Spread of schools;
Wilderspin’s first school was opened at Spitalfields, London, and soon attracted a horde of visitors. He then began lecturing upon the subject throughout the United Kingdom, often demonstrating his methods with classes of children he had taken along, and organized Infant School Society; infant schools everywhere. In 1824 an ‘Infant School Society’ was founded and through it several hundred schools were established. A dozen years later an organization for training infant school teachers, known as Home and Colonial Society; ‘The Home and Colonial School Society,’ was founded at London by Reverend Charles Mayo, D. D., and others. This society undertook to graft Pestalozzianism upon the infant school stock. While the combination resulted in some improvement of the infant schools, and real object teaching and sense training were more emphasized than they had been, the spirit of Pestalozzi was largely lost, and there was too much imitation of the formal instruction of older children, and there was an evident attempt to cultivate infant prodigies. Through these agencies infant schools spread rapidly in Great Britain, and were adopted as a regular part of the Part of public system. public system, when it was established in 1870 ([p. 388]). And four years later a marked advance was made through merging in them some of the methods and games of the kindergarten.
‘Infant Schools’ in the United States.—Schools open to all younger children also sprang up in the United States during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. For many years they were nowhere regarded as an essential part of the public school system, and were managed separately, but about the middle of the century they were generally united. In 1818 Boston made its Boston ‘primary schools.’ first appropriation for “primary schools, to provide instruction for children between four and seven years of age.” These schools were divided into four grades, beginning with the study of the alphabet and closing with reading in the New Testament. Besides reading, writing, and spelling, sewing and knitting were taught the girls. A formal course and the monitorial method were employed until about 1840, when the primary schools became largely inoculated with the informal procedure of Pestalozzi. The primary schools were for a long time under a separate committee, but in 1854 the management was fused in a general city board.
New York started an ‘Infant School Society’ in 1827. This organization opened two ‘infant schools’ for poor ‘Primary departments’ in New York. children between three and six years of age. One of these schools was located in the basement of a Presbyterian Church and the other in that of a monitorial institution belonging to the Public School Society (see p. 261). The Pestalozzian methods used in these infant schools greatly commended themselves, and in 1830 the Public School Society added them as ‘primary departments’ in all their buildings, but under separate management. A committee was appointed in 1832 to examine the Society’s schools and suggest improvements. Upon the recommendation of two of this committee, who had inspected education in Boston, primary schools were established in rented rooms in sufficient numbers to be within easy reach for the young children. The subject-matter and methods were likewise made less formal.
In 1827 three ‘infant schools’ were also founded in ‘Infant schools’ in Philadelphia Philadelphia and other centers of Pennsylvania through Roberts Vaux. By 1830 the number of infant schools in the state had risen to ten, with two to three thousand pupils. As the numbers would indicate, the schools were largely organized upon the Lancasterian plan. Two years later a model infant school was started in Philadelphia, and in 1834 six others were organized. By 1837 there were thirty primary schools in Philadelphia and other centers. alone. Several other cities started infant schools early. Hartford began them in 1827, and Baltimore in 1829. These institutions were in most cases fostered by the leading men of the community, and the ultimate service performed for American education by this form of philanthropy was considerable. Among other improvements, the infant schools developed a better type of schoolroom, secured separate rooms for different classes, introduced Improvements through infant schools. better methods and equipment, encouraged a movement toward playgrounds, and brought women into the city schools of the United States.
The Importance of Philanthropic Education.—Many other types of charity school arose during the eighteenth century both in Great Britain and America, but the chief movements have been described, and sufficient has been said to indicate the important part in education played by philanthropy. The moral, religious, Purpose, and economic condition of the lower classes had been sadly neglected, and by means of endowment, subscription, or organized societies, a series of attempts was made to relieve and elevate the masses through education. As a result, charity schools of many varieties and more or less permanent in character arose in all parts of the British Isles, the United States, and even location, France. In many instances the pupils were furnished course, with lodging, board, and clothes. The curriculum in these institutions was, of course, mostly elementary. It generally included reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic, while a moral and religious training was given through the Bible, catechism, prayer book, and psalms, and sometimes through attendance at church under supervision of the master. Frequently industrial or vocational subjects were taught, or the pupils apprenticed to a trade or to domestic service. The course was usually most formal both in matter and method, but occasionally in the later types drawing, geography, nature study, physical exercises, and games were added, and methods. and the more informal methods of Pestalozzi or Froebel were partially employed. Sometimes the training was especially intended for and adapted to children under the usual school age.
These efforts to improve social conditions by means Various sorts of opposition. of philanthropic education encountered various sorts of opposition. Often the upper classes held that the masses should be kept in their place, and feared that any education at all would make them discontented and cause an uprising. The poor themselves, in turn, were often suspicious of any schooling that tended to elevate them, and were unwilling to stamp themselves as paupers. Moreover, the sectarian color that sometimes appeared in the religious training not infrequently repelled people of other creeds or kept the schools from receiving their children.
However, this philanthropic education may, in general, be considered a fortunate movement, although its greatest service consisted in paving the way for better things. Paved the way for national and public education. In contrast to the negative phase of ‘naturalism,’ it represented a positive factor in the educational activities of the century. Instead of attempting to destroy existing society utterly, it sought rather to reform it, and when the work of destruction gave opportunity for new ideals, it suggested and even furnished a reconstruction along higher lines. Hence philanthropy in education exercised an important influence in the direction of universal, national, and public training for citizenship. It was in many of its forms merged in such a system in several countries, and in succeeding chapters references to the S. P. C. K., S. P. G., Sunday, monitorial, and infant schools will naturally appear.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. III; and Great Educators (Macmillan, 1912), chap. XII; Parker, Modern Elementary Education (Ginn, 1912), pp. 101-107. Allen, W. O. B. and McClure, E., have presented The History of the S. P. C. K. (Christian Knowledge Society, London, 1901), and Pascoe, C. F., Two Hundred Years of the S. P. G. (Christian Knowledge Society, London, 1898), while Kemp, W. W., gives a detailed history of The Support of Schools in Colonial New York by the S. P. G. (Columbia University, Teachers College Contributions, no. 56, 1913), and Weber, S. E., of The Charity School Movement in Pennsylvania (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania). Harris, J., furnishes a good description of Robert Raikes; the Man and His Work (Dutton, New York, 1899); Salmon, D., of Joseph Lancaster (Longmans, Green, 1904); Meiklejohn, J. M. D., of An Old Educational Reformer, Dr. Andrew Bell (Bardeen, Syracuse); and Salmon, D., and Hindshaw, W., of Infant Schools, Their History and Theory (Longmans, Green, 1904).