A student's history of education

by Frank Pierrepont Graves

CHAPTER XXI

THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION

OUTLINE

Between the ‘transplantation’ period and that of the purely American conception of education was a distinctive stage in American education,—the ‘period of transition.’

During this period Virginia and the other Southern states began to develop sentiment for universal education, and started permanent school funds and ‘permissive’ laws for common schools.

In the state of New York, appropriations were made for elementary education, but the public system was not really extended to the secondary field; while in New York City the way for universal education was prepared by quasi-public societies. In Pennsylvania, school districts were established at Philadelphia and elsewhere, but not until 1834 was the state system of common schools started. New Jersey and Delaware were even slower in getting their systems started.

The generous support of colonial education in Massachusetts was followed by a decline, and the control of schools was transferred from the towns to the districts. Academies were subsidized by the state and took the place of the grammar schools. A similar decline took place in the schools of the other New England states, except Rhode Island, which for the first time began to develop schools at public expense.

In the new states erected out of the Northwest Territory during this period there was a prolonged struggle to introduce common schools among those who had come from states not yet committed to this ideal, and state systems of education began to appear toward the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

Thus before the educational awakening spread through the land, a radical modification had taken place in the European institutions with which America began its education.

Evolution of Public Education in the United States.—We may now return to our discussion of education in America. It has already been seen (chap. XVII) that the organization of schools in the various colonies was largely the result of educational ideals and conditions in the Mother Country. At first the schools of America closely resembled those of the European countries from which the colonists came, and the seventeenth century in American education is largely a period of ‘transplantation.’ But toward the middle of the eighteenth century, as new social and political conditions were evolving and the days of the Revolution were approaching, there were evident a gradual modification of European ideals and the differentiation of American schools toward a type of their own. America has long stood, in theory at least, for equality of opportunity, and this conception of society is apparent in its views of education. The distinguishing characteristic of the American Transition to American conception began about the middle of the eighteenth century. schools has throughout been the attempt of a free people to educate themselves, and, through their elected representatives, the people of the various states have come, in harmony with the genius of American civilization, to initiate, regulate, and control their own systems of education. While the purely American conception of education cannot be fully discerned until almost the middle of the nineteenth century, there can for three-quarters of a century before be clearly distinguished ‘a period of transition’ from the inherited ideals to those of America to-day. This intervening stage of evolution covers roughly the last quarter century of colonial life and the first half century of statehood. To it we must now direct our attention.

Rise of the Common School in Virginia.—By the opening of the period, as we noted ([p. 193]), Virginia had voluntarily made a fair provision for secondary and higher education in various localities, but as yet no real interest in common elementary schools had been shown by the responsible classes. The nearest approach to such The ‘field school.’ institutions was found in the plantation ‘field school.’ Organized by a group of neighbors, these schools were supported by tuition fees and were not dependent upon any authority other than the good sense of the parents and pupils. But by the close of the Revolution a desire for genuine public education began to appear. The leader in the movement was the great statesman, Thomas Jefferson’s plan for universal education. Jefferson. As early as 1779, he first introduced into the legislature a scheme of universal education. His bill proposed to lay off all the counties into small districts five or six miles square, to be called ‘hundreds.’ Each hundred was to establish at its own expense an elementary school, to which every citizen should be entitled to send his children free for three years, and for as much longer as he would pay. The leading pupil in each school was to be selected annually by a school visitor and sent to one of the twenty ‘grammar’ (i. e. secondary) schools, which were to be erected in various parts of the state. After a trial of two years had been made of these boys, the leader in each grammar school was to be selected and given a complete secondary course of six years, and the rest dismissed. At the end of this six-year course, the lower half of the geniuses thus determined were to be retained as teachers in the grammar schools, while the upper half were to be supported from the public treasury for three years at the College of William and Mary, which was to be greatly expanded in control and scope.

This comprehensive plan for a system of common schools was, in the face of most discouraging opposition, constantly adhered to by Jefferson, although he did not live to see universal education an accomplished fact. He did, however, stimulate some movements toward this end. In 1796 the legislature passed an ineffective law whereby the justices of each county were permitted to initiate a school system by taxation, and in 1810 a Permissive law and ‘literary fund.’ ‘literary fund’ was established for public education. When, in 1816, this fund had been increased to a million dollars, those in charge of it recommended to the legislature the establishment of “a system of public education, including a university, to be called the University of University of Virginia. Virginia, and such additional colleges, academies, and schools as should diffuse the benefits of education through the Commonwealth.” This revision of Jefferson’s suggestion did not immediately result in any legal steps toward universal education, except the appropriation in 1818 of $45,000 from the income of the literary fund to have the poor children of each county sent to a proper school, but it did bring about in 1820 the foundation of the University of Virginia and a generous grant for the erection of a set of buildings. In the same year the effectiveness of the ‘permissive’ law for common schools of 1796 and of the appropriation act of 1818 was somewhat strengthened by the division of the counties into districts, among which the appropriation for education of the poor was distributed and managed by special commissioners.

While this law marked one more step in advance, it was hampered by several of the features that in various states continually delayed the establishment of common schools at public expense. In the first place, it was based on the conception of public education as poor relief, Hindrances to universal education, rather than universal training for citizenship. It was often viewed with hostility or indifference by the wealthy, who felt that they were paying for that from which they received no benefit, and with pride and scorn by the poor, who refused to be considered objects of charity. Moreover, the sum distributed ($45,000) was totally inadequate for over one hundred thousand children, and every variety of school, private as well as public, was subsidized without distinction. The system lacked a strong central organization, and the commissioners, often appointed by the county judges from the classes most opposed to the arrangement, were notoriously inefficient. The teachers also were generally incompetent, as it was practically impossible to persuade college or academy graduates to undertake the instruction of the poor. Nevertheless, under this apology for a people’s common school, the state went on for a score of years, and there was a steady growth in the literary fund, the appropriations, but gradual improvement. the length of the school term, and the number of pupils who were willing to take advantage of such opportunities as it afforded. State officials of wide vision, moreover, sought in every way to improve the teaching corps and the defective administration. While the great majority of the school children still attended the denominational, private, and ‘field’ schools (see p. 253), this system of subsidies was educating public opinion for something better. By the close of the first half century of statehood, while Virginia was not yet ready to establish a complete system of public education, we shall later (see [pp. 327]f.) find that the ground had been prepared for the development of common schools that was spreading throughout the country.

Similar Developments in the Other Southern States.—This advance toward the common school in Virginia is Maryland, typical of the South. The development in Maryland was very similar to that of Virginia. The state began to move slowly toward universal education by subsidizing the education of the poor (1816), and by the passage of a ‘permissive’ law for common schools in the counties South Carolina, (1825). In South Carolina an annual appropriation for ‘free schools’ was started in 1811. A law was passed establishing a number of schools in each election district equal to that of its members in the legislature and providing $300 for each school. But these schools were largely regarded as pauper institutions, and, because legislative representation was based upon property, the distribution of the appropriation was very inequitable, for the inland parts of the state, which most needed assistance, received least. Yet the amount of appropriation gradually increased, and sentiment for universal education steadily developed. Within the first half dozen years of statehood, Georgia began the provision of land endowment for schools, and the organization of a Georgia, state system under the title of the ‘University of Georgia.’ While the value of the land was too small to establish a genuine system of public education so soon, before the close of the transition period, a permanent school fund had been started, and sentiment for public education had North Carolina, begun to grow. North Carolina made even earlier progress toward common schools. The constitution of 1776 provided for the establishment of schools, and, by 1817, at the request of the legislature, Judge Archibald D. Murphy, a statesman with broad educational traditions, even formulated an elaborate plan for a complete system of public schools. This scheme failed, because it proposed to ‘maintain,’ as well as educate, the children of the poor. But the suggestions of the Murphy committee shortly brought about the establishment of a ‘literary,’ or common school fund (1825), the income of which was to be used for the support of public schools.

In the case of the other Southern commonwealths, which were admitted after the union had been formed, and afterward other commonwealths, had the beginnings of a state system; there was similarly a very gradual growth of sentiment for universal education. In every state there appeared an alliance between far-sighted statesmen and educators and the great middle class of citizens for the purpose of establishing common schools for all white children, and the old ecclesiastical and exclusive idea of education was beginning to fade. By the close of the first half century of national existence, a public system had not actually materialized in any of the states, but most of them had begun to create ‘literary funds,’ subsidize schooling for the poor, and enact ‘permissive’ laws for establishing public schools. Except in Virginia and South Carolina, provisions had been made for general administration in state, county, and district; and in North Carolina the organization of a complete common school system and the larger cities had organized their schools. awaited only a first hint of the great educational awakening (1835-1860). Moreover, most of the larger cities—Baltimore, Charleston, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Mobile, New Orleans—had already organized a regular system of public schools, and all of the older commonwealths had made some attempt at supporting a state institution of higher learning, which was virtually the head of a public school system. The various denominations had begun to found colleges in some numbers, but even these institutions were not so strictly ecclesiastical as William and Mary started out to be, and assumed a wider function than merely training for the ministry, while the aristocratic and classical ‘grammar’ schools had largely given way to the ‘academies’ ([Fig. 32]), which were nonsectarian, democratic, and more comprehensive in their curriculum.