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

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

V. THE BATTLE TO ELIMINATE SECTARIANISM

THE SECULARIZATION OF AMERICAN EDUCATION. The Church, it will be remembered, was from the earliest colonial times in possession of the education of the young. Not only were the earliest schools controlled by the Church and dominated by the religious motive, but the right of the Church to dictate the teaching in the schools was clearly recognized by the State. Still more, the State looked to the Church to provide the necessary education, and assisted it in doing so by donations of land and money. The minister, as a town official, naturally examined the teachers and the instruction in the schools. After the establishment of the National Government this relationship for a time continued. [10] New York and the New England States specifically set aside lands to help both church and school. After about 1800 these land endowments for religion ceased, but grants of state aid for religious schools continued for nearly a half-century longer. Then it became common for a town or city to build a schoolhouse from city taxation, and let it out rent-free to any responsible person who would conduct a tuition school in it, with a few free places for selected poor children. Still later, with the rise of the state schools, it became quite common to take over church and private schools and aid them on the same basis as the new state schools.

In colonial times, too, and for some decades into our national period, the warmest advocates of the establishment of schools were those who had in view the needs of the Church. Then gradually the emphasis shifted to the needs of the State, and a new class of advocates of public education now arose. Still later the emphasis has been shifted to industrial and civic and national needs, and the religious aim has been almost completely eliminated. This change is known as the secularization of American education. It also required many a bitter struggle, and was accomplished in the different States but slowly. The two great factors which served to produce this change were:

1. The conviction that the life of the Republic demanded an educated and intelligent citizenship, and hence the general education of all in common schools controlled by the State; and

2. The great diversity of religious beliefs among the people, which forced tolerance and religious freedom through a consideration of the rights of minorities.

The secularization of education must not be regarded either as a deliberate or a wanton violation of the rights of the Church, but rather as an unavoidable incident connected with the coming to self-consciousness and self-government of a great people.

THE FIGHT IN MASSACHUSETTS. The educational awakening in Massachusetts, brought on largely by the work of Horace Mann, was to many a rude awakening. Among other things, it revealed that the old school of the Puritans had gradually been replaced by a new and purely American type of school, with instruction adapted to democratic and national rather than religious ends. Mr. Mann stood strongly for such a conception of public education, and being a Unitarian, and the new State Board of Education being almost entirely liberal in religion, an attack was launched against them, and for the first time in our history the cry was raised that "The public schools are Godless schools." Those who believed in the old system of religious instruction, those who bore the Board or its Secretary personal ill-will, and those who desired to break down the Board's authority and stop the development of the public schools, united their forces in this first big attack against secular education. Horace Mann was the first prominent educator in America to meet and answer the religious onslaught.

A violent attack was opened in both the pulpit and the press. It was claimed that the Board was trying to eliminate the Bible from the schools, to abolish correction, and to "make the schools a counterpoise to religious instruction at home and in Sabbath schools." The local right to demand religious instruction was insisted upon.

Mr. Mann felt that a great public issue had been raised which should be answered carefully and fully. In three public statements he answered the criticisms and pointed out the errors in the argument (R. 322). The Bible, he said, was an invaluable book for forming the character of children, and should be read without comment in the schools, but it was not necessary to teach it there. He showed that most of the towns had given up the teaching of the Catechism before the establishment of the Board of Education. He contended that any attempt to decide what creed or doctrine should be taught would mean the ruin of the schools. The attack culminated in the attempts of the religious forces to abolish the State Board of Education, in the legislatures of 1840 and 1841, which failed dismally. Most of the orthodox people of the State took Mr. Mann's side, and Governor Briggs, in one of his messages, commended his stand by inserting the following:

Justice to a faithful public officer leads me to say that the indefatigable and accomplished Secretary of the Board of Education has performed services in the cause of common schools which will earn him the lasting gratitude of the generation to which he belongs.

THE ATTEMPT TO DIVIDE THE SCHOOL FUNDS. As was stated earlier, in the beginning it was common to aid church schools on the same basis as the state schools, and sometimes, in the beginnings of state aid, the money was distributed among existing schools without at first establishing any public schools. In many Eastern cities church schools at first shared in the public funds. In Pennsylvania church and private schools were aided from poor-law funds up to 1834. In New Jersey the first general school law of 1829 had been repealed a year later through the united efforts of church and private-school interests, who unitedly fought the development of state schools, and in 1830 and 1831 new laws had permitted all private and parochial schools to share in the small state appropriation for education.

After the beginning of the forties, when the Roman Catholic influence came in strongly with the increase in Irish immigration to the United States, a new factor was introduced and the problem, which had previously been a Protestant problem, took on a somewhat different aspect in the form of a demand for a division of the school funds. Between 1825 and 1842 the fight was especially severe in New York City. In 1825 the City Council refused to grant public money to any religious Society, [11] and in 1840 the Catholics carried the matter to the State Legislature.

The legislature deferred action until 1842, and then did the unexpected thing. The heated discussion of the question in the city and in the legislature had made it evident that, while it might not be desirable to continue to give funds to a privately organized corporation, to divide them among the quarreling and envious religious sects would be much worse. The result was that the legislature created for the city a City Board of Education, to establish real public schools, and stopped the debate on the question of aid to religious schools by enacting that no portion of the school funds was in the future to be given to any school in which "any religious sectarian doctrine or tenet should be taught, inculcated, or practiced." Thus the real public-school system of New York City was evolved out of this attempt to divide the public funds among the churches. The Public School Society continued for a time, but its work was now done, and, in 1853, surrendered its buildings and property to the City Board of Education and disbanded.

THE CONTEST IN OTHER STATES. As early as 1830, Lowell, Massachusetts, had granted aid to the Irish Catholic parochial schools in the city, and in 1835 had taken over two such schools and maintained them as public schools. In 1853 the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church made a demand on the state legislature for a division of the school fund of the State. To settle the question once for all a constitutional amendment was submitted by the legislature to the people, providing that all state and town moneys raised or appropriated for education must be expended only on regularly organized and conducted public schools, and that no religious sect should ever share in such funds. This measure failed of adoption at the election of 1853 by a vote of 65,111 for and 65,512 against, but was re-proposed and adopted in 1855. This settled the question in Massachusetts, as Mann had tried to settle it earlier, and as New Hampshire had settled it in its constitution of 1792, Connecticut in its constitution of 1818, and Rhode Island in its constitution of 1842.

Other States now faced similar demands, but no demand for a share in or a division of the public-school funds, after 1840, was successful. The demand everywhere met with intense opposition, and with the coming of enormous numbers of Irish Catholics after 1846, and German Lutherans after 1848, the question of the preservation of the schools just established as unified state school systems now became a burning one. Petitions for a division of the funds deluged the legislatures (R. 323), and these were met by counter-petitions (R. 324). Mass meetings on both sides of the question were held. Candidates for office were forced to declare themselves. Anti-Catholic riots occurred in a number of cities. The Native-American Party was formed, in 1841, "to prevent the union of Church and State," and to "keep the Bible in the schools." In 1841 the Whig Party, in New York, inserted a plank in its platform against sectarian schools. In 1855 the national council of the Know-Nothing Party, meeting in Philadelphia, in its platform favored public schools and the use of the Bible therein, but opposed sectarian schools. This party carried the elections that year in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Kentucky.

To settle the question in a final manner legislatures now began to propose constitutional amendments to the people of their several States which forbade a division or a diversion of the funds, and these were almost uniformly adopted at the first election after being proposed. No State admitted to the Union after 1858, except West Virginia, failed to insert such a provision in its first state constitution. [12]

VI. THE BATTLE TO ESTABLISH THE AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL

The elementary or common schools which had been established in the different States, by 1850, supplied an elementary or common school education to the children of the masses of the people, and the primary schools which were added, after about 1820, carried this education downward to the needs of the beginners. In the rural schools the American school of the 3 Rs provided for all the children, from the little ones up, so long as they could advantageously partake of its instruction. Education in advance of this common school training was in semi-private institutions—the academies and colleges—in which a tuition fee was charged. The next struggle came in the attempt to extend the system upward so as to provide to pupils, free of charge, a more complete education than the common schools afforded.

[Illustration: FIG. 204. A TYPICAL NEW ENGLAND ACADEMY
Pittsfield Academy, New Hampshire.]

THE TRANSITION ACADEMY. About the middle of the eighteenth century a tendency manifested itself, in Europe as well as in America, to establish higher schools offering a more practical curriculum than the old Latin schools had provided. In America it became particularly evident, after the coming of nationality, that the old Latin grammar-school type of instruction, with its limited curriculum and exclusively college- preparatory ends, was wholly inadequate for the needs of the youth of the land. The result was the gradual dying-out of the Latin school and the evolution of the tuition Academy, previously referred to briefly on page 463.

The academy movement spread rapidly during the first half of the nineteenth century. By 1800 there were 17 academies in Massachusetts, 36 by 1820, and 403 by 1850. By 1830 there were, according to Hinsdale, 950 incorporated academies in the United States, and many unincorporated ones, and by 1850, according to Inglis, there were, of all kinds, 1007 academies in New England, 1636 in the Middle Atlantic States, 2640 in the Southern States, 753 in the Upper Mississippi Valley States, and a total reported for the entire United States of 6085, with 12,260 teachers employed and 263,096 pupils enrolled. [13]

The greatest period of their development was from 1820 to 1830, though they continued to dominate secondary education until 1850, and were very prominent until after the Civil War.

CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES. The most characteristic features of these academies were their semi-public control (R. 325), their broadened curriculum and religious purpose, and the extension of their instruction to girls. The Latin Grammar School was essentially a town free school, maintained by the towns for the higher education of certain of their male children. It was aristocratic in type, and belonged to the early period of class education. With the decline in zeal for education, after 1750, these tax-supported higher schools largely died out, and in their place private energy and benevolence came to be depended upon to supply the needed higher education.

One of the main purposes expressed in the endowment or creation of the academies was the establishment of courses which should cover a number of subjects having value aside from mere preparation for college, particularly subjects of a modern nature, useful in preparing youths for the changed conditions of society and government and business. The study of real things rather than words about things, and useful things rather than subjects merely preparatory to college, became prominent features of the new courses of study. Among the most commonly found new subjects were algebra, astronomy, botany, chemistry, general history, United States history, English literature, surveying, intellectual philosophy, declamation, and debating. [14]

Not being bound up with the colleges, as the earlier Latin grammar schools had largely been, the academies became primarily independent institutions, taking pupils who had completed the English education of the common school and giving them an advanced education in modern languages, the sciences, mathematics, history, and the more useful subjects of the time, with a view to "rounding out" their studies and preparing them for business life and the rising professions. They thus built upon instead of running parallel to the common school course, as the old Latin grammar school had done (see Figure 198, p. 666) and hence clearly mark a transition from the aristocratic and somewhat exclusive college-preparatory Latin grammar school of colonial times to the more democratic high school of to-day. The academies also served a very useful purpose in supplying to the lower schools the best-educated teachers of the time.

The old Latin grammar school, too, had been maintained exclusively for boys. Girls had been excluded as "Improper & inconsistent w'th such a Grammar Schoole as ye law injoines, and is ye Designe of this Settlem't." The new academies soon reversed this situation. Almost from the first they began to be established for girls as well as boys, and in time many became co-educational. In New York State alone 32 academies were incorporated between 1819 and 1853 with the prefix "Female" to their title. In this respect, also, these institutions formed a transition to the modern co- educational high school. The higher education of women in the United States clearly dates from the establishment of the academies. Troy (New York) Seminary, founded by Emma Willard, in 1821, and Mt. Holyoke (Massachusetts) Seminary, founded by Mary Lyon, in 1836, though not the first institutions for girls, were nevertheless important pioneers in the higher education of women.

THE DEMAND FOR HIGHER SCHOOLS. The different movements tending toward the building-up of free public-school systems in the cities and States, which we have described in this and the preceding chapter, and which became clearly defined in the Northern States after 1825, came just at the time when the Academy had reached its maximum development. The settlement of the question of general taxation for education, the elimination of the rate-bill by the cities and later by the States, the establishment of the American common school as the result of a long native evolution, and the complete establishment of public control over the entire elementary-school system, all tended to bring the semi-private tuition academy into question. Many asked why not extend the public-school system upward to provide the necessary higher education for all in one common state- supported school. [15]

The demand for an upward extension of the public school, which would provide academy instruction for the poor as well as the rich, and in one common public higher school, now made itself felt. As the colonial Latin grammar school had represented the educational needs of a society based on classes, and the academies had represented a transition period and marked the growth of a middle class, so the rising democracy of the second quarter of the nineteenth century now demanded and obtained the democratic high school, supported by the public and equally open to all, to meet the educational needs of a new society built on the basis of a new and aggressive democracy. Where, too, the academy had represented in a way a missionary effort—that of a few providing something for the good of the people (Rs. 319, 325)—the high school on the other hand represented a coöperative effort on the part of the people to provide something for themselves.

[Illustration: FIG. 205. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THE
UNITED STATES
The transitional character of the Academy is well shown in this diagram.]

THE FIRST AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL. The first high school in the United States was established in Boston, in 1821 (R. 326). For three years it was known as the "English Classical School" (R. 327), but in 1824 the school appears in the records as the "English High School." In 1826 Boston also opened the first high school for girls, but abolished it in 1828, due to its great popularity, and instead extended the course of study for girls in the elementary schools.

[Illustration: FIG. 206 THE FIRST HIGH SCHOOL IN THE UNITED STATES
Established at Boston in 1821.]

THE MASSACHUSETTS LAW OF 1827. Though Portland, Maine, established a high school in 1821, Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1824, and New Bedford, Haverhill, and Salem, Massachusetts, in 1827, copying the Boston idea, the real beginning of the American high school as a distinct institution dates from the Massachusetts Law of 1827 (R. 328), enacted through the influence of James G. Carter. This law formed the basis of all subsequent legislation in Massachusetts, and deeply influenced development in other States. The law is significant in that it required a high school in every town having 500 families or over, in which should be taught United States history, bookkeeping, algebra, geometry, and surveying, while in every town having 4000 inhabitants or over, instruction in Greek, Latin, history, rhetoric, and logic must be added. A heavy penalty was attached for failure to comply with the law. In 1835 the law was amended so as to permit any smaller town to form a high school as well.

This Boston and Massachusetts legislation clearly initiated the public high-school movement in the United States. It was there that the new type of higher school was founded, there that its curriculum was outlined, there that its standards were established, and there that it developed earliest and best.

THE STRUGGLE TO ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN HIGH SCHOOLS. The development of the American high school, even in its home, was slow. Up to 1840 not much more than a dozen high schools had been established in Massachusetts, and not more than an equal number in the other States. The Academy was the dominant institution, the cost of maintenance was a factor, and the same opposition to an extension of taxation to include high schools was manifested as was earlier shown toward the establishment of common schools. The early state legislation, as had been the case with the common schools, was nearly always permissive and not mandatory. Massachusetts forms a notable exception in this regard. The support for the schools had to come practically entirely from increased local taxation, and this made the struggle to establish and maintain high schools in any State for a long time a series of local struggles. Years of propaganda and patient effort were required, and, after the establishment of a high school in a community, constant watchfulness was necessary to prevent its abandonment (R. 329).

[Illustration: FIG. 207. HIGH SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES BY 1860 Based on the table given in the Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1904, vol. II, pp. 1782-1989. This table is only approximately correct, as exact information is difficult to obtain. This table gives 321 high schools by 1860, and all but 35 of these were in the States shown on the above map. There were two schools in California and three in Texas, and the remainder not shown were in the Southern States. Of the 321 high schools reported, over half (167) were in the three States of Massachusetts (78), New York (41), and Ohio (48).]

In many States, legislation providing for the establishment of high schools was attacked in the courts. One of the clearest cases of this came in Michigan, in a test case appealed from the city of Kalamazoo, and commonly known as the Kalamazoo case. The opinion of the Supreme Court of the State (R. 330) was so favorable and so positive that this decision deeply influenced development in almost all of the Upper Mississippi Valley States. The struggle to establish and maintain high schools in Massachusetts and New York preceded the development in most other States, because there the common school had been established earlier. In consequence, the struggle to extend and complete the public-school system came there earlier also. The development was likewise more peaceful there, and came more rapidly. In Massachusetts this was in large part a result of the educational awakening started by James G. Carter and Horace Mann. In New York it was due to the early support of Governor De Witt Clinton, and the later encouragement and state aid which came from the Regents of the University of the State of New York. Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire were like Massachusetts in spirit, and followed closely its example. In Rhode Island and New Jersey, due to old conditions, and in Connecticut, due to the great decline in education there after 1800, the high school developed much more slowly, and it was not until after 1865 that any marked development took place in these States. The democratic West soon adopted the idea, and established high schools as soon as cities developed and the needs of the population warranted. In the South the main high- school development dates from relatively recent times.

Gradually the high school has been accepted as a part of the state common- school system by all the American States, and the funds and taxation originally provided for the common schools have been extended to cover the high school as well. The new States of the West have based their legislation largely on what the Eastern and Central States earlier fought out.