Public opinion and the teaching of history in the United States

by Bessie Louise Pierce

TEACHERS’ QUALIFICATIONS: OATHS OF LOYALTY

The fear of an apostacy on the part of the teaching craft led legislatures in this period to impose other than scholastic requirements upon those who would teach in the public schools. These regulations, indicating a distrust of the loyalty of teachers, have required oaths of allegiance from all who would qualify as teachers.

Legislation of this character was originally an outgrowth of the Civil War, the first laws being passed in 1862.[85] And it is not strange that the border state Kentucky was a pioneer in statutes of this character. Here the law was made to apply to all school commissioners, examiners of teachers for the common schools, and school trustees and teachers elected to teach in the common schools, all presidents, professors and teachers in colleges, and high schools incorporated by legislative enactment. It pledged loyalty to the Union and denounced the tenets of the Confederacy.

“I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of Kentucky,” vowed the applicant, “and be true and faithful to the commonwealth as long as I remain a citizen thereof. That I recognize the binding obligations of the Constitution of the United States and the duty of every citizen to submit thereto as the supreme law of the land. That I will not give aid to the rebellion against the government of the United States, nor give aid to the so-called provisional government of Kentucky, either directly or indirectly, so long as I remain a citizen of or reside in Kentucky, and that this oath is taken by me without any mental reservation—so help me God.” This oath, given in writing, was kept at the county court office where the school was located, and a violation of the oath or false swearing upon conviction, led to the imposition of a penalty. Evasion of the law, too, was subject to punishment through a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than two hundred dollars.[86] In 1889 it was made incumbent upon the county superintendent to administer such oaths.

Similar laws appeared on the statute books of West Virginia and Missouri, where, like Kentucky, these border states felt a pressing need for a loyal citizenry. On December 10, 1863, the former commonwealth declared that no applicant should be admitted to an examination for a teacher’s license unless the county superintendent had reasonable evidence that the candidate was not only “of good moral character and temperate habits,” but that he was “loyal to the government of the United States and of West Virginia.”[87] To buttress this law it was prescribed that all teachers should take the oath of loyalty required of all state officers. The latter regulation was operative after November 16, 1863, but no specific mention was made of teachers subscribing to such an oath until 1867. However, it seems probable that they, as well as state officers, affirmed their loyalty at the earliest period of statehood, since it is recorded that two teachers, J. B. Soloman and C. T. Wilson, in 1869, were exempted from subscribing to the oath prescribed in the act of 1863.

A statute, moreover, directly prescribed for teachers in 1867 the taking of the following oath: “I, A. A. B., do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of West Virginia, that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States, that I have voluntarily given no aid or comfort to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto, by countenancing, counseling or encouraging them in the same, that I have not sought, accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under any authority in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion.”[88]

The cessation of armed hostilities between the North and the South induced Missouri to require an avowal of loyalty on the part of her teachers. On March 29, 1866, there was approved a law by which “all teachers before entering upon the discharge of their duties should take and subscribe to the oath of loyalty prescribed by the constitution.”[89]

Regarding the lessons of the War, Arkansas, in 1866, believed there should be no disagreement. Here not only did the applicant for a teacher’s certificate swear to support the constitution and laws of the United States and Arkansas, but he also promised that he would encourage all others to do likewise. “... I will never countenance or aid in the secession of this state from the United States,” the affirmant declared, and added his pledge “to inculcate in the minds of youth sentiments of patriotism and loyalty.”[90]

Oregon also required a pledge of her teachers by legislation in 1862. Before the county superintendent of schools, disloyalty to the state and nation must be forsworn by the applicant for a certificate, who promised “without any mental reservation or evasion whatever,” that he would “bear true allegiance and fidelity to the same against all enemies, foreign or domestic.”[91]

Dissentient opinions received scant courtesy in Rhode Island at the time of the Civil War although no law forbade them. However, a warning from the state commissioner of education to the general assembly at the January session of 1865 undoubtedly evoked the same response as the enactment of a law. Here, too, there was to be no tolerance for a passive loyalty. “The war tocsin has sounded,” the report declared, “our country is convulsed in mighty conflict, our friends are in the contesting field, their blood has been made to redden and fertilize the rebel soil.... Traitors and rebel sympathizers are among us, rendering every available assistance and using every means within their power to further the rebel cause and aid them in the accomplishment of their hellish design. Therefore, let us be on our guard, lest some of them unawares be ushered into our schools as teachers. For if the teacher be a traitor, his actions will correspond therewith, and by example, if not by precept, he will be sowing the seeds of rebellion in the susceptible hearts of our children. Should the pure minds of our little ones be poisoned with the damnable principles of rebellion, or be led astray by the pernicious examples of rebel sympathizers? Shall the hand already stained with the blood of the murdered father, be employed to guide his orphan child?—the hand that applied the lighted torch, and made the orphan a homeless wanderer, shall that be the hand to trace the chart by which his little bark is to be guided to its destined haven? No, most assuredly, no. Better by far remain as he is, his untutored mind wrapped up in ignorance, than to be thus guided and piloted by the vile traitor, only to be finally dashed against the rocks and engulfed in the waves of rebellion. But let our teachers be noble, loyal sons and daughters of America—those who, while instructing our little ones in the sciences that pertain to the secular concerns of life, will also teach them their obligations to their country, and at the same time will point them to that never fading star by which their frail barks may be safely guided over life’s treacherous seas to the port of eternal rest, to gain that blood-washed throng who chant the praises of God and the Lamb from Mount Zion’s balmy top.”[92]