The Spirit of America

by Henry Van Dyke

The States which entered the Union later brought with them the same feeling of local pride and responsibility. Ohio with its New England traditions, Kentucky with its Southern traditions, Michigan with its large infusion of French blood and thought, Wisconsin with its vigorous German and Scandinavian element,—each of these communities felt competent and in honour bound to attend to its own educational affairs. So far as the establishment and control of schools, colleges, and universities is concerned, every State of the Union is legally as independent of all the other States as if they were separate European countries like France and Germany and Switzerland. Therefore, we may say that the American system of education is not to have a system.

But if we stop here, we rest upon one of those half-truths which are so dear to the pessimist and the satirist. The bare statement that there is no national system of education in America by no means exhausts the subject. Taken by itself, it gives a false impression. Abstract theory and formal regulation are not the only means of unification. Nature and human nature have their own secrets for creating unity in diversity. This is the process which has been at work in American education.

First of all, there has been a general agreement among the States in regard to the vital necessity of education in a republic. The constitution of Massachusetts, adopted in 1780, reads thus: “Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this Commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them, especially the university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality, in their dealings, sincerity, good humour, and all social affections and generous sentiments among the people.” After such a sentence, one needs to take breath. It is a full programme of American idealism, written in the English of the eighteenth century, when people had plenty of time. The new constitution of North Carolina adopted in 1868 puts the same idea in terse modern style: “The people have the right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain that right.” You will find the same principle expressed in the constitutions of all the American commonwealths.

In the next place, the friendly competition and rivalry among the States produced a tendency to unity in education. No State wished to be left behind. The Southern States, which for a long time had neglected the matter of free common schools, were forced by the growth of illiteracy, after the Civil War, to provide for the schooling of all their children at public expense. The Western States, coming into the Union one by one, had a feeling of pride in offering to their citizens facilities for education which should be at least equal to those offered in “the effete East.” It is worthy of note that the most flourishing State Universities now are west of the Alleghanies. The only States which have more than 90 per cent of the children from five to eighteen years of age enrolled in the common schools are Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and Washington,—all in the far West.

Furthermore, the free intercourse and exchange of population between the States have made for unity in the higher education. Methods which have proved successful in one community have been imitated and adopted in others. Experiments tried at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Columbia have been repeated in the West and South. Teachers trained in the older colleges have helped to organize and develop the new ones.

Nor has this process of assimilation been confined to American ideas and models. European methods have been carefully studied and adapted to the needs and conditions of the United States. I happen to know of a new Institute of Technology which has been recently founded in Texas by a gift of eight millions of dollars. The president-elect is a scientific man who has already studied in France and Germany and achieved distinction in his department. But before he touches the building and organization of his new Institute, he is sent to Europe for a year to see the oldest and the newest and the best that has been done there. In fact, the Republic of Learning to-day is the true Cosmopolis. It knows no barriers of nationality. It seeks truth and wisdom everywhere, and wherever it finds them, it claims them for its own.

The spirit of voluntary coöperation for the promotion of the common order, of which I spoke in a previous lecture, has made itself felt in education by the formation of Teachers’ Associations in the various States, and groups of States, and by the foundation of the National Educational Association, a voluntary body incorporated in the District of Columbia, “to elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching, and to promote the cause of education in the United States.”

Finally, while there is no national centre of authority for education in the United States, there is a strong central force of encouragement and enlightenment. The Federal Government shows its interest in education in several ways: First, in the enormous grants of public lands which it has made from the beginning for the endowment of common schools and higher institutions in the various States.

Second, in the control and support of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy at Annapolis, the Indian Schools, the National Museum, and the Congressional Library, and in the provision which it makes for agricultural and mechanical schools in different parts of the country. The annual budget for these purposes runs from twelve to twenty millions of dollars a year.

Third, in the establishment of a National Bureau of Education which collects statistics and information and distributes reports on all subjects connected with the educational interests of America. The Commissioner at the head of this bureau is a man of high standing and scholarship. He is chosen without reference to politics, and holds his office independent of party. He has no authority to make appointments or regulations. But he has a large influence, through the light which he throws upon the actual condition of education, in promoting the gradual and inevitable process of unification.