Download Common School Movement - SelectedWorks

Liberty Univeristy
From the SelectedWorks of Samuel J. Smith
2015
Common School Movement
Samuel J. Smith, Liberty University
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/samuel_smith/57/
THE COMMON SCHOOL MOVEMENT
The unpublished manuscript below was written as a script for a video lecture for an online course. It is written in an
informal voice and does not include citations or references. Sources for the information contained in this manuscript
may be found in the bibliography available by clicking here.
“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
This quote by Horace Mann has challenged many to take on a cause and to see it through.
Horace Mann’s cause was the common school movement. Many claim that, were it not for
Mann’s skillful politicking and persuasive arguments, there would be no free public schooling in
the United States today. Movements, however,—though often led by an individual—rarely
occur simply because an individual person wished them to be so, and this was also true with the
common school movement. Although there is no denying that Mann played an extremely
significant role as Secretary to the Board of Education in Massachusetts, state legislator, U.S.
Congressman, and editor of The Common School Journal—there were plenty of other people and
other factors that played into the momentum that brought about the common school movement.
Reformation Influence
Three centuries before Horace Mann, the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther proposed a
free educational system for all. Driven by a doctrine called “the priesthood of all believers” or
“the universal priesthood,” Luther believed that it was wrong for clergy to be educated while the
masses were so illiterate that they could not read the Bible for themselves. Had they been able to
read Scripture, Luther argued, abuses of the church—such as the sale of indulgences and the call
to fight in crusades—would have ended by revolt of those who knew the truth for themselves.
Thus Luther’s emphasis on universal literacy through mass education.
This same doctrine of the universal priesthood was espoused by John Calvin, whose
influence was strong on the Puritans who founded Massachusetts Bay Colony. This influence
led them to pass the first compulsory education law in 1647 called The Old Deluder Satan Act.
It required towns of 50 families to hire a teacher. Towns of 100 families were to start a school
that would prepare students for the university. The Old Deluder Satan Act established in the
northern colonies a tradition of education and literacy that carried into the National Period.
Jeffersonian Influence
Another advocate for free public education was Thomas Jefferson. As Representative to
the Virginia House of Delegates and later as Governor of Virginia, Jefferson proposed a Bill for
the More General Diffusion of Knowledge. Unfortunately, the bill was repeatedly rejected by the
Virginia legislature. While Luther and the Puritans were driven by doctrinal convictions,
Jefferson was motivated by his philosophical belief in meritocracy over aristocracy. He
envisioned a nation ruled by those who had the opportunity to advance through hard work and
education rather than by those who had been born into an aristocratic ruling class.
Historical Context
It was into this fledgling nation that Horace Mann was born in 1796. He grew up
watching the nation grapple with its identity, not merely as a political entity but also as a moral,
ethical, and religious people. In addition to building a distinct government structure, the United
States was distinguishing itself from Great Britain with Noah Webster’s lexicon and with
Benjamin Franklin’s practical philosophy. Jonathan Edwards’ preaching had sparked the First
Great Awakening in colonial Massachusetts, laying a foundation of Puritan and Calvinist
principles for the imminent nation, and currents of the Second Great Awakening were well
underway. Stoked by increasing spiritual sensibilities, reform movements were set aflame and
burning brighter: abolition, women’s rights, temperance, treatment of the mentally ill, and
education.
Northwest Ordinances
Although the Constitution did not make any provision for education, a series of
Northwest Ordinances made it clear that education was important to this early nation. For
example, the 1785 Ordinance required townships in the Northwest Territory to be divided into
quadrants of six square miles each, with Lot #16 being set aside for the purpose of public
schools. The 1787 Ordinance not only prohibited slavery but also stated, “Religion, morality,
and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and
the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” So, the federal government was paving the
way for the common school movement that would occur decades later and would be embraced
state by state.
Other Mass Education Movements
Sunday school movement. Before the common school movement, there were other
efforts toward mass education. One such effort was the Sunday school movement, which
journalist Robert Raikes began in England in the mid-18th century as a proactive measure against
childhood crime and poverty in urban centers. Raikes believed that education could help prevent
crime and poverty, but because so many children worked in factories for long days Monday
through Saturday, the only practical time to teach them basic literacy would be on Sundays. He
recruited church volunteers to serve as teachers and scheduled the class sessions before or after
worship services. The concept quickly spread to the United States, providing basic literacy and
education in morality and Christian doctrine.
Monitorial schools. Another effort at mass education that began in England and quickly
spread to the U.S. was the monitorial system, which was also known as mutual instruction or the
Lancaster Model. In monitorial schools, one teacher would introduce a particular skill to older
or more advanced students who would in turn teach the skill to a group of younger or less skilled
students. The model caught on quickly because it was an extremely inexpensive method to teach
a large number of students. In the words of New York Governor DeWitt Clinton in 1809,
When I perceive one great assembly of a thousand children, under the eye of a single
teacher, marching, with unexampled rapidity and with perfect discipline, to the goal of
knowledge, I confess that I recognize in Lancaster the benefactor of the human race. I
consider his system as creating a new era in education, as a blessing sent down from
heaven to redeem the poor and distressed of this world from the power and dominion of
ignorance.
Monitorial schools were eventually displaced in the United States by the Common School
Movement.
Common School Movement
Horace Mann: Vocal Advocate
Horace Mann’s metaphor for education was that of a balance wheel. He said,
“Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the
conditions of men—the balance-wheel of the social machinery.” He spoke of a utopian society
in which the more schools there were, the fewer prisons we would need. Common schools
would not only reduce crime and eliminate poverty, they would distinguish this new nation from
its mother country by providing opportunity for social mobility from one class to another.
One of the challenges that Mann faced was that—in order for his proposal to work—
citizens would be required to pay for the education of other people’s children. His role was to
persuade them that it would be to their benefit and to the benefit of the social order as a whole to
provide free education for all. As an articulate, eloquent, popular speaker, Horace Mann was
able to appeal to a common desire to reduce crime and poverty and also to assimilate
immigrants, Native-Americans, and freed African-Americans into a common national identity.
The metaphor that was often used for this idea was that of the melting pot.
The melting pot metaphor has been problematic in many ways over time, but it was
immediately problematic for the new wave of Catholic immigrants. Their perception was that
American schools were so steeped in Protestantism that their Catholic heritage would melt away
if they enrolled their children into these new public schools. So a system of Catholic private
schools soon was established.
One of Mann’s great compromises was over the role of religion in public schools.
Though brought up in strict Orthodox Calvinism, Mann had converted to Unitarianism and was
caught up in an internal as well as a societal conflict between the two. His answer was that a
nonsectarian form of biblical teaching would be presented in the schools as a means to teach
morality. This compromise satisfied most people, except for those who wanted no religion at all
or those who believed that doctrinal catechisms were necessary for any meaningful teaching of
religion.
William McGuffey: Curriculum Writer
Because the common school movement was a state-by-state issue rather than a federal
issue, it was important that others take up the baton for the cause to spread nationally. William
McGuffey was one of these. A Presbyterian minister and college professor, McGuffey lobbied
Ohio and Virginia legislatures to adopt Mann’s model for common schools. He also authored a
series of readers that sold over 120 million copies over a span of 70 years. No other textbook
series before or after has held such prominence in the public schools. The McGuffey Eclectic
Readers, Webster’s Blue-Backed Speller, and the Bible were the most prominent textbooks in
early common schools, reflecting the moral tone of the time while also shaping it into the fabric
of American society.
Catherine Beecher: Women as the Teaching Force
While Mann fought politically for financing and for infrastructure of the common school
and while McGuffey provided a practical curriculum tool for the classroom, Catherine Beecher
advocated for the teaching positions in these new common schools to be filled by women. Like
McGuffey, Catherine’s father Lyman Beecher was a Presbyterian minister. Their families were
friends and fellow proponents of moral education being taught in the common schools. Like
Mann, the Beecher family were abolitionists who joined forces with him in the belief that
education would serve as a tool eventually to bring about the abolition of slavery.
Until the common school movement, most teachers had been men. So, the feminization
of teaching could be credited to or blamed on Catherine Beecher, depending on one’s view.
Beecher could by no means be confused with a feminist according to today’s standards. She was
against women’s suffrage, thinking that involvement in politics would corrupt women. Women,
she believed, were moral compasses for society and were uniquely suited as teachers and
mothers. Their education, then, should prepare them to be moral leaders of children in the home
and in the school. She promoted normal schools and encouraged graduates to consider acquiring
teaching jobs in the developing Western Frontier where they could bring a mediating influence
morally.
The titles of some of her written works give insight into her views about the role of
women in society:
•
A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at
School
•
Woman’s Profession as Mother and Educator, with Views in Opposition to
Woman Suffrage
•
Housekeeper and Healthkeeper
Though certainly not a groundbreaking feminist, Beecher’s impact on the common school
movement was palpable.
Conclusion
Two months before his death, Horace Mann gave a commencement address at Antioch
College in Ohio where he was serving as its president. He challenged graduates to be ashamed
to die until they had won some victory for humanity. In his lifetime, Mann worked diligently
toward his cause. He rode the waves of other movements that had already been underway, and
he partnered with other reformers who were likeminded. Today, we see his influence in every
neighborhood throughout the United States. It makes me wonder: What victory for humanity are
you and I fighting to win, and what impact might we make if we were to fight as diligently
toward our cause as Horace Mann did for his?
Samuel J. Smith