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

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

IV. THE BATTLE TO ESTABLISH SCHOOL SUPERVISION

BEGINNINGS OF STATE CONTROL. The great battle for state schools was not only for taxation to stimulate their development where none existed, but was also indirectly a battle for some form of state control of the local systems which had already grown up. The establishment of permanent state school funds by the older States, to supplement any other aid which might be granted, also tended toward the establishment of some form of state supervision and control of the local school systems. The first step was the establishment of some form of state aid; the next was the imposing of conditions necessary to secure this state aid.

State oversight and control, however, does not exercise itself, and it soon became evident that the States must elect or appoint some officer to represent the State and enforce the observance of its demands. It would be primarily his duty to see that the laws relating to schools were carried out, that statistics as to existing conditions were collected and printed, and that communities were properly advised as to their duties and the legislature as to the needs of the State. We find now the creation of a series of school officers to represent the State, the enactment of new laws extending control, and a struggle to integrate, subordinate, and reduce to some semblance of a state school system the hundreds of little community school systems which had grown up.

THE FIRST STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS. The first American State to create a state officer to exercise supervision over its schools was New York, in 1812. In enacting the new law [8] providing for state aid for schools the first State Superintendent of Common Schools in the United States was created. So far as is known this was a distinctively American creation, uninfluenced by the practice in any other land. It was to be the duty of this officer to look after the establishment and maintenance of the schools throughout the State. [9] Maryland created the office in 1826, but two years later abolished it and did not re-create it until 1864. Illinois directed its Secretary of State to act, ex officio, as Superintendent of Schools in 1825, as did also Vermont in 1827, Louisiana in 1833, Pennsylvania in 1834, and Tennessee in 1835. Illinois did not create a real State Superintendent of Schools, though, until 1854, Vermont until 1845, Louisiana until 1847, Pennsylvania until 1857, or Tennessee until 1867. The first States to create separate school officials who have been continued to the present time were Michigan and Kentucky, both in 1837. Often quite a legislative struggle took place to secure the establishment of the office, and later on to prevent its abolition.

[Illustration: FIG. 203. STATUS OF SCHOOL SUPERVISION IN THE UNITED STATES BY 1861 For a list of the 28 City Superintendencies established up to 1870, see Cubberley's Public School Administration, p. 58. For the history of the state educational office in each State see Cubberley and Elliott, State and County School Administration, Source Book, pp. 283-87.]

By 1850 there were ex-officio state school officers in nine and regular school officers in seven of the then thirty-one States, and by 1861 there were ex-officio officers in nine and regular officers in nineteen of the then thirty-four States, as well as one of each in two of the organized Territories. The above map shows the growth of supervisory oversight by 1861—forty-nine years from the time the first American state school officer was created. The map also shows the ten of the thirty-four States which had, by 1861, also created the office of County Superintendent of Schools, as well as the twenty-five cities which had, by 1861, created the office of City Superintendent of Schools. Only three more cities—Albany, Washington, and Kansas City—were added before 1870, making a total of twenty-eight, but since that date the number of city superintendents has increased to something like fourteen hundred to-day.

THE FIRST STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION. Another important form for state control which was created a little later was the State Board of Education, with an appointed Secretary, who exercised about the same functions as a State Superintendent of Schools. This form of organization first arose in Massachusetts, in 1837, in an effort to subordinate the district schools and reduce them to a semblance of an organized system. In 1826 each town (township) had been required to appoint a School Committee (School Board) to exercise general supervision over its schools, in 1834 the state permanent school fund was created, and in 1837 the reform movement reached its culmination in the creation of the first real State Board of Education in the United States. Instead of following the usual American practice of the time, and providing for an elected State School Superintendent, Massachusetts provided for a small appointed State Board of Education which in turn was to select a Secretary, who was to act in the capacity of a state school officer and report to the Board, and through it to the legislature and the people. Neither the Board nor the Secretary were given any powers of compulsion, their work being to investigate conditions, report facts, expose defects, and make recommendations as to action to the legislature. The permanence and influence of the Board thus depended very largely on the character of the Secretary it selected.

HORACE MANN THE FIRST SECRETARY. A prominent Brown University graduate and lawyer in the State Senate, by the name of Horace Mann (1796-1859), who as president of the Senate had been of much assistance in securing passage of the bill creating the State Board of Education, was finally induced by the Governor and the Board to accept the position of Secretary. Mr. Mann now began a most memorable work of educating public opinion, and soon became the acknowledged leader in school organization in the United States. State after State called upon him for advice and counsel, while his twelve annual Reports to the State Board of Education will always remain memorable documents. Public men of all classes—lawyers, clergymen, college professors, literary men, teachers—were laid under tribute and sent forth over the State explaining to the people the need for a reawakening of educational interest in Massachusetts. Every year Mr. Mann organized a "campaign," to explain to the people the meaning and importance of general education. So successful was he, and so ripe was the time for such a movement, that he not only started a great common school revival in Massachusetts which led to the regeneration of the schools there, but one which was felt and which influenced development in every Northern State.

His twelve carefully written Reports on the condition of education in Massachusetts and elsewhere, with his intelligent discussion of the aims and purposes of public education, occupy a commanding place in the history of American education, while he will always be regarded as perhaps the greatest of the "founders" of our American system of free public schools. No one did more than he to establish in the minds of the American people the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, and free, and that its aim should be social efficiency, civic virtue, and character, rather than mere learning or the advancement of sectarian ends. Under his practical leadership an unorganized and heterogeneous series of community school systems was reduced to organization and welded together into a state school system, and the people of Massachusetts were effectively recalled to their ancient belief in and duty toward the education of the people.

HENRY BARNARD IN CONNECTICUT AND RHODE ISLAND. Almost equally important, though of a somewhat different character, was the work of Henry Barnard (1811-1900) in Connecticut and Rhode Island. A graduate of Yale, and also educated for the law, he turned aside to teach and became deeply interested in education. The years 1835-37 he spent in Europe studying schools, particularly the work of Pestalozzi's disciples. On his return to America he was elected a member of the Connecticut legislature, and at once formulated and secured passage of the Connecticut law (1839) providing for a State Board of Commissioners for Common Schools, with a Secretary, after the Massachusetts plan. Mr. Barnard was then elected as its first Secretary, and reluctantly gave up the law and accepted the position at the munificent salary of $3 a day and expenses. Until the legislature abolished both the Board and the position, in 1842, he rendered for Connecticut a service scarcely less important than the better-known reforms which Horace Mann was at that time carrying on in Massachusetts.

[Illustration: PLATE 17. TWO LEADERS IN THE EDUCATIONAL AWAKENING IN THE
UNITED STATES.

HORACE MANN (1796-1859)
(From the painting at the Westfield, Massachusetts, Normal School)

HENRY BARNARD (1811-1900)]

In 1843 he was called to Rhode Island to examine and report upon the existing schools, and from 1845 to 1849 acted as State Commissioner of Public Schools there, where he rendered a service similar to that previously rendered in Connecticut. In addition he organized a series of town libraries throughout the State. For his teachers' institutes he devised a traveling model school, to give demonstration lessons in the art of teaching. From 1851 to 1855 he was again in Connecticut, as principal of the newly established state normal school and ex-officio Secretary of the Connecticut State Board of Education. He now rewrote the school laws, increased taxation for schools, checked the power of the districts, there known as "school societies," and laid the foundations of a state system of schools. The work of Mann and Barnard had its influence throughout all the Northern States, and encouraged the friends of education everywhere. Almost contemporaneous with them were leaders in other States who helped fight through the battles of state establishment and state organization and control, and the period of their labors has since been termed the period of the "great awakening."