EDUCATION IN AMERICA: EARLY HISTORY

I. EGYPT

When people in the West think of education and the beginnings of education, they look back to Athens, in ancient Greece. Actually, some of the oldest writing in the world consists of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the Egyptian schools were the temples. The Greeks borrowed from the Egyptians through culture contact, as Egypt is far older than Greece. But the Greek debt to Egypt is often ignored and overlooked.

II. ATHENS

In any case, about 500 BC Athens was a city-state. There was the city with its wall around it, and it controlled farmland around the city. And the city had colonies overseas. It was a commercial city, near the coast, with a powerful navy. Athens was a hierarchical, stratified society. To say that it was hierarchical is to say that there was inequality. There was a "pecking order." Some people had more power and status than others. Some people were considered better than other people.

There were freemen, who were citizens, and had rights. The Athenians regarded non-Greeks as inferior. They perceived the Greek-speaking people as a distinct group, a people, a race, but based on language and culture, not color. There were slaves in Athens, at the bottom of the social pyramid. The slaves were purchased from other societies, and typically were captives of somebody's war.

There was also a class of people called metics. They could live in Athens or its territory. Often they were farmers or craftsmen or workers, but they could not be citizens. Metics, women and slaves were all regarded as inferior, and less than citizens. Therefore it is rather misleading to describe Athens as a democracy.

There was education in Athens, associated with Plato (b. 428 BC) and his Academy, and with his pupil Aristotle (b. 384 BC), who was the tutor to Alexander the Great. Education was for the sons of the wealthy, first and foremost. The ruling class and all freemen could receive an education. Aristotle believed that all citizens should have a basic education, but this excluded females, the metics, and the slaves. So what kind of democracy was that?

It was a democracy in the sense that there were elections to elect a committee of 500, to run the affairs of the city; and it was not a hereditary monarchy with a king or a pharaoh. So the idea of Athens as a democracy must be qualified. It was a very limited and exclusive democracy. Indeed, to portray Athens as a democracy may be a very over-rated idea that distorts history. Nevertheless, Aristotle emphasized an education that taught virtue and reason.

The sons of citizens attended school from age 6 to 14. Further schooling, from age 14 to 18, was available for those who could afford it. A few teachers would teach for free, such as Plato. The curriculum consisted of gymnastics, music, and literature. In Athens, education was for males only, and basically for the upper and middle classes. After age 14, most of the time, it was only for those who could afford it. So this raises the question, who is education for?

III. FEUDAL EUROPE

In Europe, after the fall of Rome (476 AD), Europe sinks into feudalism. To a greater or lesser extent, feudalism remains in place until the 1700s and 1800s in central and eastern Europe. Remember that the French Revolution does not erupt until 1789. Feudalism receded earlier in England.

Feudalism was a hierarchical system or social order that originally had two classes. At the top there was the aristocracy that owned most of the land. These people had been the conquerors, the warlords. When they conquered a society they confiscated the land. So they combined military power and political rule with economic power: they owned the land. The second class, at the bottom, consisted of the peasants. They worked on the land but did not own it. They were obligated to work for the landowners, and they paid taxes to their landlords and to the king. The king was really just the biggest landowner and warlord. So two classes, the landowning aristocracy and the peasants. This is an overwhelmingly agricultural model. Until the 1600s and 1700s the number of middle class merchants was miniscule. This class, the bourgeoisie, would become the businessmen; the people who owned stores and shops and engaged in retail sale, etc. this is the nucleus of a middle class. But a feudal society has no middle class. It is not until the rise of the industrial revolution that a sizable middle class or bourgeoisie emerges.

Noun: Bourgeoisie, the name of a social class, the middle class, not the upper class

Adjective: bourgeois (with the connotation of snotty or snobbish)

German equivalent "burgher," someone who lives in a city

In the European Middle Ages there was private education for the rich, and nothing for anybody else, except for a small handful of people at the monasteries run by the Roman Catholic Church. The language of learning was Latin, right down tot he 1600s.

IV. THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

But the Protestant Reformation began in 1517, and reformers began to demand that church services not be in Latin but in the vernacular languages of the people. So in England, they wanted the service in English. In Germany, they wanted it in German. If the service is in Latin and the people do not know Latin, then do they really understand what is going on? The Bible was translated from Latin into German and English in the 1500s, and in 1611 the King James translation was published in English. In this way the masses of the people could have access to it. Many Protestant denominations taught that people could have a direct, personal relationship with God, and they did not need a priest to hear confession and be an intermediary or middle man between them and God. So Calvinists, Baptists (Thomas Munzer, 1524), Quakers and similar groups did away with confession. But if people are going to have a direct relationship with God it might help if they can read the divinely revealed word of God. Therefore, from a religious perspective, these groups wanted people to be able to read.

The followers of John Calvin (1509-1564) are called Calvinists. Today, in America, they are called Congregationalists. Calvinism became established in Holland in the 1500s, where it is called the Dutch Reformed Church, and Calvin himself headed a theocratic state at Geneva in Switzerland (1541-1564). English Calvinists were called Puritans, because they said that they wanted to purify the Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church. Recall that henry VIII broke with the Pope and took England out of the Roman Catholic Church when the Pope refused to grant Henry a divorce from his first wife. Calvinism is distinguished by the doctrine of pre-destination. Everyone will not be saved. Some people have been chosen by God to be saved from hell and damnation, and some people have been pre-ordained by God to be damned. So you salvation or damnation is pre-determined. It is the will of God , and his will is inscrutable (beyond human understanding and scrutiny). At worst, in Calvinism, God is a cruel and vengeful deity, whom some would liken unto a pitiless monster. Baptists reject the doctrine of pre-destination, arguing instead that people have a free will, and can make a choice of whether or not to be saved, which is to accept Jesus as the son of God and Lord and Savior, and repent for their sins and seek forgiveness. Anglicans embraced a "soft" doctrine of predesitnation: we start out pre-ordained to be saved or damned, but God is sovereign and so He can change his mind if he wants to. If we lead a good life our good deeds might persaude God to change his mind (or vice versa).

V. PURITAN NEW ENGLAND

When the Puritans came to Plymouth, Mass in 1620, they brought with them the commitment to schooling for both boys and girls. In 1647 the Mass. colony adopted a law requiring that every town of 50 or more families hire a teacher to teach reading and writing, for six months per year. For the Puritans this was a religious imperative. By 1690 there was a colonial textbook, The New England Primer. Harvard College was established in 1636, Yale was established in 1701, and Princeton in 1746.

In 1789 the state of Mass. adopted a law requiring all towns of 50 or more families to provide an elementary school, for at least six months each year. Attendance was not required because it was customary for people to do so on their own. If a town had more than 199 families, it also had to provide a grammar school, to teach classical languages such as Latin.

Wealthy people had private tutors. The early public schools in New England were for "other people," but not African Americans (who had to establish their own Free African schools if they wanted education).

The early school buildings were cold, drafty, in poor condition. The teachers were not well trained. Attendance was voluntary.

As the nation approached the 1830s, the pace of industrialization increased, and immigration also increased. Most of the immigrants before the Civil War were German and Irish.

VI. HORACE MANN

The most important figure in education before the Civil War was Horace Mann. He grew up in a Calvinist family, but in 1809 his brother played hooky from church and drowned. The minister used this as an example of what happens when young people fail to honor their duties to church and God. Mann then left the Calvinist faith. He attended Brown College in Providence, RI. Mann became the executive secretary for the Mass. State Board of Education from 1837 to 1848. From that position he advocated reforms for public education. He promoted the idea of the "common school," common as in mutually shared. This was the idea that children from all social classes (Mann assumed whites) should be taught together so as to create a common or mutual or shared sense of loyalty and American identity and allegiance. Mann also believed that the schools should teach general Christian morality (such as the Ten Commandments), but not endorse any one particular denomination (such as Congregationalist, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc). The schools should promote equality, as in treating all students alike.

Mann drew inspiration from the example of Johann Fichte and Prussia, in Germany. The public school system there was called the volkschule, or people's school. Under the Prussian system, school attendance was compulsory. In other words it was mandatory, it was required, by the law, by the national government. The Prussian curriculum taught reading, writing, arithmetic, religion and patriotism in the volkschule, which was like elementary school. Then, in Prussia, after leaving volkschule, students would be sorted. Some would go on to a college preparatory school called a gymnasium, or a technical school to learn a trade. Some students would go to normal school to learn how to become teachers. A normal school was like a teacher's college or a teacher training school. Many would just go to work.

Mann liked the Prussian system and tried to introduce it in America. He was a critic of private schools because he said they promoted class distinctions, as in social class distinctions, where the elite became snobs and looked down on other people and felt that they were better than everybody else. This undermined democracy and the idea that we are all Americans, one people, one nation.

He also emphasized the need for good teacher training, and the creation of normal schools or separate schools for teacher training. The term "normal" in this context was borrowed from France, and implied something that was trained at a high level of excellence. At his urging, in 1838 the Mass. state legislature appropriated money and opened the first state normal school. By 1848 Mass. had opened four more. The normal school, for teacher training, became the model for the rest of the nation in the 19^th century. The strength of the normal school was that it placed emphasis on teacher training. The weakness was that it taught teachers HOW TO TEACH, but did not teach them to master a subject matter or discipline (such as math or English or history). Critics said that this approach trained technicians rather than scholars.

Another development that accompanied the rise of the normal school after 1838 was the feminization of teaching. Previously most teachers had been men. But females were paid less than men. Men usually received twice as much as women, sometimes even three times as much. Women had to be single, and were at risk of being fired once they married. Mann argued that women usually were better in the role of teacher than were men. He said that men were, by nature, rational, while women were more emotional. Men, being rational, were concerned about justice. This made them stern, and made them demand punishment and even vengeance. Women, being less rational and more emotional, were more patient and forgiving. They had a more loving disposition. They were more nurturing, and this was better for children and the process of learning. This may be a stereotype, but Mann said "woman, by her quicker sympathies, is the forechosen guide and guardian of children of a tender age." (Tozer, Violas, and Senese, School and Society, p. 68). Between 1837 and 1848, the percentage of female teachers in Mass. increased 35 percent (Tozer et. al, p. 69). Mann provided the justification for hiring women, and lent legitimacy to it. But it is possible that school districts preferred women because it was cheaper. Mann's rationale may have helped women to gain (poor paying) employment, but was it necessary to reinforce the idea that women were less rational than men? Did this stereotype help or hurt?

In 1848 Mann essentially argued that common schools were good for the business community. An educated workforce would be more efficient and creative. What employers heard was the idea that educated workers would be more efficient. They would do a better job of obeying and following orders, and obeying the authority of the boss. They would be more punctual and reliable, and less likely to be "unreasonable." Employers were encouraged to see the public schools as a means of socializing future workers for obedience and for factory life.

VII. CRITICS

However Mann had his critics. First, religious leaders such as the conservative Calvinist minister Frederick Packard condemned Mann for "taking God out of school." When Packard said God he meant Calvinism. The generic religion that Mann's public schools taught did not promote the Calvinist doctrine of pre-destination. Second, some critics were offended when Mann criticized traditional methods of corporal punishment and rote memorization ("recitation"). Third, Orestes Brownson, a Democrat, criticized the centralized state approach taken by Mann. Brownson favored democratic localism, where local school boards made the decisions and had the power and control. Mann's critics said that his reforms promoted government control of education (rather than local control) and education for social control.

VIII. IN ADDITION

In 1838 the first state normal school in the US was opened, in Mass.

About 1840, blackboards were introduced.

IX. CONTROVERSY OVER BIBLE READING

In 1852 Mass. became the first state to mandate compulsory school attendance. In time other states would follow. Interestingly, the motivation behind this was alarm on the part of Protestants in Mass. about the massive immigration of Irish Catholics, and concern that Irish immigrant children did not attend school. Between 1846, when the Great Potato Famine began in Ireland, and about 1851, more than 1 million Irish people migrated to the US. As early as 1844 the Roman Catholic Church objected to Bible reading in the public schools in cities such as Philadelphia. The controversy was over which version of the Bible to read from. The American public schools used the King James translation of 1611 rather than the Douay version used by Catholics. Bear in mind that the Protestant version omits seven books in the Old Testament that the Catholic version includes. Thus the Protestant Old Testament has 39 books, the Catholic Old Testament has 46. Protestants doubt the authenticity of these seven books and do not consider them divinely revealed or inspired. The omitted books are entitled Tobit; Judith;1 Maccabees: 2 Maccabees: Wisdom; Ecclesiasticus; and Baruch. The Catholic Bible also contains additions to the Book of Daniel, which are called the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon. Martin Luther, in the Protestant Reformation, said there is no such thing as a dragon, this is mythology and superstition, so this portion of Scripture cannot be divinely revealed, and threw it out.

The prayers that children said in the public schools were Protestant prayers. Catholic parents objected to their children being indoctrinated into Protestantism in the public schools.

The question arose, in the 1840s and 1850s, who are the public schools for? Some people (native born elites) said that the schools are for the benefit of the majority, which in 1845 meant white Christians, especially Protestants. They felt that the public schools should be for the (white) "majority," and voluntary immigrants had a duty to assimilate into the majority culture. The Irish Catholics, therefore, we seen as "not assimilating" to become Americans.

What the Catholics did was to establish a system of private religious schools, the parochial schools, to preserve their religion and their Catholic identity. Within the parochial schools, there developed individual parishes of Irish Catholics, German Catholics, Italian Catholics, Polish Catholics,etc.

Groups such as the Quakers (Friends), who were numerous in PA nd NJ, also established their own private religious schools.

Even from the colonial period, the German Lutherans in PA had their own religious schools. By 1830 there were 294 Lutheran churches in PA. two hundred and seventeen (217) of the 294 operated day schools. Lutheran children attended these private religious schools rather than the public  schools. In 1850 there were still 100 Lutheran schools in PA.

ChildrenJews and the eastern Orthodox populations would do the same thing.

In 1852 the Irish Catholics objected to the compulsory attendance law. Middle class families could afford the luxury of not having their children work. Working class parents who were poor needed the money that children and teenagers might earn.

By the 1860s the movement to establish the Catholic parochial schools was well under way. Kaestle (Pillars of the Republic; Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860) indicates (p. 171) that by the 1860s Mass. had fourteen Catholic parish schools, Connecticut had about 20, Wisconsin "about the same." In PA fourteen parish schools were established between 1830 and 1850. By 1860 Cincinnati had 17 Roman Catholic schools.

For more information, see Carl Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic; Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860.

By 1865, in Mass, seventy  (70%) of the population lived in a town with a public high school. By 1900, in Mass, 40% of the public school teachers had attended normal school.