Previous posts on this issue can be found here, here, and here. This post continues the discussion of the history of public education in America.

The third trend which influenced education in America was the Industrial Revolution. During the mid-1800’s school enrollment rates rose dramatically. There were two basic reasons for the increase in enrollment. First, common schools were established in newly settled regions and more academies were established throughout the nation. In other words, more schools were established which brought greater enrollment.

Second, the technological and economic developments brought more students. This affected education in three ways. First, new printing methods made textbooks easier to print. Second, young women who wanted independence and relief from domestic life in between their years as daughters and young women began to teach in the new schools. It was believed that by their “nature” they were suited to teach. Not only that but there were not a lot of opportunities for women to work outside the home and they were willing to work for low wages. Again, in the mid-1800’s there was a dramatic decrease in the number of male teachers and a dramatic increase in the number of female teachers. Third, the flood of immigrants to the cities affected the educational system in many ways. Both parents often worked which left the children a major social concern. The schools were looked upon to break down the cultural differences and make good citizens out of them.

With the mandatory school attendance laws being passed in many cities there was a large influx of children into the schools. The one room schools with a wide range of subject matters taught to a wide spectrum of ages was seen as inadequate and insufficient. The demand for a skilled work force also contributed to the development of new methods to train and sort individuals for particular occupations. These methods included vocational guidance, dividing course work into separate subjects, grouping students by ability, and the creation of the high school.

The fourth trend was the “common school movement.” In the 1800’s people such as the Unitarian Horace Mann and others, who often called themselves “friends of education,” led a campaign to extend elementary education to all white children (we must remember that slavery was still in existence at this time). They lobbied for public control of schools, arguing that education was necessary for the economic development of the nation. They took hold of the millennialist teaching which was common (a pessimistic view which said the end of the world was near – some were even predicting dates) and put forth this new educational agenda as the answer to most of societies ills.

By the time of the Civil War a number of schools had their calendars, curricula, and finances regularized. An increasing number of state legislatures authorized the creation of state boards of education (which increased the systematizing of education). In 1860 the literacy rate among the white adult population was about 90%. This was about the same as 100 years earlier (around the time of the Revolutionary War).

Robert Owen published an essay in 1816 which set forth a plan for a national system of education in England. Many American educators hailed the plan. Orests A. Brownson (1803-1876), who was a follower of Owen, wrote in his autobiography: “[Our] great objective was to get rid of Christianity, and to convert our churches into halls of science. The plan was not to make open attacks on religion…but to establish a system of state -we said national – schools, from which all religion was to be excluded, in which nothing was to be taught but such knowledge as is verifiable by the senses, and to which all parents were to be compelled by law to send their children.”

The design was to bring about a “common” education experience through a secular curriculum, compulsory attendance, common school building, and instruction by a trained teaching professional.

Horace Mann, later called “the father of the common school” said: “What the church has been for medieval man, the public school must become for democratic and rational man. God would be replaced by the concept of the public good.” He said that he wanted to establish “a new religion, with the state as its true church, and education as its Messiah.” This movement was resisted by many in America, sometimes with armed revolt. Evan as late as the 1880’s some towns used militia to enforce public school laws.

To be continued…