizations, concerned that the growing industrialization and concentration of wealth would restrict their economic opportunity and social mobility, openly advocated tax-supported common schools (Tyack, 1967). Such schools, they believed, would provide the education necessary to protect against the abuses of the factory system and the tyranny of the upper class.

Echoing the traditional republican position, the workingmen's organizations also argued that common schools were necessary to attain the principles of republican liberty, which were declared in the Declaration of Independence and which could only be sustained by the adoption of a system of public education designed to impart equality as well as mental culture (Tyack, 1967).

According to the workingmen of Pennsylvania's Call for an Equal and Republican System of Mental Instruction, their object was to "secure the benefits of education for those who would otherwise be destitute, and to place them mentally on a level with the most favored in the world's gifts. As poverty is not a crime, neither is wealth a virtue" (Tyack, 1967, p. 145). The demand for increased educational opportunity was thus a major call of the workingmen's political parties throughout the 1830s.

Social Control

In addition to the workingmen, strong support for the common schools also came from the dominant English-speaking, middle- and upper-class Protestants. They viewed the common schools as agents of social control over the lower socioeconomic classes and as the best hope of "Americanizing" the children of the immigrants. The schools, they believed, would socialize the multitudes to conform to the values and beliefs necessary to maintain the existing social order. According to Gutek (1986), social control in this context meant

imposing by institutionalized education the language, beliefs, and values of the dominant group on outsiders, especially on the non-English-speaking immigrants. Common schools were expected to create such conformity in American life by imposing the language and ideological outlook of the dominant group. For example, by using English as the medium of instruction, the common schools were expected to create an English-speaking citizenry; by cultivating a general value orientation based on Protestant Christianity, the schools were expected to create a general American ethic. (pp. 87–88)

Most social groups also saw the common schools as a means of controlling crime and social unrest. Knowledge was seen as the solution to intemperance: "In proportion as we elevate men in the scale of existence . . . so do we reclaim them from all temptation of degrading vice and ruinous crimes" (Simpson, 1831, p. 205).

The Frontier Movement

Interest in education and the establishment of common schools was not limited to the industrialized regions of the East. As the frontier moved steadily westward, the one-room schoolhouse, often the only public building in a community, became the symbol of civilization and the center of efforts to keep literacy, citizenship, and civilization alive in the wilderness (Gutek, 1986).

Contrary to what is often depicted, the frontier did not attract only misfits and the uneducated. Many Harvard and Yale graduates, as well as common school graduates, followed the National Road, Cumberland Trail, Erie Canal, and other paths and waterways to the frontier and brought with them the desire to maintain education. One of the most visible examples was the so-called coonskin library, founded by settlers of Athens County, Ohio, who trapped raccoons and sold the pelts to Boston merchants to buy books ("Ohio Mileposts—Feb. 2, 1804," 2003).

The spirit of the frontier movement itself also contributed to the common school movement. The frontier was peopled by settlers who valued the individual more than social class. Moreover, the frontier was a place where a practical education was more important than the ability to read or write Latin. In effect, the philosophy of the common school was consistent with, and supportive of, the values of the frontier.

Extended Suffrage

On the political front, the age of the common school coincided with the age of the common man. In the early years of the republic, the right to vote in many states was limited to those who owned property. Gradually this began to change, and many states, especially those on the frontier, extended suffrage to all White males. In 1828, after the abolishment of the property requirement, Andrew Jackson became the first person from a non-elite background, or "common man," to be elected president.

The result of the extension of suffrage was not only increased office holding by common men, but also their desire for the education necessary to exercise their political powers wisely. One way the common man exercised his political power was to pressure for direct taxation to support the common schools, which he saw as the vehicle for the upward mobility of his children.

Protestant Religious Accommodation

Religious intolerance had been part of American life since the earliest colonial days. Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, and Anne Hutchinson, one of its earliest residents, were banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because of their disagreement with Puritan practices. Historically, Americans have rejected public support for schools if the result would be support for another's religion. Common school reformers addressed the problem by proposing that the schools practice nondenominational Protestantism.

Thus, as will be discussed later in this chapter, although Catholicism would be excluded, the schools would be Protestant nonsectarian. They would promote republican virtues and Christian morality, but would be free of doctrine and without the interpretation of any particular Protestant denomination (Kaestle, 1983). This accommodation was criticized in those parts of the country where sectarian bias was strong, but support for the common schools could not have been obtained without it.

Two of the most important mechanisms for spreading the ideology of the common school were education periodicals and education organizations. Between 1825 and 1850, more than 60 education journals began publication (Spring, 2011). Among the most important were the Massachusetts Common School Journal and the prestigious American Journal of Education. Although many of these journals did not survive, collectively they served both to popularize education among the general public and to keep teachers informed of educational innovations and ideas from both home and abroad.

Of the education organizations, the most noteworthy was the American Lyceum. The lyceum was a local association for mutual instruction and information in the arts and sciences. The first lyceum in the United States was established in 1826 in Millbury, Massachusetts, by Josiah Holbrook, a Yale-educated Connecticut farmer and traveling lecturer on science and technology. Holbrook borrowed the concept from the mechanics institutes, a form of adult education used first in England to provide training to "mechanics," a term used at the time to include various artisans, tradesmen, and industrial workers.

Holbrook promoted his vision of a national system of lyceums through newspaper advertisements and articles, articles in education journals, and numerous public lectures. From its beginning in Massachusetts, the concept spread throughout the East and Midwest (the then-frontier). The lyceum never really caught on in the South, however, because "southern aristocrats feared that education of poor whites and slaves would damage the economy . . . (and) the South lacked a large middle class, the main patronage of lyceums" (Fithian, 2000, p. 2).

4.2 Leading Proponents of the Common School

As we have seen, changes in American society drove the demand for common schools. But several important figures also emerged as leaders and organizers of those forces for change. Among the most influential were Horace Mann, James G. Carter, Henry Barnard, and Catharine Beecher.

If any one person were to be given the title "father of American education," it would be Horace Mann (1796–1859). Elected to the Massachusetts legislature in 1827, Mann soon became the spokesperson for the common school movement and led a successful campaign to organize the schools in Massachusetts into a state system and to establish a state board of education.

Upon the creation of the Massachusetts state board of education, the first in the nation, in 1837 Mann gave up his political career and a chance at the governorship to become the board's first secretary and the chief state school officer. He served in this position for 12 years and used it as a platform for proclaiming the ideology of the common school movement, as well as other social causes.

In addition to his numerous lectures, writings, and editorship of the Massachusetts Common School Journal, each year Mann wrote a report to the legislature reciting current educational practices and conditions and making recommendations for improvement. These reports were distributed in other states and abroad, and influenced education legislation and practice throughout the country. In his final report, Mann (1848) spelled out his vision of the common school:

It knows no distinction of rich and poor, of bond and free, or between those who, in the imperfect light of this world are seeking through different avenues, to reach the gate of heaven. Without money and without price, it throws open its doors, and spreads the table of its bounty, for all the children of the state. Like the sun, it shines, not only upon the good, but upon the evil, that they may become good, and like the rain, its blessings descend, not only upon the just, but upon the unjust, that the unjust may depart from them and be known no more.

In his own state, Mann campaigned vigorously to increase public support for education and public awareness of the problems it faced, such as dilapidated, unsanitary facilities and substandard materials, as well as the shortcomings of the local school committees. Mann was also critical of the low status of the teaching profession. As a result of his efforts, Massachusetts's appropriations to education were doubled, 50 new secondary schools were built, textbooks and equipment were improved, teachers' salaries were raised more than 50%, and the minimum length of the school year was extended to 6 months.

Mann also fought to improve the professional training of teachers and established three normal schools (teacher training institutions, taken from the French école normale), the first such state-supported schools in America. The first of these normal schools was established in 1839 at Lexington, Massachusetts. At its dedication, Mann (1839) proclaimed that without normal schools, "Free Schools themselves would be shorn of their strength and their healing power and would at length become mere charity schools and thus die out in fact and in form."

Mann was also one of the first to recognize in a concrete fashion the contribution education makes to the economic growth of a nation, as well as to the social and economic advancement of the individual. Although he did not advance his argument as far as the human capital theorists of the next century did, he did argue, in his Fifth Annual Report (1841) in particular, that an educated public would increase economic wealth and that it was therefore in the self-interest of business and industry to support education through taxation. Further arguments in favor of tax support of education because of its benefits to society were presented in the Twelfth Annual Report (1848).

In his Tenth Annual Report (1846), included in the Primary Source Readings for this chapter, Mann asserted that an education was the right of every child and that it was the state's responsibility to ensure that every child was provided one. Although Mann himself promoted regular, rather than compulsory, attendance, this report was instrumental in the adoption by the Massachusetts legislature of the nation's first compulsory attendance law in 1852.

Like several other prominent educators of his time, Mann had visited the Prussian schools and observed the child-centered Pestalozzian methods (derived from the Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, described in Section 4.4), and his Seventh Report (1843) gave a positive assessment of his observations. He also shared Pestalozzi's and Catharine Beecher's belief that women were the better teachers for the common schools.

Mann was a strong humanitarian and when elected to the U.S. Congress in 1848, became one of the most outspoken opponents of slavery. In his very first speech in Congress, Mann charged that "Slavery would abolish education if it should invade a Free State, education would abolish slavery if it could invade a slave State" (Mann, 1848).

Mann's belief that the common school would promote social harmony and ensure that the republic would be guided by an intelligent, moral citizenry was not original or unique; it was an echo of the arguments of Rush and the other republican thinkers. But at a time when the common school movement was spreading across the nation, Mann unquestionably became its chief spokesperson when it came to defining its basic principles and articles of faith (Binder, 1974).

James G. Carter

James G. Carter (1795–1845) began his pioneering work in school reform in Massachusetts after his graduation from Harvard in 1820. Carter experienced life as a teacher in a district school firsthand while working his way through Groton Academy and Harvard College. In a series of newspaper articles beginning in 1821, two of which also appeared as pamphlets in 1824 and 1826, Carter attacked the deplorable conditions of the underfunded schools in the commonwealth.

Through his efforts, the Massachusetts Law of 1827, which required the establishment of tax-supported secondary schools, was passed. He was also instrumental in the 1834 passage of an act that increased public support by establishing a permanent school fund, the interest of which was to go to the maintenance of the common schools. In addition, as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and chairman of its Committee on Education, Carter drafted the legislation that in 1837 created the Massachusetts state board of education. The board, on which Carter served, was given the authority to appoint a secretary who would serve as the chief state school officer. The board immediately chose Horace Mann.

Carter dedicated himself to the improvement of teacher training and is often credited as being the father of the normal school. In a series of essays, which appeared in the Boston Patriot in 1826, Carter made an argument for improved teacher training that still resonates today:

It will do little good for the Legislature of the State to make large appropriations directly for the support of schools, till . . . [we] have skillful teachers at hand. It will do little good to class the children till we have instructors properly prepared to take charge of the classes. It will do absolutely no good to constitute an independent tribunal to decide on the qualifications of teachers, while they have not had the opportunities necessary for coming up the proper standard. And it will do no good to overlook and report upon their success, when we know beforehand that they have not the means of success. It would be beginning wrong, too, to build houses and to tell your young and inexperienced instructors to teach this and that subject, however desirable a knowledge of such subject might be, while it is obvious that they cannot know how, properly, to teach any subject. The science of teaching—for it must be made a science—is first, in the order of nature, to be inculcated.

. . .a distinction (must be made) between the possession of knowledge, and the ability to communicate it to other minds. . . .Though a teacher cannot communicate more knowledge than he possesses, yet he may possess much, and still be able to impart little. (Carter, 1826, pp. 44-45)

When the Massachusetts legislature rejected his plan to establish a state teacher training institution, Carter invested his own funds to establish one in Lancaster. Financial problems and the resistance of local residents who did not see the benefits of such an institution contributed to its short life. Undeterred, Carter was instrumental in founding the American Institute of Instruction, which played a major role in advancing the normal school movement.

Henry Barnard

Another major leader of the common school movement was Henry Barnard (1811–1900). Like Mann, he served in a state (Connecticut) legislature, worked to establish a state board of education, and then became the board's first secretary (1838–1842). He then served in a similar capacity in Rhode Island, as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, and as president of St. John's College in Maryland. In 1871 Barnard became the first U.S. Commissioner of Education.

Like Mann, Barnard saw education as the best means of promoting economic and social progress and good citizenship. Although his successes in Connecticut were more limited than those of Mann in Massachusetts, as secretary of the state board of education in Rhode Island, he was instrumental in establishing a state system of free common schools and in significantly increasing public financial support for them. He also urged better teacher preparation, the establishment of normal schools, and higher salaries for teachers.

Much of Barnard's influence on educational theory and practice came through his numerous lectures and writings, and, more important, through his editorship (1855–1870) of the American Journal of Education, one of the premier educational journals of the time. Barnard is also credited with popularizing the teacher institute movement, holding his first institute in Connecticut in 1839. As discussed later in the chapter, the teacher institute was a meeting lasting from a few days to several weeks, at which teachers gathered to be instructed in new techniques and informed of the most modern material.

Barnard's greatest success lay in his democratic philosophy—"schools good enough for the best and cheap enough for the poorest"—and in his role as a disseminator of information about better schools. He is sometimes called the father of American school administration.

Catharine Beecher

Catharine Beecher (1800–1878), mentioned in the last chapter as the founder of the Hartford Female Seminary and the Western Institute for Women, was a strong supporter of the common schools and saw her task as focusing the attention of the nation on the need for a corps of female teachers to staff them. She was especially active in campaigning for more schools and teachers for the frontier, and in 1852 she founded the American Women's Education Association to recruit and train teachers for western schools.

Beecher published numerous pamphlets and lectured nationwide, promoting not only the common school but also a plan for a nationwide system of teacher training seminaries. Although the plan was not adopted, her efforts on behalf of the common school helped it gain acceptance, and her work on behalf of women pointed to a new American consensus concerning teaching as an appropriate and acceptable female role (Cremin, 1982).

4.3 Growth of State and Local Support and Supervision

The idea of having universal common schools was one thing, but paying for them through direct taxation of the general public was another. With the exception of Connecticut, which had sold all of its land in the Western Reserve territory and used the proceeds to set up a permanent school fund, the interest from which was distributed to localities (Kaestle, 1983), there was little ongoing state aid to education. Local and county property taxes, taxes levied on specific activities (such as liquor licenses or marriage fees), and even lotteries provided partial support for the schools. In some states, school districts were allowed to levy a school tax if the majority of the voters agreed.

However, if tax proceeds and other funding sources were insufficient to support the schools, the remainder of the expenses was charged to the parents in the form of a rate bill. The rate bill was, in effect, a tuition fee based on the number of children attending school or the number of days a child attended. (See the copy of an 1825 rate bill in "From the Archives: New York Rate Bill of 1825.") Even though the fee might be small, poor parents often could not afford it, so their children either did not attend school or took turns attending.

Increased Tax Support

One of the major goals of the common school movement was thus to secure increased state support for the common schools. Beginning in the first quarter of the 19th century, several states began to follow the example of Connecticut and fund schools with the interest on a permanent school fund established with the proceeds of the sale of public lands.

Other states imposed direct taxation for the support of education; in 1825 Illinois became the first state to enact a public school tax. Still other states made appropriations from the general fund to support education. Conditions were usually placed on their receipt; for example, that local support must equal or exceed state support or that the schools must be kept open a minimum number of days per year and provide free heat, books, and supplies.

By 1865 systems of common schools had been established throughout the northern, Midwestern, and western states, and more than 50% of the nation's children attended public schools. As enrollment in the common schools grew, the pressure to make them completely tax supported increased. As previously noted, labor groups in particular pressed for the schools to be free.

In 1827 Massachusetts was the first state to eliminate the rate bill. In 1834 Pennsylvania's Free School Act became a model for eliminating the charity, or pauper, schools. Although other states soon followed these examples, and by constitutional or legislative enactment adopted the concept of public support for public schools open to all children, it was not until 1871 that the last state (New Jersey) abolished the rate bill, making all American public schools truly free.

Creation of State Boards and State Superintendents of Education

As is usually the case, increased state support was accompanied by increased efforts by states to control. The efforts to establish some control or supervision of the common schools was usually marked by the creation of an office of state superintendent or commissioner of education and a state board of education. In 1812 New York became the first state to appoint a state superintendent, Gideon Hawley. His tenure in office was filled with so much controversy that in 1821 he was removed from office, and the position was abolished and not recreated until 1854.

Nonetheless, by the outbreak of the Civil War, 28 of the 34 states had established state boards of education and chief state school officers. By and large these officers and boards were vested with more supervisory power than real control. Initially their major responsibilities involved the distribution of the permanent school funds and the organization of a state system of common schools.

Development of Local School Districts and Superintendents

The creation of a state system of common schools paralleled the development of local school districts and the establishment of local and county superintendents. As noted in Chapter 2, the New England states instituted the district system in the late 18th century, and it spread westward during the first quarter of the next century. Initially the districts were administered by a school committee that was responsible for the selection and certification of teachers, the selection of textbooks, the maintenance and repair of school buildings, and school visitations.

Such visitations, conducted primarily for the purpose of examining students, were an important supervisory task in the colonies and early republic. In the beginning, the visits were conducted by ministers or interested selectmen. Once the school committee was established and assumed this duty, it was natural that one member of the committee might have more interest or ability to visit the schools than others. If no member could or would perform visits, the committee would appoint a minister or some other layman to perform this duty (National Education Association, 1933a). From this practice emerged the position of the "school visitor" or "school inspector."

In states in which the county was the unit for operation of schools, primarily the southeastern states, a person already holding public office, such as the county clerk, the county judge, a justice of the peace, or a land commissioner, was often given the task. In 1829 Delaware became the first state to appoint a county official whose only responsibilities were to supervise the schools and conduct school visitations. This was the beginning of the office of the county superintendent (National Education Association, 1933a).

The evolution of the office of city school superintendent was somewhat different. As cities grew in size and school enrollments increased, the number of schools to be visited and the complexity of the school systems grew accordingly. To handle their increased responsibilities, the school committees, or what now may be referred to as school boards, increased their size and divided themselves into subcommittees responsible for particular aspects of school operations.

This system worked well in the towns and smaller cities in which the board and number of subcommittees were small. In the larger cities, however, the large number of subcommittees (at one time Chicago reportedly had 79 and Cincinnati had 74) often thwarted the completion of even the most basic tasks (Gilland, 1935). Moreover, the magnitude of the tasks made it difficult to find competent people willing to devote the time necessary to accomplish them. For example, in 1847 the Boston school committee reported that there was no one:

Whose duty it is to find the best and most economical plans for schoolhouses, their ventilation and warming, and their apparatus, seats, desks, and other furniture.

To look out for the best teachers, when a vacancy occurs, or in preparation for a vacancy.

To find out what is the most successful teaching in all the schools, and to point it out for the benefit of all. . . .

Whose special duty it is to see whether the best course of studies is pursued, or to suggest improvement from the experience of the best schools elsewhere.

To see whether the schools are adopted to the population, and all classes of children brought into them. . . .

To supervise the transfer of children from school to school, and from one set of schools to another.

Situations such as this led school committees to recognize the need for an executive officer to perform or oversee the performance of the functions it could not. This executive officer in time became recognized as the superintendent of schools.

Buffalo, New York, is credited with having appointed the first superintendent of schools in 1837. In fact, this was a layperson who served for no salary and functioned primarily as the school inspector. He resigned after only a few months and was replaced by a man who received a salary of $75 per year.

The next year Louisville and several other Kentucky cities appointed "agents of public schools" who were paid only modest salaries. In 1840 St. Louis named a school superintendent with no salary. However, that same year Providence, Rhode Island, named Nathan Bishop as superintendent with an annual salary of $1,250, a sizable sum at the time (National Education Association, 1933a).

Following these initial appointments, the number of superintendents grew slowly. Thirty years after the appointment of the first superintendent, only 30 cities had appointed one. A major obstacle was the dependence of the school board on the city council, which often refused the school board's request to appoint a superintendent or simply failed to act on the request (American Association of School Administrators [AASA], 1952).

Also working against the appointment of superintendents was (a) fear by the school board, principals, and teachers that they would lose control; (b) the public's fear of "one man control"; (c) a lack of qualified men for the position; (d) concern over the legality of establishing such a position; (e) concern about the cost of the position; (f) satisfaction with current conditions; and (g) a general resistance to change (Young, 1976).

The early superintendents functioned mostly as assistants or representatives of the school board. Most boards continued to operate as both executive and legislative bodies and were reluctant to delegate any of their executive functions. The subcommittee arrangement continued, and the superintendent was expected only to supplement, not replace, them. Gilland's (1935) analysis of the duties and responsibilities of the first superintendents found that most of their responsibilities were related to instruction, particularly supervision and visitation of schools, and few were related to finance.

Because many school board members were businessmen, they considered themselves more competent to conduct the financial affairs of the district than the superintendent (AASA, 1952). It was not until the second half of the 19th century that superintendent and school board relationships began to change and the superintendent began to assume the powers and duties associated with a chief executive officer.

Opposition to the Common School Movement

Despite the well-reasoned arguments given in support of the common school movement (see, for example, Thaddeus Stevens' speech before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives that serves as a Primary Source Reading for this chapter), it did not proceed without opposition. Like today, many people opposed increased taxation for whatever purpose. Others, especially those with a sectarian or ethnic bias, opposed the idea of paying taxes to educate other people's children. Catholics, in particular, objected to paying taxes to support schools that openly taught Protestantism. Opposition also came from schools that served each of these groups, as well as from owners of private schools.

Other skeptics of the common schools were concerned about the loss of local control or suspicious of state control. They argued, as many continue to do today, that decisions about education should remain in the hands of those who are closest to the child and who are paying the most for the support of the schools.

The common school debate lasted for a number of years and was waged in state after state. Indeed, the full ideal of the common school reformers was not realized until well into the 20th century.

4.4 Common School Practices and Curricula

Common schools varied by region and community. As the movement gathered steam, however, textbooks and pedagogical ideas contributed to some broad trends in teaching.

Regional Variations

The growth of the common school was not uniform across all regions and groups. Enrollment and attendance rates were lowest in rural areas and among minorities. In the predominantly rural South, with the highest concentration of African Americans, the common school movement was much less successful, as "localism, a laissez-faire tradition about education, and a strong belief in a hierarchical society based on slave labor, combined to thwart the more democratic and middle-class values of the region's school reformers" (Kaestle, 2008, p. 3).

In the one-room rural schools, progress was marked not by moving from one grade to another, but by completing one text and beginning another. "Rural schools operated on a calendar that reflected the rhythms and labor needs of farm life and consequently enrolled higher percentages of children than the city schools, although for much shorter school terms" (Angus & Mirel, 2000, p. 6).

A different pattern emerged in urban areas, where instruction was offered in large schools organized by grades and controlled by elected or appointed boards of education (Angus & Mirel, 2000). Regional differences also were evident in how teachers were trained (rural teachers largely at teacher institutes rather than normal schools) and how much teachers were paid (rural teachers received lower salaries).

Teaching and Textbooks in the Common Schools

Rote memorization and recitation was the most common form of teaching in the common schools. The textbook dictated the curriculum: Students studied books, not subjects (Tyack, 1967). Consistent with the prevailing republican philosophy, textbooks were intended to teach morality and religious principles and to celebrate the American culture and democratic form of government. Their goal was to promote patriotism and to shape a uniform national character. The virtues of obedience, honesty, industriousness, courage, sobriety, and charity were taught by positive and negative example. Disobedient or sinful children were often depicted as ending up in pitiful situations or, worse, dead. These goals meant that

Page from McGuffey's First Reader that has an image at the top of the page followed by Lesson 1 which has a list of 24 words followed by seven lines of text that use those 24 listed words.

the textbooks so selected their themes as to disguise the real world, not to reveal it; to repress anxieties, not to confront them; to foster complacency among established groups rather than to include the disposed. In an urban and industrial society, whose agriculture was fast becoming mechanized and aimed at a world market, the schoolbooks painted a sentimental picture of rural bliss. In a period of great stress on the family, they drew a cloying picture of home sweet home. In times of industrial violence they ignored the condition of labor and described unions as the evil plan of foreigners, anarchists, and Communists. In the midst of unparalleled political corruption they portrayed statesmen of stainless steel. The Negro appeared infrequently in the texts, and then usually in the guise of Sambo. People of other nations often appeared as foils to illustrate the superior virtue of Americans. A pervasive Protestantism colored the readers and downgraded other religions either openly or by implication. A pluralistic, expansive society undergoing great intellectual, social, economic, and political change was reduced in the textbooks, as Ruth Elson has observed, to a "fantasy made up by adults as a guide for their children, but inhabited by no one outside the pages of schoolbooks." (Tyack, 1967, p. 184)

The most widely used textbooks in the common schools were the Eclectic series of readers prepared by the Reverend William Holmes McGuffey. Made up of six readers in all, the first appeared in 1836. They had a very moralizing tone, though not as rigid as that of The New England Primer. They did, however, project a social doctrine that reinforced the existing social and economic order, including slavery and the subservient role of women. Although they contained excellent literature, they were often criticized for being overly literary and formal: For example, the fifth reader contained poetry and prose "designed for elocutionary exercises to increase articulation, inflection, pitch, accent, rate, emphasis and gesture" (Payne, 2003).

Over 100 million copies of the readers were sold. McGuffey's original agreement with the publisher stipulated that he would receive 10% of the royalties until this reached $1,000. Then the books became the property of the publisher. In later years the publisher voluntarily paid McGuffey an annuity to use his name (Cubberley, 1934). Some believe that the readers have had a greater influence on literary tastes in the United States than any other book except the Bible (Payne, 2003).

By the second quarter of the 19th century, a greater variety of textbooks were being published for use in the common schools, and their authors began to promote more modern themes. For example, whereas the McGuffey readers continued to teach morality and patriotism, the stern preachings of earlier schoolbooks were replaced or complemented with selections designed to appeal to youthful interest (Cremin, 1982).

Instructional methods also changed. Although rote learning and drill and practice did not disappear from the classroom, a more progressive approach that reflected the teachings of Pestalozzi made some inroads. As noted, eminent common school reformers like Horace Mann and Henry Barnard admired the Pestalozzian methods and reported on them in the leading education journals.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) was a Swiss educator whose philosophy of education incorporated the child-centered, sensory experience principles of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Like the French theorist, he believed in the natural goodness of human nature and saw individual differences in "readiness" to learn. Perhaps more than Rousseau, Pestalozzi recognized the importance of human emotions in the learning process. He believed in the importance of giving the child feelings of self-respect and emotional security and in treating the child with love. In fact, it can be said that the ideal of love governs Pestalozzi's philosophy of education.

Pestalozzi believed that instruction must begin with the concrete and proceed to the abstract. Material should be presented slowly, in developmental order, from simple to complex. He advanced the concept of the object lesson, which involved tailoring the lesson to the stages of child development and centered on handling, counting, and naming concrete materials (that is, objects) within the child's natural environment. For example, "in an arithmetic lesson dealing with the number 'three,' the child should handle three objects, then progress from sight and touch to abstract concepts of number and the idea contained in the word 'three'" (Gillett, 1966, p. 218). Using the object lesson, discussion and oral presentation replaced rote learning.

Pestalozzi established a school in Verdun, Switzerland, to put his ideas into practice. A number of branch schools were opened, including one for girls. Pestalozzi had a profound impact on education throughout much of the Western world. Educators came from all over, including the United States, to observe and study his methods. Horace Mann and Henry Barnard came under his influence. Edward A. Sheldon, superintendent of schools in Oswego, New York, established a normal school in 1861 that followed Pestalozzi's methods. The almost 1,400 graduates of the Oswego Normal School then carried the object teaching methodology to classrooms and normal schools all over the country.

The result was classrooms that placed a greater emphasis on developmental learning and the individuality of the child. The From the Archives feature box shows an example of a typical object lesson on plants prepared by Sheldon.

4.5 The Failure of the Common Schools: The Schooling of Catholics

Beginning in the 1830s, the first substantial influx of Roman Catholic immigrants, primarily from Ireland, came to the United States. In cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the Irish formed a visible community with their own taverns, clubs, and newspapers (Binder, 1974). Because of their willingness to work for lower wages, they sometimes displaced native workers, who saw them as an economic threat. As their numbers grew, so did the prejudice against them. Newspapers described them as "a mongrel mass of ignorance" (Carnes, 1995). They were regularly discriminated against in housing and employment and given the most menial and demeaning jobs.

Others saw a far greater danger than economic competition. Although 2 centuries had passed since the religious persecutions of the Reformation, many Protestants still distrusted all things and people "Popish." Matters were not helped when, in 1829, Bishop John England of Baltimore assembled the first Provincial Council of Catholicity, which encouraged Catholics to resist the singing of sectarian hymns and the reading of the Protestant Bible in the common schools and to build separate schools for their own children.

From the Catholic perspective, the common schools posed a threat to their religious values. Dominated by Protestants, the schools included Protestant hymns and prayers and the reading of the Protestant Bible (the King James Version), as well as texts and other materials with an openly anti-Catholic bias, as a regular part of instruction.

The animosity between Catholics and Protestants in New York City came to a head in 1840 when Governor William H. Steward, concerned that the vast majority of New York City's Catholic children were not attending the city's schools because of the anti-Catholic atmosphere, proposed to the legislature that Catholic schools be included as part of state school system and be provided state support. The proposal was welcomed by the Catholic community but was opposed by the Protestants, particularly the Public School Society, a Protestant philanthropic society chartered to provide elementary education for poor children. The Society received the majority of the state school funds allocated to New York City and protested the use of public funds to support Catholic schools.

The Catholic community, encouraged by Steward's proposal, petitioned the New York City Common Council for a share of the common school fund. They cited the anti-Catholic sentiments that had forced them to establish their own schools, despite the fact that they were paying taxes to support the common schools. Recognizing the potential legal issues involved in using public funds to support the exercise of religion, the petitioners said they were willing to postpone religious instruction until after the school day.

The Protestants responded that if the Catholics were willing to postpone religious instruction until after the school day, they should be willing to do the same after spending the day in the common school (Spring, 2011). Under pressure from the Protestant churches and the Public School Society, the Council rejected the petition.

The Catholics then carried their petition to state lawmakers. Bombarded from both sides, the legislature passed a law that forbade the use of public funds in schools that taught any religious doctrine, including that of the Public School Society. The result was that, although the Catholics did not receive access to state support, by law, if not by practice, sectarian influences were excluded from the school. However, feelings continued to run high. In 1842 a riot between Catholics and Protestants broke out in New York City that involved an attack on the bishop's home.

The next year the Philadelphia school board granted Bishop Francis Patrick Kendrick's request that Catholic children attending the common schools be permitted to read the Douay (Catholic) Bible instead of the King James Version. Protestant newspapers and "nativist" groups expressed outrage. Anti-Catholic feelings escalated, culminating in a riot in 1844 that killed 50 and left two churches, a female seminary, and 50 Irish homes destroyed.

Conflict between Protestants and Catholics occurred in several other locations as well, as Catholics continued to protest the heavily sectarian practices in the common schools and school boards continued to reject their requests for reform or excusal from participation in Protestant religious practices. In fact, in Donahoe v. Richards (1854) the Supreme Court of Maine said that a school board could expel from school students who refused to read the Protestant Bible. In the end, many Catholics felt they had no choice but to establish their own schools.

4.6 Education of Teachers

Most histories of education identify the Colombian School at Concord, Vermont, established by the Reverend Samuel Hall in 1823, as the first formal teacher training institution. Hall had gone to Concord as a supply (temporary) pastor in 1822, and he observed the poor condition of the schools there. He came to believe that better-trained teachers were central to school improvement. When he accepted the permanent pastorate in 1823, he did so with the provision tablehat he be allowed to open a school to train teachers. Beginning in an unused part of a store, but soon moving to a new brick building constructed by the town, the school was incorporated as the Concord Academy and received a share of the county school fund (Marr, 1959).

At the Concord school, Hall offered a review of the subjects taught in the common school, plus advanced mathematics, chemistry, natural and moral philosophy, logic, astronomy, and "the art of teaching." Students also had the opportunity to observe and practice teaching during the winter term in the surrounding schools (Lemlech & Marks, 1976). In 1829 Hall published the first professional textbook on teacher education in the English language, Lectures on Schoolkeeping. (A chapter outline of the work is presented in the From the Archives feature box.) The next year he left Concord to head the teacher training seminary that was to open at Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts. After his departure the Concord Academy ceased to operate as a teacher training institution.

Although most historians consider the Concord Academy to be the first normal school, others argue that the first such institution was actually the previously mentioned Troy Female Seminary opened by Emma Willard in 1821. The primary (but not the only) purpose of the seminary was to train female teachers in both academic subject areas and pedagogy. Willard bestowed on each graduate a signed certificate confirming her qualifications to teach.

In fact, long before the first state-supported normal schools were opened, the Troy Seminary, as well as a number of other academies, prepared males and females for the teaching profession. Recognizing the need for trained teachers, and being unable to gain legislative support for state-sponsored normal schools, many of the common school advocates encouraged the academies to train teachers. In New York in 1823, the legislature, unwilling to create normal schools, authorized the distribution of state aid to private academies to ensure a supply of qualified teachers for the common schools. Similar action was taken in Wisconsin.

In some academies teacher training was the primary course of study. Others offered teacher education, as Barnard had encouraged them to do, by offering classes in the winter and spring for females, who taught summer terms in the schools, and again in the summer for males, who taught in the winter when the older boys were in attendance (Marr, 1959).

The total number of teachers trained in the academies is not known, but an examination of the records of individual schools suggests that the numbers were significant. Between 1838 and 1850, 82% of the graduates of Mount Holyoke taught school for at least 5 years (Horowitz, 1984). The academies were especially important in preparing teachers for the newly opened West. Table 4.1 provides as list of students and their occupations as it was listed in the catalog of the Ipswich Female Seminary.

Establishment of Normal Schools

The normal school was the single greatest force in increasing the professional training of teachers. As we have seen, Horace Mann, James Carter, Henry Barnard, Catharine Beecher, and others who had worked for the establishment of common schools also recognized that their success depended on the preparation of a sufficient quantity of adequately trained teachers. This could best be accomplished, they believed, by the establishment of institutions for the specific training of teachers—that is, normal schools.

As noted previously, Massachusetts established the first state-supported normal schools. The growing enrollments in the common schools led other states to follow suit. In 1844 the New York State Normal School at Albany opened under the direction of David P. Page. His book, Theory and Practice of Teaching or the Motives and Methods of Good School Keeping, published in 1847, became the standard text in teacher education.

The normal schools were generally coeducational, although the majority of students were women. Mann, Beecher, and other common school reformers believed that women made better teachers than men at the elementary level, but they were also practical and recognized that women were less expensive to hire. This is borne out by the data on teacher salaries presented in Table 4.2.

Admission to the normal school typically required only an elementary education. Instruction was free to residents of the state, but often a tuition equal to that of an academy was charged to out-of-state residents. The course of study lasted 1 or 2 years and included a review of material to be taught in the common school, instruction in methods of teaching, "mental philosophy" (that is, educational psychology), and classroom management. Overriding the curriculum was a concern for the development of moral character.

A prominent feature of these normal schools was the model school, the forerunner of the laboratory school, where students could practice teaching. If a model school was not present, students were often provided the opportunity to practice teaching in a neighboring school.

To meet the ever-increasing demand for teachers in urban areas, a number of larger cities operated normal schools while also including a "normal department" in some high schools. These city normal schools typically had higher entrance requirements than did the state or private schools (generally the completion of 2 or 3 years of high school) and also provided the opportunity for much more observation and practice experience. In most instances they were authorized to issue teaching certificates (Angus & Mirel, 2000).

By 1865 over 50 normal schools were in operation, and by 1900 almost 350 normal schools operated in all 45 states. Most, but not all, normal school students intended to be teachers. Others took advantage of the low cost and convenience afforded by the normal school to obtain a higher education. As discussed in Chapter 5 in the beginning of the 20th century, normal schools expanded and strengthened their curricula and transitioned into state teachers' colleges.

Teacher Institutes

Despite the spread of normal schools, as late as 1900 the majority of teachers had not attended one. Even into the 20th century, the most important institution in the training of teachers, especially rural teachers, was the teacher institute. Horace Mann had established the first teacher institute in 1838, and Henry Barnard further popularized them. Building on the foundation of the teachers' lyceums, the teacher institute elevated teachers' professional development and did so without some of the earlier format's gendered and racial restrictions (for example, female teachers were not allowed to speak at mixed-gendered lyceums) (Spearman, 2009).

A common practice of school districts was to hire individuals with no formal teacher training with the condition that they attend a teacher institute. The typical institute met once or twice a year for a period of several days to 4 weeks, usually in the summer months. They were most often organized and conducted by the county superintendent of schools. Some were offered in connection with normal schools or other institutions of higher education. Others appear to have been initiated by a lyceum. The American Sunday School Union also held teacher institutes for its teachers.

The curriculum of the teacher institutes

consisted of reviews of the basic subjects offered in the country schools, a few opportunities to be tutored in more advanced subjects, a few lectures on principles and methods of good teaching given by successful teachers chosen by the county superintendent, and the opportunity to prepare for the county teachers examination that was often given as the concluding event of the institute. (Angus & Mirel, 2000, p. 9)

The institutes also gave great emphasis to elevating the moral character of the teacher (Spring, 2011). In rural areas, young people who did not intend to be teachers attended the institutes because they were their only opportunity for an education beyond the county school; the institutes were, in effect, "the rural young people's colleges" (Fuller, cited in Angus & Mirel, 2000, p. 9).