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REORGANIZATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.

Chapter I.

THE RISE OF THE CHIEF DIVISIONS OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC-SCHOOL SYSTEM.

CONTENTS.-The three divisions-Distinct sources-Elementary division; beginnings; rotating schools; school districts; Government aid; Northwest Territory; Horace Mann; Henry Barnard-Division of higher education; colonial colleges; preparation for the ministry; place of Latin and Greek; growth of the demand for higher education; modifications in curricula; departmental instruction; election of studies; period of internal development; preparatory schools-Secondary division; Latin grammar schools; the Renaissance; influence of local conditions; the academy; function; industrial development; free public high school; original purpose; later development.

The American public-school system now stands, after three centuries of growth, complete in form only. Its three divisions—elementary, secondary, and that embracing higher education-are joined together, end to end, forming a lineal whole. It is therefore now easy for a child of 6 to enter the elementary school, pass regularly from grade to grade, and finally to emerge, 16 or 18 years later, prepared as far as academic study is concerned to begin his life work, and without direct cost to himself or to his parents.

The story of the development of this system is the story of the conflict between two demands: That for a college preparation on the one hand, and on the other for a noncollegiate preparation extending beyond the elementary grades. As in every country developing a system of education, the colleges reached downward to find a means of preparation for the few, while the elementary schools reached upward in order to secure an extension of a general, practical education for the many. It has remained for America alone to develop an institution which has harmonized the two-the free public high school. Inasmuch, however, as each of the three divisions comprising the system sprang from separate and distinct sources and grew to considerable proportions independently of the others, and in response to the shaping power of different conditions, the whole which the fusing process of recent years has given us is complete in form only. In organic relation, in sharpness of province, and in dis

tinctiveness of function, these divisions are not yet satisfactorily articulated.

The English colonists had scarcely set foot in the New World before they began planning for the education of their children. Within eight years after the founding of Boston a college with a system of preparatory schools was established, and within 17 years the foundation, in theory at least, of our entire American publicschool system was laid. The acts of 1642 and 1647 (Massachusetts)1 not only recognized each of the three divisions of our present system, but in addition enunciated the right of the State to compel proper provision for education, to determine the kind of an education which should be given, to provide such education by general tax and at public expense, and to provide opportunities for college preparation. While legislation has added but two important principles to those set forth in these early Massachusetts acts-compulsory attendance and the making of free schooling mandatory—yet the educational system foreshadowed in the original principle has been exceedingly slow in unfolding, reaching a point in its development relatively complete only within the last half century.

Though from the first there was a demand by the masses for the rudiments of an education, yet such instruction during the colonial period was meager and haphazard. While the legislation of the time recognized the elementary school and made its support by public tax permissive, yet, except in the larger towns, such education was badly neglected. In some towns the parents instructed their children at home, or clubbed together and employed a young man or woman to give a start in reading and writing. In one town the children learned to write on birch bark and were taught in rotation by the men of the village who could read. In other places the minister became the schoolmaster. Even as late as 1817 the school committee of Boston denied a petition, signed by 160 inhabitants, asking that primary schools be established at public expense, defending their denial on the ground that the establishment of such schools would be too expensive; and, furthermore," that most parents have some leisure, and that with us few are unequal to the task of teaching the elements of letters."4

Much of the elementary instruction which was provided in that day was given in vacant carpenters' shops, in spare rooms in old dwellings, in unoccupied barns, in basement rooms, and in such other

1 For early Massachusetts statutes see Rep. U. S. Com. Ed., 1892-93, vol. 2, pp. 12251239.

See Martin, The Evolution of the Mass. Pub. Sch. System, pp. 12-17; Hinsdale, Horace Mann, pp. 2-8.

3 Martin, Evolution of the Mass. Pub. Sch. System, p. 68.

See the report of the committee in full: Wrightman, Annals of the Boston Primary School Committee, pp. 21-27.

places as chance presented.1 The scope of the work offered in these schools before the Revolution was limited merely to writing and the rudiments of reading. Spelling and arithmetic as separate subjects were not required until well into the next century. The support of primary schools, as indeed of the grammar schools of the period, was various and uncertain. By lotteries, by land rentals, by private subscription, by licensing houses of entertainment, by tuition paid in money or in kind, as well as by general tax levied upon all people of a given community, these schools were maintained for brief periods during the year. As changing economic and social conditions operated to disperse the hitherto compact settlements, the school was often rotated from place to place within the community to meet the demands of those who settled at some distance from the center. In some towns it was kept for a third of the time in each end and a third in the middle; in other places it remained four months in each of three places; and in still others the school was shifted among five places within a single school year. Gloucester probably holds the record for the number of changes required, for in this community, in 1751, the grammar school rotated among so many places that the children at a given locality secured but one and a half months of schooling once in every three years. As with Massachusetts, so with the other New England States, elementary education remained until the beginning of the nineteenth century informal, intermittent, unsystematic, voluntary in respect to both parents and community, and hence inefficient.

The first real advance was made when the rotating school was superseded by the establishment of permanent schools at the several points comprising the itinerary of these "moving schools." Attendance lines were drawn and a proportionate share of the school money was given to the people within the limits thus formed, to expend as they desired. In 1789 this division of the scattered community into districts was recognized by law, but the act of 1789 gave no power to the district. If a schoolhouse was to be built, for instance, it could be done only through subscriptions voluntarily given by the people. By 1827, however, through successive legislation, the district changed from a unit created for mere social convenience to a political institution with power vested in its inhabitants to levy taxes, to hold meetings, to choose a clerk, to select a school site, to erect a building thereon, to enforce contracts, and to employ teachers."

1 See U. S. Bu. of Educ., Contr. to Amer. Ed. Hist., No. 18, p. 21.

2 Ibid., pp. 20, 21.

For a discussion of the causes producing the moving school see Opdegraff, The Origin of the Moving School in Massachusetts.

4 Martin, Evolution of the Mass. Pub. Sch. System, pp. 75–77.

Ibid., pp. 90-118.

Simultaneously with this movement in New England toward free public common schools the rapidly developing Northwest Territory was taking advanced ground in the same respect. One of the wisest as well as one of the last acts of the Congress of the Confederation was to provide a comprehensive plan for the government of the territory lying to the northwest of the Ohio River and for its future subdivision into States. In this act (the "Ordinance of 1787") Congress declared:

Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.1

Ten days after this ordinance was passed Congress adopted a supplementary act relating to the disposition of public lands that had a far-reaching effect in accelerating the rise of the common school and later of the State university. This act decreed that in every State formed out of the public domain the sixteenth section of each township therein should be set apart for the support of the common schools, and that not more than two complete townships were "to be given perpetually for the purposes of a seminary of learning [university], to be applied to the intended object by the legislature of the State." In 1803 the provisions of this ordinance were extended to the States of the Mississippi Territory, and in 1848 Congress enacted that in States thereafter formed the thirty-sixth section, in addition to the sixteenth section, should be reserved for the support of the common school.2 In consequence of this generous provision 67,000,000 acres of land have been granted for common-school purposes.3

The final stage in the evolution of the modern highly organized and highly graded elementary school began, roughly dating, from the time when Horace Mann and Henry Barnard began their educational work-the one in Massachusetts (1837) and the other in Connecticut (1837) and later in Rhode Island (1843). For a time education had in considerable degree been neglected. The War of Independence, the formation of new States, the reclaiming of new territory, the building of canals and railroads diverted attention from the schools. The old laws making education compulsory were forgotten. Immigration was bringing many poor and ignorant families into the country. In consequence illiteracy was rapidly gaining ground. Under the leadership of Horace Mann and Henry Barnard, and largely through their personal efforts, a reaction set in. Associations to foster education were everywhere formed; journals for the discussion of educational questions were founded in great numbers;

1 See An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio, Third article, found in McMaster, Hist. of the People of the U. S., Vol. III, ch. 16; also in Old South Leaflets, No. 13.

2 See Swett, Amer. Pub. Schools, pp. 37-44.

3 Thwing, A. Hist. of Higher Ed. in Amer., p. 189.

many distinguished men visited Europe, examined the best systems, and returned to publish their observations and scatter them broadcast among the people. Henry Barnard, intrusted with the task of reforming the schools of Rhode Island, merely preliminary to securing legislative reforms, went twice to all the towns in the State; talked personally with more than 400 teachers about their work, besides visiting their schools; wrote a thousand letters to persons best able to suggest valuable ideas; delivered more than 500 addresses upon the needs of the schools; published a journal which was gratuitously distributed throughout the community and organized everywhere local associations to foster and spread the interest which he awakened. What Henry Barnard did in Rhode Island Horace Mann was doing in Massachusetts, with the result that apathy in educational matters was changed to an enthusiasm that rapidly took on the characteristics of a popular movement.

In the 75 years which have since elapsed a remarkable development of the functions and organization of the elementary division of the public-school system has taken place. Within the last three decades have come professionally trained instructors, expert supervision, grouping by grades, supervision of the pupils' health, enrichment of courses, and the segregation of and special instruction for defectives, besides many other notable features, to which the presentday educator points with confidence and pride.

In the rise of the college and university, together comprising the division of higher education, the demand of the American people for an education suitable for general culture and for the professions found its expression. The response of these institutions to the expanding needs of a rapidly growing country has not always been prompt. Nevertheless as the want increased and the demands became insistent, the college and university have slowly accommodated themselves thereto. At first it was the ministry only for which a college education was desired. Now the universities of this country provide a training for entrance to all of a host of professions that the development in science, industry, and statecraft has created.

The colonial colleges were dominated by the religious and ecclesiastical influences of the time. Harvard was founded in part out of a "dread to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in dust." For 60 years it was little more than a training school for ministers. The application for a charter permitting the founding of William and Mary was supported by the declaration that Virginians had souls to be saved as well as their English countrymen and that the institution was needed to prepare young men for the ministry. While there was nothing in Yale's

1 Mass. Hist. Collections, Vol. I, p. 242.

2 Boone, Educ. in the U. S., p. 34.

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