DR. THOMAS ARNOLD, OF RUGBY, ENGLAND.
(Courtesy of The School Journal, New York.)
The great achievement of the century in the United States has been the establishment of a system of free and public schools. Like most of the nation’s intellectual impulses, this spirit seems to have come from New England. There, the democratic ideals of the people led to an early appreciation of the necessity for universal education. There can be little doubt that it was from the Puritan settlements in Massachusetts that the original impulse toward universal education came. Thus, in 1647, the Colonial Assembly required that each town containing one hundred families should establish a grammar school to prepare youths for the university. During colonial times more and more schools were steadily established. But the movement, which was zealously supported in New England and encouraged in the Middle States, especially by the Friends, met with opposition in the South, where education was considered a family duty, and not within the province of the State. Whatever, therefore, was accomplished in an educational line prior to the Revolution depended upon the spirit of the individual colonies; consequently, there was the widest possible divergence in the policies and methods of different localities.
AN OLD LOG SCHOOLHOUSE.
But as soon as the Revolution had been accomplished, and independence had become a fact, a renewed interest in general education was evident. It is exceedingly interesting to watch the development of the point of view that free schools were a necessity for the existence of the republic, and hence must be established by the State. The early fathers of the nation were not slow to recognize this. In the words of Franklin, “A Bible and newspaper in every house, a good school in every district—all studied and appreciated as they merit—are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty.” “In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion,” said Washington, “it is necessary that public opinion should be enlightened.” And Jefferson, with his broad philosophical appreciation of democracy, started the battle against the ideas of Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, when, in 1779, he introduced into the General Assembly of Virginia a bill providing for the establishment of schools “for the free training of all free children, male and female.”
The half century from 1790 to 1840 is the period of the battle for free public schools. It was a hard fight, complicated in many States by local questions and conditions that rendered success almost hopeless. Some opposed from the old point of view that education was an individual matter,—each should get for himself just so much as was possible. Others raised the objection of cost,—if taxation was proposed, was it right to take money from one group to educate the children of another? Religious disputes hindered progress,—many of the denominations had founded sectarian schools, and were unwilling to see them replaced by public schools, where no creed would be taught. Especially, in some States, as in Pennsylvania, where Swede, German, Scotch, Irish, and English lived side by side, did the race problem enter as a perplexing element. Should any language other than English be taught? What respect should be given to the traditions and customs of each race-group? Moreover, when the conservatism began to yield to progress, it compromised with great reluctance. At first, provision was made whereby the children of the poor should have their school fees paid by the State. Then public schools were started exclusively for the poor, which were branded with the stigma of “pauper schools.” But these difficulties only served to increase the ardor of the public-school advocates, and at length their success was complete.
Some episodes of the struggle deserve special mention. Horace Mann (1796–1859) has been called the St. Paul of education in America. In 1837, the State Board of Education was created in Massachusetts, and Horace Mann was appointed its first secretary. For twelve years he labored with unflagging energy to build up the public interest in education. By speech and by pen, he awakened in his State an appreciation of the value of the public school system that has never since decayed. He established on an enduring basis the business side of education in the State, by systematizing the school funds. The personal sacrifice was enormous. He addressed public meetings all over the country. When he found that no arrangements had been made at Pittsfield to prepare the schoolhouse for his meeting, Horace Mann and Governor Briggs themselves swept out the building and set it in order. One of his first interests was the provision of good teachers. In order to spur the Assembly to its duty, he begged from his friends the sum of $10,000, which, with an equal sum appropriated from the state treasury, was used in the establishment of the Massachusetts normal schools at Lexington and Barre (1839). Outside of his administrative work, his fame must rest upon his stanch advocacy of the principle of “the obligation of a State, on the great principles of natural law and natural equity, to maintain free schools for the universal education of its people.”
In Pennsylvania, the hero of the battle for free schools was Thaddeus Stevens. In 1834, a law was passed by the legislature establishing a state system, and abolishing the distinction between rich and poor which had been noticed in the old pauper schools. Two years later, a determined effort was made by the combined forces of ignorance, prejudice, and caste, to repeal the act of 1834. Nothing but the stanchness of Governor Wolf and the power exerted by the eloquence of the “Old Commoner” saved free schools for the Keystone State, and so established the system which to-day receives more direct aid from the state treasury than in any other State of the Union.
West of the Alleghanies, the interest in popular education has always been deep and thorough. Settled in large measure by the steady sons of New England, education found there a most fertile soil. Moreover, by the wise foresight of Congress, provision was made for school funds in a most satisfactory way. The Ordinance of 1787, which organized the territory north of the Ohio River, contained a provision that one section of land in each township should be devoted to public education. If this grant, which was originally suggested by Jefferson, had been carefully watched, it would have been sufficient to endow the public schools of many Western States. The national government gave to education in the first hundred years of its history nearly eighty million acres of public lands, but these grants were not always conserved with sufficient care. In 1896–97 the total revenue of the school systems in the United States was $188,641,243, of which less than five per cent was from state school funds or rent of school lands, while over eighty-six per cent was derived from state and local taxation.