In Philadelphia three Infant-School Societies were founded in 1827-28, and such schools were at once established there. By 1830 the directors of the school system had been permitted by the legislature of the State to expend public money for such schools, and thirty such, under women teachers, were in operation in the city by 1837.
[Illustration: FIG. 198. EVOLUTION OF THE ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF THE
AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM]
PRIMARY EDUCATION ORGANIZED. The Infant-School idea was soon somewhat generally adopted by the Eastern cities, and changed somewhat to make of it an American primary school. Where children had not been previously admitted to the schools without knowing how to read, as in Boston, they supplemented the work of the public schools by adding a new school beneath. Where the reverse had been the case, as in New York City, the organization of Infant Schools as Junior Departments enabled the existing schools to advance their work. Everywhere it resulted, eventually, in the organization of primary and grammar school departments, often with intermediate departments in between, and, with the somewhat contemporaneous evolution of the first high schools, the main outlines of the American free public-school system were now complete.
These four important educational movements—the secular Sunday School, the semi-public city School Societies, the Lancastrian plan for instruction, and the Infant-School idea—all arising in philanthropy, came as successive educational ideas to America during the first half of the nineteenth century, supplemented one another, and together accustomed a new generation to the idea of a common school for all.
III. SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMIC INFLUENCES
It is hardly probable, however, that these philanthropic efforts alone, valuable as they were, could have resulted in the great American battle for tax-supported schools, at as early a date as this took place, had they not been supplemented by a number of other movements of a social, political, and economic character which in themselves materially changed the nature and direction of our national life. The more important of these were: (1) The rise of cities and of manufacturing, (2) the extension of the suffrage, and (3) the rise of new class-demands for schools.
GROWTH OF CITY POPULATION AND MANUFACTURING. At the time of the inauguration of the National Government nearly every one in America lived on the farm or in some little village. The first forty years of the national life were essentially an agricultural and a pioneer period. Even as late as 1820 there were but thirteen cities of 8000 inhabitants or over in the whole of the twenty-three States at that time comprising the Union, and these thirteen cities contained but 4.9 per cent of the total population of the Nation.
After about 1825 these conditions began to change. By 1820 many little villages were springing up, and these frequently proved the nuclei for future cities. In New England many of these places were in the vicinity of some waterfall, where cheap power made manufacturing on a large scale possible. Lowell, Massachusetts, which in 1820 did not exist and in 1840 had a population of over twenty thousand people, collected there largely to work in the mills, is a good illustration. Other cities, such as Cincinnati and Detroit, grew because of their advantageous situation as exchange and wholesale centers. With the revival of trade and commerce after the second war with Great Britain the cities grew rapidly both in number and size.
The rise of the new cities and the rapid growth of the older ones materially changed the nature of the educational problem, by producing an entirely new set of social and educational conditions for the people of the Central and Northern States to solve. The South, with its plantation life, negro slavery, and absence of manufacturing was largely unaffected by these changed conditions until well after the close of the Civil War. In consequence the educational awakening there did not come for nearly half a century after it came in the North. In the cities in the coast States north of Maryland, but particularly in those of New York and New England, manufacturing developed very rapidly. Cotton-spinning in particular became a New England industry, as did also the weaving of wool, while Pennsylvania became the center of the iron manufacturing industries. [7]
The development of this new type of factory work meant the beginnings of the breakdown of the old home and village industries, the eventual abandonment of the age-old apprenticeship system (Rs. 200, 201), the start of the cityward movement of the rural population, and the concentration of manufacturing in large establishments, employing many hands to perform continuously certain limited phases of the manufacturing process. This in time was certain to mean a change in educational methods. It also called for the concentration of both capital and labor. The rise of the factory system, business on a large scale, and cheap and rapid transportation, all combined to diminish the importance of agriculture and to change the city from an unimportant to a very important position in our national life. The 13 cities of 1820 increased to 44 by 1840, and to 141 by 1860. There were four times as many cities in the North, too, where manufacturing had found a home, as in the South, which remained essentially agricultural.