Great American Educators
Barnard as Secretary of the Connecticut State Board.—Two years after Barnard’s return to Connecticut, he began his part in the educational awakening as Secretary of the new State Board of Commissioners of Common Schools, and undertook to do a work similar to that of Mann in Massachusetts. Throughout the eighteenth Untoward educational conditions in Connecticut, century Connecticut schools had been among the most efficient in the country, but since the income from the Western Reserve lands had begun in 1798, and especially since this had been increased by the United States deposit fund in 1836, public education had steadily declined. A state tax was still maintained, but all local effort was paralyzed through lack of exercise. Another factor in producing this decline was connected with the transferal of the management of the common schools from the town to the ‘school society,’ which was a species of district, almost identical with the parish of each Congregational church. The results of this ruinous policy had been revealed in an investigation made by the legislature, which showed that not one-half of the children of school and Barnard’s attempt to reform; age were attending the common schools, and that the teachers were poorly trained and supervision was neglected. Barnard at once began to urge many reforms, School Journal and in his reports and the Connecticut Common School Journal made suggestions for a complete plan of public and publication of educational material. education. He also began the publication of his rich collection of material bearing upon popular training at home and abroad. But he was more a scholar and literary man than an educational statesman like Mann. He succeeded in getting the legislature to pass several reforms and a general revision and codification of the school laws, and in arousing several towns to amend their educational plans, although the crucial difficulty of the ‘school societies’ could not be touched, and within four years the conservatives succeeded in legislating him out of office and in undoing all his reforms.
Commissioner of Common Schools in Rhode Island.—This gave Barnard an opportunity to pursue his favorite investigations, and for about a year and a half he was engaged in collecting material for a history of education in the United States. Then he was persuaded by the governor of Rhode Island to become the first Commissioner of Common Schools for that state. While he found in Rhode Island a better educational sentiment and less opposition than in Connecticut, the actual condition of the decentralized and individualistic schools was far worse (see p. 269). But, through his assemblies of Radical reforms accomplished. teachers and parents and his educational treatises, he soon began to convince the people of the unwisdom of district organization, untrained teachers, short terms, irregular attendance, poor buildings and ventilation, and meager equipment. He also continued to publish his collection of educational material through the foundation of the Rhode Island School Journal. As a result of his efforts, when failing health compelled him to resign in 1849, the state no longer regarded wilfulness and personal opinion as praiseworthy independence, and he could honestly claim that Rhode Island had at the time one of the best school systems in the United States.
State Superintendent of Schools in Connecticut.—But the clientèle that Barnard had built up in Connecticut continued his reforms and constructive work after his departure, and improved upon them. In 1851, they even succeeded in having him recalled virtually to his When recalled, carried out and extended his reforms. old duties. He was designated as State Superintendent of Common Schools, as well as Principal of the State Normal School, which had been established through the efforts of his adherents. The state had now learned its error in mingling politics with education, and Barnard was able to carry out his reforms unmolested. Through the normal school he sent out a great body of trained teachers. He revised the school code, checked the power of the ‘school societies,’ consolidated and simplified the organization and administration of public education, made a more equitable distribution of the school fund, and encouraged local taxation. But his most distinctive work, as might be expected, was on the literary side. He prepared a valuable series of documents upon foreign education, normal schools, methods of teaching, school architecture, and other topics, and a long report upon The History of Legislation in Connecticut Respecting Common Schools up to 1838.
Barnard’s American Journal of Education.—It was, too, during the last days of his Connecticut superintendency that Henry Barnard suggested the establishment of a national journal of education. He first broached the matter to the ‘American Association for the Advancement of Education’ at its meeting in Washington, December, 1854. But the association soon found itself Published at his own expense, unable to pursue this enterprise for lack of financial support, and in May of the next year Barnard began the publication of the American Journal of Education at his own expense. It was at first planned to run the journal for five years only, but, although the work was somewhat interrupted upon occasions by other duties, it continued for more than a generation, until at length in thirty-one large volumes and fifty-two special treatises, thirty-one large octavo volumes, averaging about eight hundred pages each, had been issued. In addition, fifty-two special treatises reprinted from articles in the journal brought the material together in a connected way. Besides giving nearly all his time to editing this magnum opus, Barnard sank his entire fortune of $50,000 in its publication. This great treasury of material includes every phase of the history of education from the earliest times down into the latter half of the nineteenth century. It furnishes accounts of all contemporaneous systems in Europe and America, descriptions of institutions for the professional training of teachers, and essays upon courses of study for colleges and technical schools, the education of defectives and delinquents, physical education, school architecture, great educators, accounts of educational history and systems, and other themes. and a large variety of other themes. While it is always most reliable in its treatises upon foreign education, of even greater value is its practical grasp of educational life in America from the beginning. It contains the greatest collection of interesting monographs upon the development of ideals and organization in the various states, and gives the most complete description in literature of the educational life of a nation.
First United States Commissioner of Education.—In 1867 Barnard was appointed the first United States Commissioner of Education. This office he had been constantly trying to have established ever since he had found, as Secretary of the Connecticut Board, how absolutely lacking the federal government was in school statistics and documents. He hoped that, through the agency of the government, facilities might be secured to collect and publish trustworthy educational statistics, and to issue a library of independent treatises. The bureau was not created for many years, and then through the immediate initiative of another, but when Barnard was called to the commissionership, he organized the office practically upon the lines he had previously suggested. While in office, suspended his Journal and embodied investigations in his reports. He suspended his Journal and used the product of his investigations in the annual reports of the office. He started that searching inquiry into the administration, management, and instruction of institutions of every grade, and into all educational societies, school funds, legislation, architecture, documents, and benefactions that has since been maintained by the Bureau of Education. However, within three years a change in politics brought a new incumbent into the commissionership, and Barnard gave his literary efforts once more to his beloved Journal.
Value of Barnard’s Educational Collections.—Hence, Barnard’s real life work may be considered the collection of a great educational compendium. By temperament, This life work marked him as leading representative of the awakening. native ability, and habit, he proved himself well fitted to be the leading representative of the literary side of the awakening. Through his work American education was, in its period of greatest development, granted the opportunity of looking beyond the partial and local results of the first half century of national life. It was enabled to modify and adapt to its own uses the educational theories, practices, and organizations of the leading civilized peoples, and to bring together for a comparative view sections and states that were widely separated. Barnard’s American Journal of Education was not intended to be a universal encyclopædia of education, but often includes a condensation of important works or a presentation of highly scientific methods and profound philosophic systems in popular form. It was not possible, either, to classify and work out a connected and complete historical account, when there were no reliable records or collections of materials in existence. It was necessary that some one should first gather the information from newspapers, pamphlets, memorials, monographs, and plans, and publish it as it was found. In this way he accomplished a more valuable work than if he had published a systematic history of education in the United States.
Educational Development in New England since the Revival.—This great storehouse of information published by Barnard and the virile efforts of Mann and other practical leaders were but prominent evidences of The ‘revival’ was general, but its results were most striking in New England. the progress that was at the time sweeping over the entire country. The educational awakening of 1835-1860 was general and proved one of the most fruitful in history. Its influence was felt in every state, and it led to the third period of American education, which has been characterized by the expansion of public schools and state educational systems. During this period new ideals of democracy have come to be felt in American education, and a rapid advance has taken place in the evolution of that unique product, the American public school. In describing this development, we may turn first to New England.
In Massachusetts Horace Mann has been followed in the central administration by a succession of seven scholarly and experienced educators, who believed as firmly as he that all stages of education below the college Development since then in Massachusetts in universal education and improved schooling. should be open at public expense without let or hindrance to the richest and poorest child alike. Since the revival the state has seen a steady growth of sentiment for universal education and improved schooling, and never again has such an upheaval of the educational strata been necessary. The income of the state school fund and additional appropriations have been steadily increased, their apportionment among the towns has been rendered more equitable from time to time, and an effort has constantly been made to distribute them in such a way as to encourage local effort and coöperation. The school term has been lengthened to ten months and the average attendance of pupils to seven years. The improvements in school buildings, sanitation, and equipment have Death of district system. steadily advanced. The district system died hard, and not until 1882 was it altogether forced out of existence.
Most of the academies, too, which proved such a hindrance to the development of public secondary education, gradually died or were merged in the public system Growth of high schools, superintendents, as high schools. By means of state aid, it has been possible since 1903 for the smallest towns to afford a high school training for their children at public expense. Supervision has also become universal during the past quarter century. Springfield first introduced a superintendent of schools in 1841, Gloucester in 1850, Boston in 1851, and the other cities much later, but since 1888, through increasing state aid and the combination of smaller towns into a district superintendency, expert supervision has become possible everywhere, and during and teacher training. the last decade it has been compulsory. The normal schools, which have now increased to ten, have brought about a striking improvement in teaching. It is practically impossible at present for an untrained teacher to secure a position in the elementary schools of Massachusetts, and, through a system of examinations and investigations, teachers of exceptional ability have, since 1896, been granted an extra weekly allowance by the state. Since the middle of the century, the state board has been permitted to appoint a number of agents, to assist in inspecting and improving the schools, especially in the smaller towns and rural districts.
Similar development in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and other New England states.
The course of development since the awakening has been very similar in the other New England states. The successors of Barnard in the central administration both in Rhode Island and Connecticut have been skilled and earnest educators, and, while their reports lacked his literary touch, they were of rather more practical character. Until 1856, Connecticut made no attempt to return from the parish to the town organization. Even then, as well as later, legislation on the subject was ‘permissive,’ and not until the twentieth century was the ‘school society,’ or district system, given up in half of the towns. In Rhode Island, even after Barnard’s reforms, almost one-third of the districts did not own their school buildings, owing to the survival of the method in use when the schools were private, but this condition has gradually been remedied. Likewise, the number of towns levying sufficient local taxes to secure a share in the state apportionment rapidly grew, and the state appropriation itself doubled and quadrupled within a generation. In Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, owing to insufficient wealth, infertility of soil, and sparseness of population, effective public education has been reached only by slow and cautious steps. But even these states have gradually centralized their educational administration through the abolition of the district system and the creation at various times of a state superintendent, a state commissioner, or a state board and secretary. This reorganization has been followed by increased state school funds and appropriations, more systematic statistics and reports from the schools, and great advances in universalizing and improving all stages of public education.
Influence of the Awakening upon the Middle States.—Although this awakened sentiment for education and progress in the common school has been most patent and spectacular in New England, it has not been peculiar Increased enthusiasm for public education in Middle states. to that part of the country. Nearly all of the other states seem to have felt the influence of the awakening. In close conjunction with the ‘revival’ in New England, the movement appeared in New York, especially the western part, and was more or less evident in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. But because of its cosmopolitanism and the need of fusing so many different political, religious, and industrial traditions, the older parts of New York, where the school system had until the awakening been rather in advance of other states, did not progress as rapidly in the development of public education as Massachusetts and Connecticut. It had, however, by the time of the Civil War, succeeded in working over its heterogeneous people into a unified civilization and in causing their children to be educated together for a common citizenship.
The most distinct advances during this period of final New York’s advances in normal training, supervision, and school funds. organization have been in the establishment of state normal schools, instead of subsidizing academies to train teachers, in the administration and supervision of the system, and in the methods of state support of education. The first state normal school was opened at Albany in 1844, and this pioneer institution has eventually been followed by ten others. In 1854 the state superintendency had once more been separated from the secretaryship of state, with which it had been combined for thirty-five years ([p. 259]). In 1856 local supervision was established through the appointment of school commissioners for the cities and villages. In the same year, a three-quarters of a mill tax was placed upon the property valuation of the state, and during the next dozen years many improvements were made in the disbursing and accounting of public funds. At length, in 1867, the long fight that had been made for entirely free education was successful. Until then nearly fifty thousand children had been deprived of all education, because their parents were too proud to secure payment of their tuition fees by confessing themselves paupers. It was during this era of progress, too, that New York City was, in 1842, allowed to place the direction of its schools in Board of education in New York City. the hands of a board of education, elected by the people, instead of giving over the city’s share of the state funds to a quasi-public society, controlled by a close corporation. For eleven years, however, the Public School Society refused to give up its work, but by 1853 it decided to disband and merge its buildings and funds with those of the city school system (see p. 261).
Pennsylvania was slower than New York in showing the effects of the educational awakening, but the leaven was at work. While a number of progressive governors and other statesmen continually recommended the development of public education, and the ‘Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Common Schools’ had been organized, the towering leader in this movement was Thomas H. Burrowes. As secretary of state and ex officio superintendent of schools (1836-1838), as a public speaker and educational journalist (1838-1860), and as state superintendent (1860-1862), he constantly urged a complete system of public education, the establishment of normal schools, a separate state department of education, and the organization of state and county Pennsylvania abolished permissive feature of its school law, supervision. In 1849 the ‘permissive’ feature of the law of 1834 was abolished, and the two hundred districts that had thus far refused to establish public schools were forced to do so under the new provisions. In 1854 a revised school law was passed, which, after twenty years, now made the state system of education complete. It established in the secretary of state’s office a deputy superintendent of schools, who had virtually a separate department, and provided for county superintendents. Three years later the state educational department became made state educational system complete, and provided system of normal schools. absolutely independent under the care of a superintendent, and provision was made for a system of normal schools. These institutions were to be established at first by private enterprise and without state subsidy. By 1877 there were ten in operation, largely maintained by the state. Three others have since been added, and the state has begun to take over into its own hands the entire support and control of them all.
Educational progress in New Jersey also took some Advances in New Jersey rapid, when once started. time to get under way, but when the reforms once started, they continued until an excellent system of common schools had been inaugurated. In 1838 the limitation of state funds to the education of the poor was removed, and the apportionment of the income from them was thereafter applied only to public schools. Since 1848, when a state superintendency was established, the development has been more rapid. County supervision has been introduced, state normal schools have been established at Trenton and Upper Montclair, and appropriations have been greatly increased. In 1911 a state commissioner of education with an efficient corps of deputies was provided. Delaware, on the other hand, failed to live up to the possibilities under her early ‘permissive’ laws. Even the organization of ‘the friends of common school education’ showed itself very conservative, and would not advocate the creation of a state superintendency or the establishment of state normal schools. In Delaware slower, but now making progress. fact, Delaware did not organize a complete state system until after the war. Even then, while a state board and state superintendency were established in 1875, there were no county superintendents, and when county supervision was introduced in 1888, the state superintendency was abolished. It was not reëstablished until 1912, but since then the state system has made evident progress.
Public Education in the West.—The budding of a common school system, which had just begun to appear in the new commonwealths of the Northwest before 1840, rapidly unfolded into full blossom during this educational springtime. Through this awakening the common In Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, opponents of public education overcome, and state system established. school advocates in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were greatly aided in their struggle to overcome the opposition of settlers from the states not committed to public education (see p. 272), and they were favored to some extent by accessions of emigrants from the home of the public school movement. During the decade just preceding the middle of the century, there was a decided elevation of public sentiment going on. Under the leadership of Samuel Lewis and Samuel Galloway in Ohio, Caleb Mills in Indiana, and Ninian W. Edwards in Illinois, the friends of public education had marshalled themselves for battle. Reports and memorials were constantly presented to the legislatures of these states, and public addresses in behalf of common schools were frequent in most large communities. A group of devoted schoolmen appeared, who were as successful in lobbying for good legislation as they were with institutes and public lectures. While reactions occasionally happened, like that in Ohio between 1840 and 1845, when the state superintendency was temporarily abolished, public education gradually came to be regarded as something more than merely free education for the poor, and public school funds were no longer granted as a subsidy to private institutions. After a quarter century of ‘permissive’ laws, local taxation and free common schools were fully realized in all three states early in the fifties. The contest, of course, was not ended, as reactionary elements, with selfish, local, and sectarian interests, still remained, but their contentions have never again been more than partially successful. New features of the common schools, such as efficient teachers for the rural districts, county supervision, state normal training, and free higher education in state universities, have gradually rendered the state systems more consistent and complete.
Michigan early provided for schools, and soon developed high and normal schools.
In Michigan, on the other hand, where there was not such a mixture of population, and a complete sympathy with the common school idea appeared, there was almost unhampered progress from the beginning of statehood. Under the first constitution (1837), there was provision made for a permanent school fund and for a local tax in every district, although the schools were partly maintained until 1869 by ‘rate bills’ collected from the pupils. In accordance with the grant of two townships of land by Congress in 1826 for a university, the first legislature of the new state established the University of Michigan ([Fig. 42]), and its doors were open to students in 1841. It soon became the most prominent of the state universities. There was also provided a system of ‘branches’ of the university, whereby a liberal grant was made for an academy in any county that would furnish suitable buildings and a sum equal to the appropriation from the state. As this proved a dissipation of the university funds, it was gradually stopped, and between 1852 and 1860 ‘union’ and high schools were rapidly developed to supply the means of fitting for the university. In 1850 a state normal school was founded, and four others have since been added.
Rapidity of development and triumph of common school idea in the West.
In all the other territory acquired or purchased by the United States in its westward expansion, the educational history has been very similar to that in the first states of the Northwest. Progress in common school sentiment has been made pari passu with the settlement of the country. Each state, upon admission, has received its sixteenth section of school land and two townships for a university, and in the states admitted since 1848 the endowment of schools has been increased to two sections, while Texas, which had been an independent republic (1836-1845), stipulated before becoming a state that it should retain sole possession of its public lands, and has set aside for education nearly two and one-half millions of acres. Hence in the first constitution of each state, permanent school and university funds, together with a regular organization of the schools of the state, have generally been provided. In few cases have sectarian interests been able to delay or injure the growth of common schools in any of the later commonwealths, and the interpretation of public education as schools for the children of paupers has never seriously influenced the West.
Organization of State Systems in the South.—Thus through the awakening of common schools that occurred throughout the union from 1835 to 1860 was the old-time country and city district school of the North gradually lifted up to the present system of graded free elementary, secondary, and normal schools, together with city and state universities. But these results were not at first as fully realized in the South, because of the approach and precipitation of the dreadful internecine conflict that weighed down and finally prostrated the resources of that section. However, except for this impending calamity, the conditions in the South were not essentially different from those in any other section. Awakening felt, but with approach of Civil War, During the earlier years of the awakening, and in some states up to the very verge of the Civil War, great progress in public education was noticeable. The attendance progress stopped, and facilities wrecked at close of the war. in the common schools, established in several states by ‘permissive’ legislation, had been rapidly growing for a score of years, and there was an increasing body of prominent men desirous of enlarging popular education. During the early forties there were many efforts and suggestions for a system of public schools, and several conventions were held in the interest of such institutions. North Carolina actually established a state system in 1839. Tennessee (1838-1843) and Kentucky (1838) made less enduring efforts toward a similar organization, and as late as 1858 Georgia took a distinct step forward in this direction. Moreover, even in their secession conventions some states, like Georgia, adopted resolutions or constitutional amendments looking to the education of the people, and North Carolina in 1863, with the union army actually at its doors, undertook to grade the schools and provide for the training of teachers. But, in general, as the impending conflict drew near, attention to educational progress was forced to give way to the preservation of state and home, and after the war, which crushed and ravaged nearly every portion of the South, educational facilities had for the most part been totally wrecked.
Nevertheless, in the end the war served as a stimulus to common schools. It brought about a complete overturn Need of universal education realized and struggles to attain it. of the old social and industrial order, and the South realized more fully than ever that it could arise from its desperate material and educational plight only through the institution of universal education. As early as 1865, school systems were organized in the border states,—Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia, and even during the harsh and unhappy days of ‘reconstruction’ (1867-1876), efforts were made in other states to build up systems of free public education. The organization of education became more thorough and mandatory than before the war. All children, white and colored, were to attend school between six and twenty-one, and the term was to last from four to six months each year. Property and poll taxation were established for the support of the schools. A state superintendent and state board of education, county commissioners and a county board, and trustees in each district, were provided for. Text-book commissions were often established, and free books were granted to poor children. The foundation for a real system was thus laid.
This was a tremendous undertaking, and shows the Obstacles that had to be overcome. greatest courage and executive ability upon the part of the South. Property had been diminished in valuation to the extent of nearly two billion dollars, and there were two million children to be educated. Moreover, under the reconstruction régime, the tax on property was often not collected, and the appropriations for education remained on paper. Indifference and inexperience were aggravated by the fear that ‘mixed’ schools would be forced upon the white population by a reconstruction legislature or a Congress with millennial zeal in behalf of universal brotherhood. These obstacles, together with misdirected effort upon the part of Northern missionaries, and other serious interferences, for fully a decade constituted an enormous stumbling-block. Several factors, however, aided and encouraged the South in its efforts. Of these the most important was the foundation Peabody Educational Fund and other encouragement. in 1867 of the Peabody Educational Fund of $2,000,000, well characterized as “a gift to the suffering South for the good of the Union.” This fund was placed in the management of the wisest and most sympathetic agents, who appealed to the higher sentiment of the communities and the states, and granted the assistance necessary to stimulate local effort in education. When the fund proved insufficient for the great task, the trustees pleaded with Congress for an additional subsidy, and made the whole country aware of the crying needs of education in the South. Through these appeals, more than ten million dollars from various sources have since been granted to the different grades of public education.
Despite the tremendous rally during the seventies, Struggle won by 1890 and constant progress since. however, the struggle for public education in the South was not won for twenty years, but complete systems of common schools have now at length been generally established. With the cessation of the reconstruction influence and the subsidence of the dread of mixed schools, attendance and appropriations have greatly increased, schools for the education of colored children have been furnished, and provision has been made for training and stimulating teachers of both races. Separate state institutions for higher education, cultural and vocational, have been established to furnish a broad education for both whites and negroes. Since 1890 there has been an ever increasing interest in improving the public school in all respects, and the expenditures and facilities for education have been constantly increasing.
Development of the American System of Education.—With its final development in the South during the last decade of the nineteenth century, the distinctly American public school system may be said to have been fully elaborated. The educational ideals and institutions imported from Europe in the colonial period have gradually been modified and adapted to the needs of America. Universal education, state support and control, high schools replaced academies, colleges non-sectarian, and state universities established. Schools have become public and free in the modern sense. The control of education has passed from private parties and even quasi-public societies to the state. The schools have likewise come to be supported by the state, and are open to all children alike without the imposition of any financial obligation. In secondary education, the academies, which supplanted the ‘grammar’ schools, first became ‘free academies’ and made no charge for tuition from local patrons, though remaining close corporations, and then were in time replaced by the true American secondary institution,—the high school (Fig. 41). Colleges became largely non-sectarian, even when not nominally so, and state universities were organized in all except a few of the oldest commonwealths ([Fig. 42]). Thus has the idea of common schools and the right to use the public wealth to educate the entire body of children into sound American citizenship been made complete. Although the system is still capable of much improvement, it is expressive of American genius and development. It is simply the American idea of government and society applied to education. It is the educational will of the people expressed through the majority, and the resultant of the highest thinking and aspirations of a great nation made up of the most powerful and progressive elements from all civilized peoples.