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CHAPTER XXV

AWAKENING AN EDUCATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE UNITED STATES

THE Readings of this chapter have been selected to illustrate educational conditions and movements during the first halfcentury of American national existence, during the period of transition from colonial conditions, and before any clear educational consciousness on the part of the people had been awakened. The first group of selections describes early schools. The first of these (307) is a characterization of the schools of Boston during the period of about 1790 to 1815, by the celebrated teacher and textbook writer, Caleb Bingham. His description of the origin of the double elementary-school system of Boston is important, as is also that of the instruction and the textbooks used. In Rhode Island, the first and for long the only city to maintain schools was Providence, and selection 308 reproduces the first course of study (1800); selection 309 is a reprint of the early rules and regulations for the schools; and 310 is a memorial to the City Council from a very important society of the city praying for better schools, and giving facts as to attendance and costs.

Among the many charitable and philanthropic undertakings begun to found schools, the School Societies for day and infant schools, and the Lancastrian monitorial organizations, were the most important. Selection 311 is an appeal to the people of New York City by the newly founded Public School Society, and represents the beginnings of public education there. Selection 312 is from a Report made to the School Committee of Boston, stating the advantages of the monitorial plan of instruction over the older individual plan, and supplements the descriptions of the plan previously reproduced (297, 298). Selection 313 is the Report of the Boston School Committee which resulted in the creation of primary schools in that city. The selection which follows (314) describes the Boston elementary-school system of 1823, as reorganized early in the century and with the new infant schools added. This description is continued for the secondary schools

in 327.

After about 1825 the newly formed workingmen's associations began to take a prominent part in the agitation for schools, and from New York to Maryland they were particularly active. Many resolutions were adopted and reports made, of which 315, a Report of the Workingmen's Committee of Philadelphia, is reproduced as typical.

307. The Schools of Boston about 1790-1815

(Fowle, Wm. B., Memoir of Caleb Bingham. Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. v, pp. 325-34)

Caleb Bingham (1757-1817) enjoyed an enviable reputation as a teacher in Boston during the last decade of the eighteenth century, and later became a notable textbook writer and publisher of schoolbooks. In this Memoir the writer gives an excellent picture of the schools of Boston, as reorganized by the School Committee in 1789, and as they continued for more than a quarter of a century.

(a) Schools for girls. The main object of Mr. Bingham in coming to Boston was to establish a school for girls; and the project was of the most promising description, for the town of Boston had even then become eminent for its wealth and intelligence, and, strange to say, was deficient in public and private schools for females. It certainly is a remarkable fact, that, while the girls of every town in the state were allowed and expected to attend the village schools, no public provision seems to have been made for their instruction in the metropolis, and men of talents do not seem to have met with any encouragement to open private schools for this all important class of children. The only schools in the city to which girls were admitted, were kept by the teachers of public schools, between the forenoon and afternoon sessions, and how insufficient this chance for an education was, may be gathered from the fact, that all the public teachers who opened private schools, were uneducated men, selected for their skill in penmanship and the elements of arithmetic. The schools were called writing schools; and, although reading and spelling were also taught in them, this instruction was only incidental, being carried on, we cannot say "attended to," while the teachers were making or mending pens, preparatory to the regular writing lesson.

This had probably been the state of things for more than a century, and at the advent of Mr. Bingham, there were only two such schools, while there were two others devoted exclusively to the study of Latin and Greek, although the pupils of these latter schools hardly numbered one tenth of the others. Of course, the proposal of Mr. Bingham to open a school, in which girls should be taught, not only writing

and arithmetic, but, reading, spelling and English grammar, met with a hearty reception, and his room, which was in State street, from which schools and dwelling houses had been banished nearly half a century, was soon filled with children of the most respectable families. There does not seem to have been any competition, and Mr. Bingham had the field to himself for at least four years before any movement was made to improve the old public system, or to extend the means of private instruction.

(b) The public writing schools. At that time, and for more than a century and a half, the public schools of Boston, and indeed, those of the state had been under the control and supervision of the selectmen, three to nine citizens, elected annually to manage the financial and other concerns of the several towns, without much, if any, regard to their literary qualifications. The selectmen of Boston were generally merchants, several of whom, at the time under consideration, had daughters or relatives in the school of Mr. Bingham. It was natural that the additional expense thus incurred, for they were taxed to support the public schools, from which their daughters were excluded, should lead them to inquire why such a preference was given to parents with boys; and the idea seemed, for the first time, to be started, that the prevailing system was not only imperfect, but evidently unfair. The simplest and most natural process would have been to open the schools to both sexes, as the spirit of the laws required, but this would have left the instruction in the hands of the incompetent writing masters, when a higher order of teachers was required; or it would have involved the dismission of all the writing masters, a bold step, which the committee dared not to hazard, because many citizens were opposed to any innovation, and the friends of the masters were so influential, that no change was practicable which did not provide for their support. After much consultation, therefore, there being some complaint of the insufficient number of the schools, the school committee proposed the only plan which seemed to secure the triple object — room for the girls, employment for the old masters, and the introduction of others better qualified.

(c) Origin of the reading schools. The new plan was to institute three new schools, to be called READING SCHOOLS, in which reading, spelling, grammar and perhaps geography, should be taught by masters to be appointed; the two old writing schools to be continued, a new one established; and one of the Latin schools to be abolished. As no rooms were prepared, temporary ones were hired, so that the same pupils attended a writing school in one building half the day, and a reading school in a different building, at a considerable distance, and under a different and independent teacher, the other half. Each reading school had its corresponding writing school, and while the boys were in one school, the girls were in the other, alternating forenoon

and afternoon, and changing the half day once a month, because, Thursday and Saturday afternoons being vacation, this arrangement was necessary to equalize the lessons taught in the separate schools. This system afterwards acquired the name of the double-headed system, and it was continued, essentially, for more than half a century, in spite of all the defects and abuses to which it was exposed. Even when the town built new schoolhouses, the upper room was devoted to the reading school, and the lower to the writing, the masters never changing rooms, and the boys and girls alternating as before. The points gained, however, were very important, the girls were provided for, better teachers were appointed, and the sexes were separated into different rooms. . . .

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(d) The Latin schools. Another evil in the new system also held its ground for many years. Boys had been admitted into the Latin school at the early age of seven years, on the mistaken idea, that the very young are best qualified to learn a dead language, as they undoubtedly are to learn a spoken one. The age was increased to ten years by the new system, but, as before, no provision was made in the Latin school for their instruction in English, in penmanship, or in any of the common branches. To remedy this serious defect, the Latin scholars were allowed to attend the writing schools two hours, forenoon or afternoon, and about thirty availed themselves of the privilege, although they were obliged to neglect one school to attend the other, and unpunctuality and disorder, in all the schools, were the natural consequence.

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(e) Books used; Methods of instruction. The books used in the reading schools were, the Holy Bible, Webster's Spelling Book, Webster's Third Part, and the Young Lady's Accidence. The Children's Friend and Morse's Geography were allowed, not required; and "Newspapers were to be introduced, occasionally, at the discretion of the masters."

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Furthermore, it was ordered that, in the writing schools, the children "should begin to learn arithmetic at eleven years of age; that, at twelve, they should be taught to make pens." Until eleven years old, all the pupils did, in a whole forenoon or afternoon, was to write one page of a copy book, not exceeding ten lines. When they began to cipher, it rarely happened that they performed more than two sums in the simplest rules. These were set in the pupil's manuscript, and the operation was there recorded by him. No printed book was used. Such writing and ciphering, however, were too much for one day, and the boys who ciphered, only did so every other day. If it be asked, how were the three hours of school time occupied? The answer is, in one of three ways, in mischief; in play; or in idleness. . . .

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In the reading schools, the course was for every child to read one verse of the Bible, or a short paragraph of the Third Part. The master heard the first and second, that is, the two highest classes, and the

usher heard the two lowest. While one class was reading, the other studied the spelling lesson. The lesson was spelled by the scholars in turn, so that, the classes being large, each boy seldom spelled more than one or two words. In grammar, the custom was to recite six or more lines once a fortnight, and to go through the book three times before any application of it was made to what was called parsing. No geography was prepared for the schools until Mr. Bingham left them. Morse's abridgment began to be a reading book about the year 1800, and soon after, Mr. Bingham prepared his little Catechism, which was probably based upon it. When Mr. B.'s American Preceptor was published, it displaced Webster's Third Part. His Child's Companion superseded Webster's Spelling Book in the lower classes, and the Columbian Orator was the reading book of the upper class, to the displacement of the Bible, which, instead of being read by the children, was read by the reading masters as a religious exercise, at the opening of school in the morning, and at its close in the afternoon. The writing masters were not required to read or pray for fifteen or twenty years after the great reform.

308. Petition for Free Schools in Rhode Island

(Petition of Mechanics and Manufacturers Association, of Providence, 1799. Reproduced in Carroll, Charles, Public Education in Rhode Island, pp. 77-78. Providence, 1918)

One of the very influential associations which did effective propaganda work for free schools, in the early days of American national life, was the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers, in the educational work of which a barber of Providence, John Howland by name, was the leading spirit. He is commonly designated as the founder of the free schools of Providence.

In 1799 this Association addressed the following petition to the General Assembly of Rhode Island:

A Petition for Free Schools. To the Honorable General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, to be holden at Greenwich, on the last Monday of February, A.D. 1799:

The Memorial and Petition of the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers respectfully presents

That the means of education which are enjoyed in this state are very inadequate to a purpose so highly important.

That numbers of the rising generation whom nature has liberally endowed, are suffered to grow up in ignorance, when a common education would qualify them to act their parts in life with advantage to the public and reputation to themselves.

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