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sachusetts (Andover) and one in New Hampshire (Exeter) gave fresh impetus to the movement of protest. The academy met with popular favor, and after the Revolution ended and the country became quiet, schools of this kind multiplied with great rapidity until the middle of the century, when their influence began to wane. Eventually they, in turn, were forced to give way to another type, which was better fitted to the changed needs of a rapidly expanding people.

For the American people the first half of the nineteenth century, the period of the ascendancy of the academy, was a period of intense internal expansion. The population of the country at the beginning of the century was confined to the narrow strip lying between the Appalachians and the Atlantic seaboard, while the territory stretching away to the west was left to the Indians. Fifty years later the frontier had been pushed to the Mississippi; the intervening territory had been dotted with settlements; many people had gone still farther westward, spreading out over the plains facing the Rocky Mountains; and a sufficient population had settled on the Pacific coast to entitle that district to two States. Within a single half century the center of population shifted from a point near Washington, D. C., to one near the middle of Ohio.

This enormous movement of population, with all that such a movement in a virgin country means-the clearing of forests; the building of homes and villages; the construction of turnpikes, canals, and railroads; the development of factories; the creation of banks and courts and schools-was a prodigious change to be made within the space of one generation. The War of 1812 marked the beginning of this period of industrial reorganization. With the coming of the final struggle with the mother country there came the realization that the weak American Nation must shift for itself among the nations of the world, and along with the recognition of utter isolation came the determination that the needs of the people should be met through the development of the resources of their own country. For the first time since the founding of the Colonies the people of the United States turned their faces away from Europe-which they had looked upon as the source of their civilization and their institutions, as well as a market place where they could exchange their raw stuffs for manufactured articles-to their own country and its possibilities.3 The period of 50 years thereafter, terminating with the Civil War, was a time, therefore, when new occupations were opening for the young man on every hand; when new demands were being made on his intelligence and his resource; when new problems in law, in

1 Brown, The Making of Our Middle Schools, ch. 9.

2 Day, A History of Commerce, ch. 48.

3 Webster, General History of Commerce, pp. 355-387.

statesmanship, in business, in the professions, were rapidly rising; when everything was in flux and little had taken permanent shape. It was during this period of industrial reorganization and economic change that the academy flourished. It was founded as a protest against the narrow, pedantic training of the Latin grammar school. It was seized upon by the American people in the hope that it would provide a way for securing that kind of training which the problems of the New World demanded. So rapidly did these schools grow that by 1850 there were more than 6,000 such institutions in the United States, with an enrollment of 263,000 pupils and comprising a teaching force of more than 12,000.1

Though the academy was founded partly in protest against the narrow, classical training of the early schools, and, though it was looked upon originally as a "finishing" school with the twofold object of providing a general culture and a preparation for life, yet, because it was a private institution under private control, and because it relied, in part, on tuition fees for its support, attendance was restricted to the children of those parents who were fairly prosperous.2 This tendency toward exclusiveness was not in accord with the growing spirit of democracy, as evidenced by the fact that very early in the period of the academy there can be detected a demand, which became increasingly insistent, that the opportunity for an education beyond that afforded by the elementary school should be denied no one because of poverty. In consequence, even in the first days of the academy, not infrequently some financial assistance was rendered by city and State. Still later, in response to this demand, in not a few cases, the academy was taken over by the city or town and maintained by taxation. But, in general, the problem of carrying at public expense a pupil who did not wish a college course beyond the elementary school was solved by the creation of a distinctively American institution-the free public high school.

The first of these schools was founded at Boston in 1821, but up to the middle of the century their growth was very slow, due largely to the fact that the theory that the State is responsible for supplying at public expense an education for all had been generally accepted for elementary education alone. By 1850, however, the demand for schools which were higher in grade than the elementary schools, and which should be accessible to the poor as well as to the rich, had grown into an irresistible movement. In consequence of this demand there is now scarcely a town in the United States of any considerable size in which a public high school, comprising a three or four years'

1 Table showing status of the academy of 1859, in Dexter, A Hist. of Ed. in U. S., p. 96. 2 See Brown, The American High School, p. 21.

course, is not to be found, and, indeed, many rural communities are quite as fortunate.

As originally planned, the high school sought to serve only those who did not want to go to college, but it was not long before these schools introduced a college preparatory course. Thus, by a process of natural development, the high school took over the functions. originally performed by both the Latin grammar school and the academy—that is, preparation for college and preparation for life. With the advent of the State university and the conception of a complete State-supported, State-controlled educational system, and with the rapidly growing demand of recent years for higher education, this work of preparation for college has become one of far-reaching importance. In thus adding to its original function of a "finishing" school that of fitting for college, the high school has become, by process of growth, the connecting link between the elementary school and the college. The free public high school alone could serve the rich and the poor, those who prepared for college as well as those who did not, and, in so doing, it stands as one of the few distinctly American products.

As originally established, the high school sought only to extend the education given in the district school. The popular conception of the function of the high school held during the first half century of its growth is expressed by Henry Barnard in his fourth annual report to the Connecticut Legislature (1842). After describing the low state of education in Connecticut he offers numerous remedies, among them being the establishment of primary, intermediate, and high schools. In discussing the latter, he says:

This school should receive such pupils as are found qualified in the studies of the secondary (intermediate) schools, on due examination, and conduct them forward in algebra, geometry, surveying, natural, moral, and mental philosophy, political economy, the history and Constitution of Connecticut and the United States, bookkeeping, composition, and drawing with reference to its use in various kinds of business. Whatever may be the particular studies, this school should afford a higher elementary education than is now given in the district school, and, at the same time, furnish an education preparatory to the pursuits of commerce, trade, manufactures, and the mechanical arts. All that is now done in this way for the children of the rich and educated should be done for the whole community, so that the poorest parent who has worthy and talented children may see the way open for them to a thorough and practical education."

1 See Brown, The Making of Our Middle Schools, p. 295.

2 See detailed review of Henry Barnard's Fourth Annual Report (1842), in Am. Jour. Ed. (1856), Vol. I, p. 703.

Chapter II.

THE RISE OF THE GRADED SCHOOL.

CONTENTS.-The beginning-German influence on foreign systems-German influence on American systems-Adams's letters on German schools-Action of the Free School Society of New York-Charles Brooks and the Prussian system-John D. Pierce and the report of Cousin-A. D. Bache's report-Calvin Stowe's report-Henry Barnard's influence-Dr. Stephen Olin's journals-Horace Mann's visit to Germany-John D. Philbrick-Joseph Kay's publication-Graduate students in Germany-Debt of American educational pioneers to Germany; compulsory school attendance; training teachers; system of supervision; reasonable salaries; personnel of school committee The grading of schools; early steps; Quincy School (Boston); in primary schools; variation in divisions; struggle to secure; union schools; progress by 1870; length of periods; grouping taken from Prussia; duration of elementary period traced to early church practices; Hall's view of significance of church rites; fourteen attractive, as being twice the sacred number seven.

The practice of segregating children of the same age and of the same attainments into "grades" or "years" and grouping together the first eight to form the elementary division had its beginning with us in the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century. In its essential features the plan was borrowed from Germany, where, at the time of its introduction into America, it was rapidly becoming the universal plan of school organization, and where it had been evolved during three centuries of educational discussion and practice. So well organized had the school system of Germany become that in every civilized country educators who were seeking light were turning with critical interest to an examination of its details. France sent (1831) M. Victor Cousin, one of the most profound and gifted writers of the time, to make a study of the German system. He pronounced the school law of Prussia "the most comprehensive and perfect legislative measure regarding primary instruction" with which he was acquainted.1 In 1850 Italy sent a commission to study the schools of the principal States of Europe, which prepared a voluminous report on the state of public instruction in Germany, with particular reference to the improvement of the public schools

1 For copious extracts from Cousin, Report on the Condition of Public Instruction in Germany, Particularly in Prussia, see Am. Jour. Ed. (1870), vol. 20, pp. 231-236; 237-244. Footnote, Cochrane's Foreign Quarterly, Vol. I, No. 2, p. 269, says the English translation of the above was republished in New York, and "The committee of the legislature has recommended its distribution to all the towns." This book was read by John D. Pierce before he planned the Michigan school system (1836).

of every grade in Italy. This report led to a revision of the school laws of the latter country, whereby primary schools of a higher and lower grade, secondary schools, including classical and technical schools, and a new organization of the universities were instituted.1 In 1774 Austria appointed the Augustine monk, Felbiger, director of the normal schools in all the Austrian dominions. Felbiger, after spending several years at Berlin, to obtain an intimate knowledge of the methods of instruction practiced there, opened a school in Silesia (then belonging to Prussia) for the training of teachers. His work in Silesia was so noticeable that it led to the Austrian appointment, and, with it, to the partial reorganization of the common schools of that country.2 The influence of Germany on the Austrian school system was again felt, when, in 1805, was published the Constitution of the German Common Schools, which to this day is the basis in large part of the school law of Austria. England, too, recognizing the supremacy of the German system of the period, dispatched from time to time Government commissioners to Germany, who, in turn, submitted to Parliament elaborate reports on the German plan of organization.

3

In America, during the period when our schools were being molded into the semblance of a system, German influence in shaping the structure was much more direct and potent than has been generally recognized.

John Quincy Adams, in a series of letters, published in Philadelphia in 1803, describing the educational system of Silesia, which he had been examining, said:

The arrangements and regulations of the trivial schools, as they are here called-schools destined for that elementary instruction which ought to be diffused over the whole mass of the people-particularly deserve your attention, because you may, perhaps, as a native of New England, entertain the prejudice that your own country is the only spot on earth where this object is rightly managed and where the arts of reading and writing are accomplishments almost universally possessed. Probably no country in Europe could so strongly contest our preeminence in this respect as Germany, and she, for this honorable distinction, is indebted principally to Frederick II.*

In 1821 a committee of the "Free School Society of the City of New York," which took the initiative in organizing the first schools of that city not supported by denominations, was instructed to cor

1 See Public Instruction in the Kingdom of Italy, in Am. Jour. Ed. (1870), vol. 20, pp. 146-147; also, Public Instruction in Sardinia, by Botta, in Am. Jour. Ed. (1857), vol. 3, pp. 513-530.

2 See John Quincy Adams, Educational Reform in Silesia by Frederick II, in Am. Jour. Ed. (1867-68), vol. 17, pp. 126-127; also Public Instruction in Austria, in Am. Jour. Ed. (1866), vol. 16, p. 9.

8 See Public Instructions in Austria, in Am. Jour. Ed. (1866), vol. 16, p. 15 (article gives a summary).

4 For Adams's letter on Educational Reform in Silesia by Frederick II, in full, see Am. Jour. Ed. (1867-68), vol. 17, pp. 125–128.

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