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

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

NEW SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN THE CITIES. The many changes in the nature of industry and of village and home life, effected by the development of the factory system and the concentration of manufacturing and population in the cities, also contributed materially in changing the character of the old educational problem. When the cities were as yet but little villages in size and character, homogeneous in their populations, and the many social and moral problems incident to the congestion of peoples of mixed character had not as yet arisen, the church and charity and private school solution of the educational problem was reasonably satisfactory. As the cities now increased rapidly in size, became more city-like in character, drew to them diverse elements previously largely unknown, and were required by state laws to extend the right of suffrage to all their citizens, the need for a new type of educational organization began slowly but clearly to manifest itself to an increasing number of citizens. The church, charity, and private school system completely broke down under the new strain. School Societies and Educational Associations, organized for propaganda, now arose in the cities; grants of city or state funds for the partial support of both church and society schools were demanded and obtained; and numbers of charity organizations began to be established in the different cities to enable them to handle better the new problems of pauperism, intemperance, and juvenile delinquency which arose.

THE EXTENSION OF THE SUFFRAGE. The Constitution of the United States, though framed by the ablest men of the time, was framed by men who represented the old aristocratic conception of education and government. The same was true of the conventions which framed practically all the early state constitutions. The early period of the national life was thus characterized by the rule of a class—a very well-educated and a very capable class, to be sure—but a class elected by a ballot based on property qualifications and belonging to the older type of political and social thinking.

Notwithstanding the statements of the Declaration of Independence, the change came but slowly. Up to 1815 but four States had granted the right to vote to all male citizens, regardless of property holdings or other somewhat similar restrictions. After 1815 a democratic movement, which sought to abolish all class rule and all political inequalities, arose and rapidly gained strength. In this the new States to the westward, with their absence of old estates or large fortunes, and where men were judged more on their merits than in an older society, were the leaders. As will be seen from the map, every new State admitted east of the Mississippi River, except Ohio (admitted in 1802), where the New England element predominated, and Louisiana (1812), provided for full manhood suffrage at the time of its admission to statehood. Seven additional Eastern States had extended the same full voting privileges to their citizens by 1845, while the old requirements had been materially modified in most of the other Northern States. This democratic movement for the leveling of all class distinctions between white men became very marked, after 1820; came to a head in the election of Andrew Jackson as President, in 1828; and the final result was full manhood suffrage in all the States. This gave the farmer in the West and the new manufacturing classes in the cities a preponderating influence in the affairs of government.

[Illustration: FIG. 199. DATES OF THE GRANTING OF FULL MANHOOD SUFFRAGE Some of the older States granted almost full manhood suffrage at an earlier date, retaining a few minor restrictions until the date given on the map. States shaded granted full suffrage at the time of admission to the Union.]

EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EXTENSION OF SUFFRAGE. The educational significance of the extension of full manhood suffrage to all was enormous and far-reaching.

There now took place in the United States, after about 1825, what took place in England after the passage of the Second Reform Act (p. 642) of 1867. With the extension of the suffrage to all classes of the population, poor as well as rich, laborer, as well as employer, there came to thinking men, often for the first time, a realization that general education had become a fundamental necessity for the State, and that the general education of all in the elements of knowledge and civic virtue must now assume that importance in the minds of the leaders of the State that the education of a few for the service of the Church and of the many for simple church membership had once held in the minds of ecclesiastics.

This new conception is well expressed in the preamble to the first (optional) school law enacted in Illinois (1825), which declares:

To enjoy our rights and liberties, we must understand them; their security and protection ought to be the first object of a free people; and it is a well-established fact that no nation has ever continued long in the enjoyment of civil and political freedom, which was not both virtuous and enlightened; and believing that the advancement of literature always has been, and ever will be the means of developing more fully the rights of man, that the mind of every citizen in a republic is the common property of society, and constitutes the basis of its strength and happiness; it is therefore considered the peculiar duty of a free government, like ours, to encourage and extend the improvement and cultivation of the intellectual energies of the whole.

UTTERANCES OF PUBLIC MEN AND WORKINGMEN. Governors now began to recommend to their legislatures the establishment of tax-supported schools, and public men began to urge state action and state control. An utterance by De Witt Clinton, for nine years governor of New York, may be taken as an example of many. In a message to the legislature, in 1826, defending the schools established, he said:

The first duty of government, and the surest evidence of good government, is the encouragement of education. A general diffusion of knowledge is a precursor and protector of republican institutions, and in it we must confide as the conservative power that will watch over our liberties and guard them against fraud, intrigue, corruption, and violence. I consider the system of our common schools as the palladium of our freedom, for no reasonable apprehension can be entertained of its subversion as long as the great body of the people are enlightened by education.