Expanding Public Education

Ch.8 section 2

Public EducationWilliam Torrey Harris

◦Public school reformer◦Believed education should prepare students for

employment and participation in a democratic society

Schools for children◦State laws required between 12-16 weeks of school

per year for children ages 8 to 14High Schools

◦Over ½ million students by 1900◦Curriculum now included science, civics, and social

studies

Public EducationRacial Discrimination

◦Black Americans were mostly excluded from secondary education

◦Those who did attend went to private schoolsImmigrants

◦Encouraged to go to school for the purposes of assimilation

◦Catholics set up their own school because public schools had children read from the King James version of the Bible

◦Henry Ford offered classes to his workers in English language and American government and culture

Changes in Universities

Industrial development changed the nation’s educational needs

Research universities emerged◦Courses included language, physical science,

psychology, sociology, law, and medicineSome colleges used entrance exams while

others accepted a high school diploma

African American Higher EducationHoward, Atlanta, and Fisk Universities

opened between 1865 and 1868Booker T. Washington

◦ believed racism would end once blacks acquired skills and proved their usefulness to society

◦Headed Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute- agricultural, mechanical, domestic

W.E.B. Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement which insisted that blacks should seek liberal arts education