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CHAPTER IV

RISE OF THE COMMON SCHOOL IN AMERICA

Universal

education under publiccontrol and sup port, which

grew out of

education,

Gradual Development of Public Education in the United States.-Philanthropy in education and the institution of charity schools constituted only a half-way house in the progress of modern educational organization. As a reform of the moral, religious, and economic conditions of the masses in the eighteenth century, philanthropic training served a great purpose, but its real mission would now seem to have been to pave the way to the common schools. Through the charity schools the conception of the importance and value of education to society was greatly enlarged, and the need of a generous financial support was gradually recognized. These institutions were a makeshift to relieve the burdens of the poor and were ofttimes sectarian and narrow in their attitude, but they became the foundation for a completely nonsectarian and universal training for citizenship at public expense. Out of them were largely evolved the conception of a state or national system of education for all and the idea of the common school.

Such a development of universal education under philanthropic state control and support has reached its most consistent has naturally form in the United States. And this is not surprising. America has long stood, in theory at least, for equality sistent form of opportunity, and this conception of society is apparent in its views of education. The distinguishing character

reached its

most con

in the United States.

istic of the American schools has throughout been the attempt of a free people to educate themselves, and, through their elected representatives, the people of the various states have now come, in harmony with the genius of American civilization, to initiate, regulate, and control their own systems of education. The universal, free, and secular schools of the United States are a natural accompaniment of its republican form of government. But, like the new democracy itself, this development of popular education was not reached at a bound. The American schools are the offspring of European institutions, and have their roots deep in the social soil of the lands from which the colonists came to America. At first they resembled the schools of the mother countries as closely as the frontier life in the new world would permit. In American education the seventeenth century was distinctly a period of transplantation of schools, with little or no conscious change, and it is only toward the middle of the next century, as new social and political conditions were evolving and the days of the Revolution were approaching, that there are evident a gradual modification of European ideals and the differentiation of American schools toward a type of their own. This period of transition from inherited ideals is not marked off until the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, and the purely American conception of education cannot be fully discerned before the middle of the latter century.

Conditions in Europe from Which American Education Developed. We have hitherto had little occasion to speak of American education, except by way of anticipating certain great waves of influence and important

the American

colored by

the religious interests of the Reformation period, during which

the colonists

left the old

world.

institutions that have come into America from Europe. But in the rest of our study of educational history the practices of education in the new world will become increasingly distinctive and influential, and, to get at their origins, we must now turn back in our narrative to the early part of the seventeenth century and briefly consider the social and educational situation in Europe, especially England and Holland. This may seem like a serious breach both in logic and chronology, but only in the light of the conditions out of which they sprang can the developed ideals and practices of universal public education in the United States be really understood.

Education in The thirteen American colonies were started while the colonies was fierce agitations of the Reformation period were still at their height. The settlers, for the most part, were Protestants, and many of them had emigrated in order to establish institutions-political, ecclesiastical, educational-that would conform to their own ideals, and in all cases education in the new world was given a peculiar importance by the dominant religious interests and conflicts of the old. At this time in practically all the states of Europe, educational institutions were controlled and supported by the church and religious orders, with the assistance of private benevolence; but a few schools everywhere, and especially in Teutonic countries, were maintained by pre-Reformation craft gilds, and so had a close connection with municipalities. Thus the American schools at first naturally adopted the religious conception of education and ecclesiastical domination, but had some acquaintance with free schools and municipal management. In addition to these characteristics, the religious

influence of

Lutheranism

a

tendency to

but where the

reformers, like Luther and Calvin, generally held to the idea that a system of schools should be supported, or at least established, by the state, and that all children should have an opportunity to secure an education sufficient to make them familiar with the Scriptures. If people were to be guided by the word of God, they must all be able to read it. But this view of education was not held by those for whom, as in the English Church, the Reformation was not primarily a religious and theological, but rather an ecclesiastical and political Wherever the revolt. In Holland and Scotland, for example, where Calvinism or Calvinism prevailed, universal education was upheld by appeared, the mass of the people, but in France and England only there was a small minority, the Huguenots and Puritans respec- ward univertively, adopted this attitude. Hence it happens that, sal education, wherever in America the influence of Puritanism, the Anglican Dutch Reformed religion, Scotch Presbyterianism, or other forms of Calvinism was felt, the nucleus of public the aristocrateducation appeared, while in the colonies where the ucation Anglican communion was dominant, the aristocratic vailed. idea of education prevailed and training of the masses was neglected. However, even among the Calvinists, But even who held that elementary education should be universal, Calvinistic and that the state as well as the church should hold colonists the logical soluitself responsible for its being furnished, the logical tion of public solution of the problem was not perceived for scores of years. In the Calvinistic colonies it was not at first first. believed that education should be the same in character for all or that the state should bear the expense through taxation. This distinctively American interpretation of public education did develop later, but in the beginning even the most advanced colonies to some extent

communion was dominant,

ic idea of ed

pre

among the

education did not appear at

There were three chief types of

zation in the

colonies:

the South;

chial, in New Netherlands

and Pennsyl

vania; and

placed the financial responsibility upon the parent or guardian.

Early Education in the South. With these general traditions and characteristics in mind, it may be of school organi- interest to trace the development of educational facilities, especially of the common schools, in America during the (1) the laissez faire, in colonial period and the first half century of statehood. Virginia and In this way it may be possible to understand the various (2) the paro- obstacles that universal education had to meet, and its very gradual success in overcoming them. Briefly, it may be stated that there are three chief types of school organization in the colonies to be discussed. These are (1) the laissez faire method, current in Virginia and the South, (2) the parochial organization of New Netherlands and Pennsylvania, and (3) the governmental activity in Massachusetts and Connecticut. There are also various modifications, but attention will be mainly confined to these typical organizations. As each colonial type is discussed, an account will be given of its further development up to the educational awakening in the first half of the nineteenth century.

(3) the gov

ernmental activity, in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

In Virginia we find the

'selective' education, inherited

from England.

Virginia as the Type of Aristocratic Education.We may then turn first to the aristocratic colonies and states of the South. Here the prevailing ideals were inherited directly from England and education became 'selective' in character. These English colonists brought with them the idea of a classical higher and secondary training for the upper classes in the semi-monastic type of university and the Latin grammar school, and but little in the way of elementary education, except the private 'dame' schools and the catechetical training by the clergy. There was, in addition, the family 'tutorial'

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