The History Of Education, Ellwood P. Cubberley [motivational novels .TXT] 📗

AWAKENING AN EDUCATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE UNITED STATES

I. EARLY NATIONAL ATTITUDES AND INTERESTS

THE AMERICAN PROBLEM. The beginnings of state educational organization in the United States present quite a different history from that traced for Prussia, France, Italy, or England. While the parochial school existed in the Central Colonies, and in time had to be subordinated to state ends; and while the idea of education as a charity had been introduced into all the Anglican Colonies, and later had to be stamped out; the problem of educational organization in America was not, as in Europe, one of bringing church schools and old educational foundations into harmonious working relations with the new state school systems set up. Instead the old educational foundations were easily transformed to adapt them to the new conditions, while only in the Central Colonies did the religious-charity conception of education give any particular trouble. The American educational problem was essentially that of first awakening, in a new land, a consciousness of need for general education; and second, that of developing a willingness to pay for what it finally came to be deemed desirable to provide.

By the middle of the eighteenth century, as we have pointed out (p. 438), the earlier religious interests in America had clearly begun to wane. In the New England Colonies the school of the civil town had largely replaced the earlier religious school. In the Middle Colonies many of the parochial schools had died out. In the Southern Colonies, where the classes in society and negro slavery made common schools impossible, and the lack of city life and manufacturing made them seem largely unnecessary, the common school had tended to disappear. Even in New England, where the Calvinistic conception of the importance of education had most firmly established the idea of school support, the eighteenth century witnessed a constant struggle to prevent the dying-out of that which an earlier generation had deemed it important to create.

EFFECT OF THE WAR ON EDUCATION. The effect of the American War for Independence, on all types of schools, was disastrous. The growing troubles with the mother country had, for more than a decade previous to the opening of hostilities, tended to concentrate attention on other matters than schooling. Political discussion and agitation had largely monopolized the thinking of the time.

With the outbreak of the war education everywhere suffered seriously. Most of the rural and parochial schools closed, or continued a more or less intermittent existence. In New York City, then the second largest city in the country, practically all schools closed with British occupancy and remained closed until after the end of the war. The Latin grammar schools and academies often closed from lack of pupils, while the colleges were almost deserted. Harvard and Kings, in particular, suffered grievously, and sacrificed much for the cause of liberty. The war engrossed the energies and the resources of the peoples of the different Colonies, and schools, never very securely placed in the affections of the people, outside of New England, were allowed to fall into decay or entirely disappear. The period of the Revolution and the period of reorganization which followed, up to the beginning of the national government (1775-89), were together a time of rapid decline in educational advantages and increasing illiteracy among the people. Meager as had been the opportunities for schooling before 1775, the opportunities by 1790, except in a few cities and in the New England districts, had shrunk almost to the vanishing point. For Boston (R. 307), Providence (Rs. 309, 310), and a number of other places we have good pictures preserved of the schools which actually did exist.

The close of the war found the country both impoverished and exhausted.

All the Colonies had made heavy sacrifices, many had been overrun by hostile armies, and the debt of the Union and of the States was so great that many thought it could never be paid. The thirteen States, individually and collectively, with only 3,380,000 people, had incurred an indebtedness of $75,000,000 for the prosecution of the conflict. Commerce was dead, the Government of the Confederation was impotent, petty insurrections were common, the States were quarreling continually with one another over all kinds of trivial matters, England still remained more or less hostile, and foreign complications began to appear. That during such a crucial period, and for some years following, but little or no attention was anywhere given to the question of education was only natural.

NO REAL EDUCATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS BEFORE ABOUT 1820. Regardless of the national land grants for education made to the new States (p. 523), the provisions of the different state constitutions (R. 259), the beginnings made here and there in the few cities of the time, and the early state laws (R. 262), it can hardly be said that the American people had developed an educational consciousness, outside of New England and New York, before about 1820, and in some of the States, especially in the South, a state educational consciousness was not awakened until very much later. Even in New England there was a steady decline in education during the first fifty years of the national history.

There were many reasons in the national life for this lack of interest in education among the masses of the people. The simple agricultural life of the time, the homogeneity of the people, the absence of cities, the isolation and independence of the villages, the lack of full manhood suffrage in a number of the States, the want of any economic demand for education, and the fact that no important political question calling for settlement at the polls had as yet arisen, made the need for schools and learning seem a relatively minor one. The country, too, was still very poor. The Revolutionary War debt still hung in part over the Nation, and the demand for money and labor for all kinds of internal improvements was very large. The country had few industries, and its foreign trade was badly hampered by European nations. Ways and means of strengthening the existing Government and holding the Union together, [1] rather than plans which could bear fruit only in the future, occupied the attention of the leaders of the time.

When the people had finally settled their political and commercial future by the War of 1812-14, and had built up a national consciousness on a democratic basis in the years immediately following, and the Nation at last possessed the energy, the money, and the interest for doing so, they finally turned their energies toward the creation of a democratic system of public schools. In the meantime, education, outside of New England, and in part even there, was left largely to private individuals, churches, incorporated school societies, and such state schools for the children of the poor as might have been provided by private or state funds, or the two combined.

THE REAL INTEREST IN ADVANCED EDUCATION. In so far as the American people may be said to have possessed a real interest in education during the first half-century of the national existence, it was manifested in the establishment and endowment of academies and colleges rather than in the creation of schools for the people. The colonial Latin grammar school had been almost entirely an English institution, and never well suited to American needs. As democratic consciousness began to arise, the demand came for a more practical institution, less exclusive and less aristocratic in character, and better adapted in its instruction to the needs of a frontier society. Arising about the middle of the eighteenth century, a number of so-called Academies had been founded before the new National Government took shape. While essentially private institutions, arising from a church foundation, or more commonly a local subscription or endowment, it became customary for towns, counties, and States to assist in their maintenance, thus making them semi-public institutions. Their management, though, usually remained in private hands, or under boards or associations. [2]

Beside offering a fair type of higher training [3] before the days of high schools, the academies also became training-schools for teachers, and before the rise of the normal schools were the chief source of supply for the better grade of elementary teachers. These institutions rendered an important service during the first half of the nineteenth century, but were in time displaced by the publicly supported and publicly controlled American high school, the first of which dates from 1821. This evolution we shall describe more in detail a little later on.

THE COLLEGES OF THE TIME. Some interest also was taken in college education during this early national period. College attendance,