The History of Education / Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

CHAPTER XXVI

[1] Connecticut and New York both had set aside lands, before 1800, to create such a fund, Connecticut's fund dating back to 1750. Delaware, in 1796, devoted the income from marriage and tavern licenses to the same purpose, but made no use of the fund for twenty years. Connecticut, in 1795, sold its "Western Reserve" in Ohio for $1,200,000, and added this to its school fund. New York, in 1805, similarly added the proceeds of the sale of half a million acres of state lands, though the fund then formally created accumulated unused until 1812. Tennessee began to build up a permanent state school fund in 1806; Virginia in 1810; South Carolina in 1811; Maryland in 1812; New Jersey in 1816; Georgia in 1817; Maine, New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Louisiana in 1821; Vermont and North Carolina in 1825; Pennsylvania in 1831; and Massachusetts in 1834. These were established as permanent state funds, the annual income only to be used, in some way to be determined later, for the support of some form of schools.

[2] Now for the first time direct taxation for schools was likely to be felt by the taxpayer, and the fight for and against the imposition of such taxation was on in earnest. The course of the struggle and the results were somewhat different in the different States, but, in a general way, the progress of the conflict was somewhat as follows:

1. Permission granted to communities so desiring to organize a school taxing district, and to tax for school support the property of those consenting and residing therein.

2. Taxation of all property in the taxing district permitted.

3. State aid to such districts, at first from the income from permanent endowment funds, and later from the proceeds of a small state appropriation or a state or county tax.

4. Compulsory local taxation to supplement the state or county grant.

[3] Concerning the system, "The Philadelphia Society for the Establishment and Support of Charity Schools," in an "Address to the Public," in 1818, said:

"In the United States the benevolence of the inhabitants has led to the establishment of Charity Schools, which, though affording individual advantages, are not likely to be followed by the political benefits kindly contemplated by their founders. In the country a parent will raise children in ignorance rather than place them in charity schools. It is only in large cities that charity schools succeed to any extent. These dispositions may be improved to the best advantage, by the Legislature, in place of Charity Schools, establishing Public Schools for the education of all children, the offspring of the rich and the poor alike."

[4] In 1821 the counties of Dauphin (Harrisburg), Allegheny (Pittsburg), Cumberland (Carlisle), and Lancaster (Lancaster) were also exempted from the state pauper-school law, and allowed to organize schools for the education of the children of their poor.

[5] Some 32,000 persons petitioned for a repeal of the law, 66 of whom signed by making their mark, and "not more than five names in a hundred," reported a legislative committee which investigated the matter, "were signed in English script." It was from among the parochial-school Germans that the strongest opposition to the law came.

[6] For Stevens's speech in defense of the Law of 1834, see Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1898-99, vol. I, pp. 516-24.

[7] By 1836 the new free-school law had been accepted by 75 per cent of the districts in the State, by 1838 by 84 per cent, and by 1847 by 88 per cent.

[8] This State had enacted an experimental school law, and made an annual state grant for schools, from 1795 to 1800. Then, unable to reënact the law, the system was allowed to lapse and was not reëstablished until the New England element gained control, in 1812.

[9] By his vigorous work in behalf of schools the first appointee, Gideon Hawley, gave such offense to the politicians of the time that he was removed from office, in 1821, and the legislature then abolished the position and designated the Secretary of State to act, ex officio, as Superintendent. This condition continued until 1854, when New York again created the separate office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

[10] When Connecticut sold its Western Reserve, in 1795, and added the sum to the Connecticut school fund, it was stated to be for the aid of "schools and the gospel." In the sales of the first national lands in Ohio (1,500,000 acres to The Ohio Company, in 1787; and 1,000,000 acres in the Symmes Purchase, near Cincinnati, in 1788), section 16 in each township was reserved and given as an endowment for schools, and section 29 "for the purposes of religion."

[11] The Public School Society continued to receive money grants, it being regarded as a non-denominational organization, though chartered to teach "the sublime truths of religion and morality contained in the Holy Scriptures" in its schools. In 1828 the Society was even permitted to levy a local tax to supplement its resources, it being estimated that at that time there were 10,000 children in the city with no opportunities for education.

[12] The question may be regarded as a settled one in our American States. Our people mean to keep the public-school system united as one state school system, well realizing that any attempt to divide the schools among the different religious denominations (the World Almanac for 1917 lists 49 different denominations and 171 different sects in the United States) could only lead to inefficiency and educational chaos.

[13] The movement gained a firm hold everywhere east of the Missouri River, the States incorporating the largest number being New York with 887, Pennsylvania with 524, Massachusetts with 403, Kentucky with 330, Virginia with 317, North Carolina with 272, and Tennessee with 264. Some States, as Kentucky and Indiana, provided for a system of county academies, while many States extended to them some form of state aid. In New York State they found a warm advocate in Governor De Witt Clinton, who urged (1827) that they be located at the county towns of the State to give a practical scientific education suited to the wants of farmers, merchants, and mechanics, and also to train teachers for the schools of the State.

[14] The new emphasis given to the study of English, mathematics, and book-science is noticeable. New subjects appeared in proportion as the academies increased in numbers and importance. Of 149 new subjects for study appearing in the academies of New York, between 1787 and 1870, 23 appeared before 1826, 100 between 1826 and 1840, and 26 after 1840. Between 1825 and 1828 one half of the new subjects appeared. This also was the maximum period of development of the academies.

[15] The existence of a number of colleges, basing their entrance requirements on the completion of the classical course of the academy, and the establishment of a few embryo state universities in the new States of the West and the South, naturally raised the further question of why there should be a gap in the public-school system. The increase of wealth in the cities tended to increase the number who passed through the elementary course and could profit by more extended education; the academies had popularized the idea of more advanced education; while the new manufacturing and commercial activities of the time called for more training than the elementary schools afforded, and of a different type from that demanded by the small colleges of the time for entrance.

[16] For an interesting table showing the simple entrance requirements of Harvard in 1642, 1734, 1803, 1825, 1850, 1875, and 1885, see Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1902, vol. I, pp. 930-33.