Schooling in Colonial America

1600-1800

The Purpose of Education What does a person

need to know to be a productive citizen?

Religious training Upper class

College Working classes

Apprenticeships Farm labor

“on the job” training

Harvard 1726

Education was neither free, public, nor secular in the Colonies

Educational opportunities were stratified Class Gender Race Religion Region

Education served to retain the status quo Children were educated to

take their parent’s place in society

Tension American ideal of equal

opportunity for all

Southern Colonies A sharply defined

class structure Dispersed population Anglican church did

not put an emphasis on religious indoctrination

Belief that education was a private matter and not the concern of the state

Middle Colonies A diverse population

English, Dutch, German, French, Swedish

Catholics, Mennonites, Calvinists, Lutherans, Quakers, Presbyterians, Jews

Commercial interests An emphasis on vocational

education

Northern Colonies A fairly uniform

population Puritan New England

“Children are vipers and infinitely more hateful than vipers.”

Jonathan Edwards A Theocracy

The Construction of Childhood For the Puritans,

Children were miniature adults

Born in sin, they were vulnerable to Satan’s ploys

Thus, they need to be closely monitored

The Construction of Childhood

High child mortality led to more “objectification” than today

The Construction of Childhood

By the mid-19th century, childhood began to be thought of as a unique time in life.

“Adolescence” had not yet been invented, however.

The Emergence of Higher Education Harvard College

The purpose was to prepare young men, 13-18, in Biblical and classical studies

The goal was to produce a new generation to assume leadership in the church and commonwealth

College Life

Greek, Latin, Scripture Moral development

was as important as intellectual development

College was a “rite of passage” for colonial gentlemen.

“Caning” at Harvard

Colonial Schooling Private Tutors

Upper Class Dame Schools

Boys & girls Grammar School

Upper & Merchant Class

Mission or Charity School The poor

Private Academies Upper Class

College Upper Class

Dame Schools Taught by women in their

homes Open to girls Colonial “Day Care”

Education For The Wealthy Private tutor

Grammar school

Academy

College

What was a colonial education like? One-room log or

clapboard cabins Students aged 3-20 Teachers would “cite,”

students would “re-cite.”

Corporal punishment

Hornbook Paddle shaped board with

paper sheet attached Usually contained the ABC's

in both small and capital letters

Some Scripture

Hornbook They had been used in

Europe

Their use continued in the colonies because printed books and pamphlets were harder to come by.

New England Primer Calvinist Theology

Combined hornbook with authorized catechism

Secular materials Almanacs

Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanack”

Chapbooks Most were imported from

England

The National Era1780-1830

The Educated Citizen “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.” - Thomas Jefferson

The Founders were deeply influenced by Enlightenment thought

They believed that a republic could survive only if its citizens were educated

European Thinkers who influenced American Education John Locke

1632 – 1704 Tabula Rasa Children should learn

through their five senses (Empiricism)

Children learn through imitation

Children are rational creatures

Jean Jacques Rousseau 1712-1778

Critical of educational practice

Education should be consistent with the natural conditions of a child’s growth They are not ready to

deal with abstract ideas imposed upon them through books

European Thinkers who influenced American Education

Educating a New Nation Literacy prior to

the revolution White men White women Blacks

Slave Free

Native Americans

After the Revolution Economic changes

Commercial economy

Improved transportation

A more mobile society meant a need for improved communication

After the Revolution Political changes

Political, economic theory

Locke Rousseau

Calls to action Pamphlets

Common Sense Broadsides Newspapers

A Republic demands an educated citizenry

The task was to build a nation out of 13 colonies

Eliminate all things British

Thomas Jefferson History instead of

Scripture “Geniuses raked

from the rubble” “The people are

the only safe depositories”

University of Virginia

Noah Webster Connecticut

teacher Goal- eliminate

British textbooks

Noah Webster Blueback speller Became

America’s greatest lexicographer

The first American Dictionary

Benjamin Rush Founder of Dickenson

College “Thoughts upon the

mode of education proper in a republic”

“Thoughts upon female education” Among the first to

advocate education for females

But, separate, not equal

Benjamin Rush Jefferson’s

personal physician Gave medical

advice to Meriwether Lewis prior to the Lewis and Clark expedition Rush’s “

Thunderclappers” Invented “

the tranquilizing chair”

The Impact of Immigration and Industrialization

The Lancastrian system

A course of study Units of work

Textbooks McGuffy readers Blueback spellers

The Lancasterian System System of education in which children

could be educated very cheaply One teacher was in charge of large

numbers of students Monitors were used as a method of

"crowd control," hence the schools came also to be known as monitorial schools.

More advanced students had the responsibility of assisting in teaching those students below them

The McGuffy Reader The most popular schoolbook in the

nineteenth century was the McGuffey Reader, introduced in 1836.

Based on landmarks of world literature, the set of six readers, which increased in difficulty, were the basis for teaching literacy, as well as basic values such as honesty and charity.

The readers gave the teacher flexibility she lacked before, allowing her to more easily teach a classroom of pupils of different ages and levels.

Tens of millions of copies were sold in the nineteenth century.

In rural America the McGuffey Reader was often the only exposure people had to world literature.

The Common School

1830-1890

A Time of Unprecedented ChangeTerritorial expansionDramatic Population GrowthCivil WarIndustrializationUrbanizationSocial Reform

Jacksonian Democracy The era of the

Common Man Universal Manhood

Suffrage Local Control

A new Working Class Immigration Urbanization Industrialization

Social Problems Industrial revolution

Textile industryLowell

Massachusetts Immigration

Potato famine in Ireland

Gap between classes

Reform MovementsAbolition of

slavery Concord Mass. Henry Ward

Beecher

Reform MovementsWomen’s Suffrage

Susan B. Anthony Lucretia Mott The Grimke Sisters Elizabeth Cady

Stanton

Reform MovementsTemperance

WCTU

Reform MovementsReform of

PrisonsMental

Institutions Dorothea Dix

Reform MovementsWas the Goal . .

.Social Justice?Social Control?Both?

The Common School Movement New England

Beginnings Ralph Waldo

Emerson Transcendentalism Every human has a

“Spark of the Divine”

We have a moral obligation to help others

Education is liberating

Monitorial (Lancasterian) System Economical

1 teacher and up to 300 students

Rote memorization Considered suitable

for working class children

Catherine Beecher and the Common School Daughter of Henry

Ward Beecher Sister of Harriet

Beecher Stowe Founded

Hartford Female Seminary

Western Institute for Women

Horace Mann and the Common School

Horace Mann First state Secretary of

Education in Massachusetts

He was a reformer. Led the fight for:

Railroads Insane asylums

Horace Mann In 1837 he ended his

law practice and became Massachusett’s first Secretary of Education

Horace MannThe state takes better

care of its livestock that it does of its children.”

Horace Mann“Common schools would

serve all boys and girls and teach a common body of knowledge that would give each student an equal chance in life.”

“It is a free school system that knows no distinction of rich and poor. . . It throws open its doors and spreads the table of its bounty for all children of the state.”

Horace Mann“ Education then,

beyond all other devices of human origin, is the equalizer of the conditions of men, the great balance wheel of the social machinery.”

Henry Barnard and the Common School First U. S. Commissioner

of Education His goal was for America

to create: “Schools good enough for

the best and cheap enough for the poorest.”

Characteristics of the Common School Funded by local property

taxes Available for all white

children No tuition charges Governed by local school

committees (boards) Regulated by the States

Opposition to common schools

A system funded by state tax dollars Irish Catholics

They were expected to attend schools that were anti-catholic

The Great School Debates Bishop John Hughes

We will not send our children where they will be trained without religion, lose respect for their parents and the faith of their fathers and come out turning up their noses at the name of Catholic. . . In a word, give us our just proportion of the common school fund.

The Great School Debates New York Herald

Once we admit that the Catholics have a right to a portion of the school fund, every other sect will have the same. . . We shall be convulsed with endless jarrings and quarrels about the distribution of it and little left for the public schools.”

The Parochial School Movement

The Kalamazoo Case