LIBRARY
OF THE
University of CALiFORNfA.
GIF^T OF^
zAccession o-ClfMX^ Class
(T^
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
littp://www.archive.org/details/americanpublicscOOswetrich
AMERICAN
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
HISTORY AND PEDAGOGICS
BY
JOHN SWETT
Author of " History of the Public School System of California" " Methods of Teaching,'
''Normal Word Book" and " School Elocution ; " and Collaborator in
the Authorship ofSwinton's Language Series, Word Book
Series, and Geography Series.
NEW YORK •:•. CINCINNATI •: CHICAGO
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
y^-^
Copyright, 1900,
By JOHN SWETT.
Am. Pub. Sch.
PREFACE
This book is intended mainly for the great body of
American public school teachers, and, incidentally, for li-
brary use in normal schools or in normal departments of
other institutions of learning, both public and private.
The prominence now given to American educational
history by the pedagogical departments of universities
has led to a similar line of study in many state normal
schools. Furthermore, these historical studies have been
emphasized during the past decade by a long series of able
and exhaustive papers on the history of our public school
system, published in the annual reports of the United
States Commissioner of Education, and in special Bulle-
tins of Information.
But these reports, rich in historical treasures, reach
only a small number of the five hundred thousand teach-
ers in our country, and are not available for practical pur-
poses in large classes of normal students. There seems
to be room for a hand-book containing a series of studies
on the vital points of public school history ; and also an
outline of the psychological and pedagogical methods of
instruction and management in American public schools.
A knowledge of the history of public education in our
own country is fast becoming an indispensable part of
3
86005
4 PREFACE
the educational equipment of every American teacher ;
and it is to help along this new movement that the First
Part of this book has been written.
The Second Part relates to applied pedagogics in the
common schools, and treats specifically of modern courses
of study in primary and grammar grades ; of school man-
agement ; of professional reading and study for teachers ;
and of common-sense applied to rural schools. In this
part, as in the historical part, the author has made free
use of quotations from the latest writings of American
educational leaders in order to show the drift of modern
pedagogical and psychological thought.
JOHN SWETT.
San Francisco, 1899.
CONTENTS
Part I. History of American Public Schools.
CHAP, PAGE
I. Colonial Schools 7
II. Early American Schools 34
III. Secondary and Higher Public Education . . . .73
IV. Public Schools after the Civil War 93
.V. Common-School Courses of Study XX8
VI. Studies on Common-School Text-Books , . . .130
VII. Educational Outlook for the Twentieth Century. . 164
Part II. Applied Pedagogics in American Public Schools.
I. Management in School Government 173
II. Suggestions on Class-Room Management . . .179
III. Recitations and the Art of Using Text-Books . . .188
IV. Professional Reading and Study 199
V. Pedagogics Applied to Reading, Writing, Spelling, and
Drawing, in Modern Graded Schools .... 206
VI. The Art of Teaching Language Lessons and Grammar . 230
VII. Pedagogical Principles applied to Arithmetic . . . 240
5
6 CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
VIII. Psychological Principles in Teaching Elementary History . 259
IX. Natural Methods in Teaching Geography . ... 269
X, The Natural Method in Nature Studies . . . .278
XI. Modern Views on Physical Culture 286
XII. Modern Training in Morals and Manners .... 292
XIII. Common-Sense Applied to Rural Schools . . . 303
TJNITERSITY
PART I
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
CHAPTER I
COLONIAL SCHOOLS
For typical studies we may begin with the four chief
centers of early settlements in our country : New England,
New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
The Colon ists a tjPl ymouth did not op en^ public school
u ntil fifty years after the Pilgrim Fathers set fo ot on
Plymouth Rock. But the little band of one hundred and
two men, women, and children that came over in the
Mayflower, at once organized a civil government, and
immediately set about paying off their indebtedness to
the Plymouth Company by making shipments of fish,
furs, and lumber. In thirteen years the freemen of this
small settlement owned their homesteads free from debt.
For half a century t^e f ew child renjn this colony of slow
growth wer e taught at home or in dame _sclmQls_to_read
th£catechisiTL^nd_jhe_BlW.^ ; for so much instruction the
Pilgrims held to be a re li gious duty. I n due time, when
children had increased in numbers, the freeholders of the
town of Plymouth set up a " La tin Grammar Schpo l " of
the_EngHsh_type(i67o) ; and t hree years lat_£ r (167^) they
established, after the manner of the Netherlands, where
the Pilgrims had sojourned for a time, a public school for
teaching the children to read and write their mother
8 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
tongue. For the public support of this school they-
applied the profits of the Cape Cod fisheries .
T^fTPiiritans who 9,^\\ei\ around Massachusetts Bay
in 1630 were stronger in numbers and richer in me ans
than the Plymouth Pilgrims. It is estimated that at least
20,000 emigrants came over from England during the
period of rapid settlement -from 1630 to 1650. The
J^nQtnn T atjn Scho'^l ( l^i5~3^) appears to have been the
first public school opened in New England. It was
started by subscriptions, was s upporte d in the beginning
partly by town appropriatio ns; afterwards entirely by tTi e
town. Sir Henry Vane headed the list of subscribers
with a gift of ten pounds sterling.
" There is no notice of a school among the regular
entries of Boston records until 1642," says Felt's "Annals
of Salem," " but on the last leaf of the first volume is a
list, dated 1636, of subscribers and their donations towards
a school of this kind." This Latin School was e ;cclusiv ely
designed to fit boys forcolle^. It was the only public
school in Boston for a period of more than thirty
years. Harvard College was founded (1637-38) for the
chief purpose of training up an educated ministry. One
year later (1639), a printing press was set up at Cam-
bridge.
Other towns in New England followed the example
of Boston and established '' Grammar Schoo ls," chiefly
designed to teach Latin grammar, but incidentally in::,
eluding a little i nstruction in read in g, writing, and arith-
Inetter irr^rder of time these schools were set up as
follows: Charlestown (1636); Dorchester and Newbury
(1639); Salem (1641); New Haven (1639-41); Hartford
(1642); Newport, R. I. (1640); Dedham (1651); Ipswich
(1642) ; Plymouth (1670).
COLONIAL SCHOOLS g
These grammar schools were supported in part by
tuition fees and in part by town appropriations. Occa-
sionally they received small grants of land or individual
bequests. They were public scho ols entirely under control
of the civil government^_thouglijt^^
affiliations. They were designed to fit boys for college.
The girls of this period either attended private schools or
grew up without schooling. As the settlers were trans-
planted Englishmen, their schools, as a matter of course,
were modeled upon the plan of the eighteen Latin grammar
schools founded in England during the reign of Edward
VI. It was not until two c enturies after the settl ement !
of New England that OldEn gland took any measures for. '
providing for thee lementary instruction of th e children
of_The~ comrnorr people, other than in charity schools in
connection with the established church. Consequently
the rnjrmjqfq dif] not inhf^Ht th<^ '' c^^roQi pn-school idea"
from England.
The legal conditions of admission to all these primitive
grammar schools read as follows : *' No youth shall be
sent to the grammar schools unless they shall have learned
in some other way to read the English language by spell-
ing the same." Consequently, for many years, children
were taught to read at home, or in private schools, or
dame schools, or were allowed to grow up illiterate. In
due course of tirne most of these early graiiimaT^schools
'became free public_schools^supported_b y taxation, j jid.XSP
yearsTater, girls gaine d admission t o them . Cotton Mather
in his " MagnaiiaTsays : *' When scholars had so far
profited at the grammar schools that they could read any
classical author into English and readily make and speak
true Latin, and write it in verse as well as in prose, and
perfectly decline the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the
lO HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Greek tongue, they were judged capable of admission to
Harvard College."
RECORDS OF GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.
The student of educational history must not be misled
by the colonial use of the term s, " free school," *' Latin
school," " grammar school," and " public school." They
were all used , at times, to design ate public schools sup-
ported_iii_part by tuitio n fees, an d were also applied t o
schools un der, rh 11 rrh cnntrol.. It is claimed, for instance,
that the first " free school " in America was established in
1621, by the Rev. Patrick Copeland, in Charles City, Vir-
ginia. This was evidently a parish school, supported by
subscriptions.
• Town of Dedham. — It was ordered in town meeting
(165 1) ''that all such inhabitants in our town as have male
children or servants in their families shall for each pay to
the schoolmaster for the time being the sum of five shil-
lings per annum ; and (2) that whatever these sums shall
fall short of the sum of twenty pounds shall be raised by
by way of rateing upon estates according to the usual
manner."
The Dorchester School. — The history of the town of
Dorchester (now a part of the city of Boston) is of special
interest, as it contains a record of one of the earliest of
town meetings in New England.
Town Records. — " Monday, Oct. 8, 1633. Imprimis. It is ordered
that for the general good and well ordering of the affairs of the planta-
tion, there shall be every Monday before the Court, by 8 o'clock A. M.,
and presently by the beating of the drum, a general meeting of the in-
habitants of the plantation at the meeting-house, there to settle and set
down such orders as may tend to the general good aforesaid, and every
man to be bound thereby, without gainsaying or resistance."
COLONIAL SCHOOLS II
Other towns followed this example, and in 1636, three
years later, the General Court of the Bay Colony passed
an act regulating town government and establishing the
town meeting as an institution of local civil government.
The town meeting laid the foundation for the town
school.
In 1635 the General Court of the Bay Colony granted
to the inhabitants of Dorchester certain lands on " Thomp-
son's Island," and in 1639 the town meeting voted to levy
a tax on the proprietors of said island for " the main-
tenance of a school in Dorchester." This was a grammar
school for boys, and was supported in part by tuition fees.
So far as public records show, this seems to have been
the first direct tax voted in New England for the partial
support of a public school.
School Committee.— In 1645 the Dorchester town
meeting elected a special school committee of three,
termed " wardens or overseers of the schools," and adopted
" rules and orders concerning the school," in part, as
follows :
" 2ly. That from the beginning of the first moneth until! the end of
the 7th, hee shall every day begin to teach at seaven of the Clock in the
morning and dismisse his schollers at five in the afternoon, and for
the other five months he shall every day begin at 8 of the Clock in the
morning and end at 4 in the afternoon."
" 5ly. Hee shall equally and impartially receiue and instruct such
as shalbe sent and Committed to him for that end, whither there
parents bee poore or rich, not refusing any who have Right & In-
terest in the Schools."
" 61y. Such as shall be Committed to him he shall diligently instruct,
as they shalbe able to learne, both in humane learning and good
literature, & likewyse in Poynt of good manners and dutifull behauior
towards all, specially there superiors as they shall haue occasion to
bee in there presence, whither by meeting them in the streete or
otherwyse."
12 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
" y\y. Euery 6 day in thq weeke at 2 of the Clock in the after noone,
bee shall Catechise his Schollers in the principles of Christian religion,
either in some Catechism wch the Wardens shall provide and present,
or in defect thereof in some other."
* Schools in Boston.— In 1682, half a century after the
settlement of the town, it was ordered in town meeting :
" That a committee with the selectmen consider and pro-
vide for the teaching of children to write and cipher
within this town." Accordingly, grammar schools were
soon opened, with one department for teaching '* writing
and ciphering," and another department for teaching
" reading and spelling." These unique schools, English
in type, are explained by George H. Martin in his " Evo-
lution of the Massachusetts Public School System," as
follows : '^ These grammar schools were double-headed af-
fairs, divided into a writing department and a reading de-
partment, and with a master and an assistant, the two
masters having original and concurrent jurisdiction over
the pupils. In the writing schools, arithmetic and pen-
manship were taught to all, while algebra, geometry,
and bookkeeping were optional. In the reading schools,
reading and spelling, with definitions, grammar, and
geography were required studies, with history, astron-
omy, and natural philosophy optional. The pupils spent
the morning in one school and the afternoon in the
other."
These grammar schools of 1682, however, were open to
boys only. It was not until 1789, a century later, that
girls were allowed to enter them, and then only from
April to October in each year, and only at hours when the
boys were not in attendance.'
It was not until 181 8 that Boston opened primary
schools for teaching both boys-and girls to read and write
I a
COLONIAL SCNOlS^^ ■^jT n
the English language. The town of Northampton voted>
in 1792 to admit girls into the grammar schools from May
1st to October 31st.
In this connection it is worth noting that in 1696 the
Scottish Parliament enacted a law which established a
school in every parish and provided for its support partly
by parish tax and partly by rate bills. The way had been
opened for this law by the work of John Knox, more
than a century before, in establishing parish schools in
connection with the Scotch Kirk.
Town of Salem. — This town, one of the first settlements
in the Bay Colony (1629), ranked for a long period next
to Boston in wealth and commerce. It held to Eng-lish
o
customs and educational ideas with peculiar tenacity. It
established a British "Latin grammar school" in 1641 ;
but made no public provision for teaching girls to read
and write the English language until a hundred and fifty
years later, and did not place girls on an equal footing
with boys until 1812, one hundred and seventy-one years
after the first Latin school was founded. It is historically
interesting as the center of the witchcraft delusion in New
England. Its school records, complete from the begin-
ning, afford the pedagogical student a striking illustration
of the slow evolution of the common school idea. These
town records are made available by Felt's " Annals of
Salem" (1845). I" the first volume of this book there are
eighty pages of pubHc school history, made up largely of
quotations from town records.' The following extracts
mark a few of the successive stages of school development.
Records.- " 164.1, March 30. Col. Endecot moved about the ffences
and about a ffree skoole and therefore wished a whole towne meeting
about it ; therefore, that Goodman Auger warne a towne meeting the
14 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
second day of the weeke." The town meeting estabUshed a Latin
Grammar School (1641) in accordance with the call.
1644. " Ordered that if any poore body hath children or a child to
be put to school and not able to pay for their schooling, that the
towne will pay for it by rate." This " free skoole " was a Latin
grammar school, free only to those too poor to pay for instruction.
" Such was the practice to a limited degree in the metropolis " (Boston),
says the historian of Salem, " and, to a considerable degree, in other
places of the Commonwealth. This continued, more or less so, among
our population till 1768."
1657. " A bill came to hand to make a rate for the Coledge [Har\^ard]
;^5 6s."
1680, Apr. 5. "Concerning the Colledge money. For building :
amount raised by subscription ;^i 30-2-3."
1 716. "John Swinnerton began, 25th ult. to keep the English
school by the town house." [First mention of an English grammar
school].
1733, Jan. 4. " The Grammar School had 36, and the English
school 30 scholars."
1743, May II. "Voted that the Latin and English schools be united
under a master and usher. Each Latin scholar paid 5s a quarter,
and each English scholar 2s. 6d. a quarter."
1764, May 16. Order for £10, "to pay for learning the poorest
children to read at women's schools " [dame schools].
1767, March 9. Committee of the English school are empowered to
spend the same sum for a hke purpose.
1793, March 11. School committee authorized to provide for the
tuition of girls in writing schools or elsewhere, " in reading, writing,
and ciphering."
1796, July 19. Statement that schools for young girls had been
opened. [Primary schools.]
1801, April 13. "Notice is published, that writing, arithmetic,
English grammar, composition, and geography are to be taught in the
grammar school, besides Latin and Greek."
1 801, May 2. Notice is published that three public schools for
children of both sexes, and not less than five years old, are opened.
[Primary schools.]
COLONIAL SCHOOLS 1 5
RURAL " COMMON SCHOOLS " IN NEW ENGLAND.
It was outside^gLBoston and its surrounding group of
'' grammar school " towns, in the outlying rural settle ^.
jTients__of Massachusetts, Con necticut, a nd__New H amp-
shire, tha t conditions w ere most favorable to the devej ^p-
ment of the colonial " common school /* These pioneer
settlers were a homogeneous people from the Puritan
counties of England. They had no paternal government
and no chartered companies to care for them ; but they
were well fitted to look out for themselves. The earnest-
ness of their religious convictions held them up to high
standards. They had no bitter contentions arising from
differences in race, language, or religion ; consequently,
it was possible for them to act together in establishing
town government and common schools. Like the Pil-
grims, they were determined that their children should be
able to read the Bible, the catechism, and the laws.
Driven by the " land hunger " characteristic of English
pioneers, small groups of settlers pushed out into the
forest wilderness of New England, and, in the face of
Indians, secured home-farms, erected meeting-houses, and
built schoolhouses. Presently the people, assemble^^hx
town mee ting, elected a teacher, and starte^Pa^^€£5oL sup-
ported in part from a scanty town treasury and in part
eked out by voluntary^^ubscri ptions or tuition fees . The
children were instructed in reading, spelling, w ritjag,
arithmet ic, and good manners. The school was open to
boys and girls on equal t erms. The co-education of the
sexes was not_a^theor y ; it was a condition of necessity.
Pupils entered school at five years of age, and. were allowed
to attend up to the age of twenty-one. In these rural
schools the main purpose was to teach the English Ian-
l6 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
guage, not the Latin. Rude and primitive schools they
were, as befitted the pioneer conditions of a people fight-
ing for survival among Indians, and wringing a scanty
subsistence from a stubborn soil under a harsh sky.
These schools have an accurately recorded history writ-
ten in town records of civil government. They were
or ganized directly by the common p eople_for the free pub-
lic education of all children, witho ut distin ction of class,
or caste, or sex. Of free cTiarity schools for teaching the
children of the poor, the history of the world is full. Of
schools established for the higher classes by centralized
paternal governments, there are numerous examples. But
these rural schools were not copi es of European s chools.
They were planned neither by educational theorists nor
by speculative metaphysicians. Plato had taught, cen-
turies ago, that in a commonwealth the working classes
had no need of any education whatever. These Puritan
farmers and mechanics had never read Plato in the origi-
nal Greek ; but they had faith in God and themselves, and
guided by hard common-sense, they saw to it that their
children learned to read and write their mother tongue,
and to cipher. Their schools were rightly named '' com-
mon schools," because they brought together all the chil-
dren of each little democratic community, on one common
level of equal legal rights to an elementary education in
the English language.
Many favorable conditions were combined to lead up
to the organization of these schools. For defense against
attacks of Indians the early settlers were grouped in vil-
lages surrounded by stockades. There was no established
Church of England to monopolize education. EaclLiittle
Congregati onalist church was an independen t^ganizatiisn.
governed by its own membe rs. For mo re than a century
COLONIAL SCHOOLS 1 7
the ministers as well_ as_the_jtearh ers i n -xuraLjto wnswere
elected in town meeting. Consequently the ministers
were strong in their support of free schools.
" These were the first lawgivers," said James Russell Lowell, "who
saw clearly and enforced practically, the simple, moral, and political
truth, that knowledge was not an alms to be dependent on the chance
charity of private men, or the precarious pittance of a trust-fund, but
a sacred debt which the commonwealth owed to every one of her chil-
dren. The opening of the first grammar school was the opening of
the first trench against monopoly in Church and State ; the first row
of trammels and pothooks which the little Shearjashubs and Elkanahs
blotted and blubbered across their copy-books, was the preamble to
the Declaration of Independence."
" The arts, sciences, and literature of England," said Daniel Webster,
" came over with these settlers. That great portion of the common
law which regulates the social and personal relations and conduct of
men, came over also. The jury came ; the habeas corpus came ; the
testamentary power came ; and the law of inheritance and descent
came also. But the monarchy did not come, nor the aristocracy, nor
the church, as an estate of the realm. Political institutions were to be
framed anew, such as should be adapted to the state of things."
It may be added to the preceding statements that the
Pilgrims at Plymouth as soon as they organized civil
government adopted the written ballot and the law which
prevailed in Holland, but not in England, requiring a
public record of land titles, deeds, and mortgages, as a
protection against fraud, and for facilitating the transaction
of business. The same rule was followed a little later by
the Puritans of the Bay Colony. The Dutch settlers in
New Netherlands adopted similar laws, which they brought
with them from the republic of Holland.
The published records and special histories of several
hundred towns in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Con-
necticut, and Maine are now to be found in the state, city,
and town libraries of New England. To the student of
AM. PUB. SCH. 2.
1 8 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
educational history they furnish an account of the begin-
nings of the free American rural common school, — the
most democratic institution known on the face of the
earth, — a school under the control of the civil power, free
to boys and girls alike, supported by a direct property tax
voted by the people assembled in town meeting. The
limits of this chapter will not admit of many extracts from
original town records in proof of the preceding statements,
but a few quotations will make luminous the origin of
common schools.
HISTORICAL RECORDS OF COMMON SCHOOLS.
Town of Hampton (N. H.). — ■" On the 2 of the 2 mo., 1649. The select-
men of this Towne of Hampton have agreed with John Legat for this
present yeare insueing — To teach and instruct all the children of or be-
longing to our Towne both tnayle andfemaile (wch are capiable of learn-
ing) to write and read and cast accountes (if it be desired) as dilegently
and as carefully as he is able to teach and instruct them ; And so dile-
gently to follow the said imploymentt at all such time and times this
yeare insueing, as the wether shall be fitting for the youth to com
together to one place to be instructed ; And also to teach and instruct
them once in a week, or more, in some Arthodox catechise provided
for them by their parents or masters. — And in consideration hereof we
have agreed to pay or cause to be payd unto the said John Legat the
som of Twenty pounds, in corne and cattle and butter att price current,
as payments are made of such goods in this Towne, and this to be
payd by us quarterly, paying ^^5 every quarter of the yeare after he has
begun to keep school.^ " This record was made ten years after the
settlement of the town (1639). In 1670 the town record runs as fol-
lows : " That the Schoolemaster's Rate for this year shall bee Raised
by Estates of the Inhabitants as other Towne Rates are." Hampton
Academy was incorporated in 1810.
Town of Plymouth (Mass.). — 1673. Ordered in town meeting " that
the charge of the free scools which is three and thirty pounds a year
shall be defrayed out of the proffits arising by the fishing at the Cape."
1 Dow's "History of Hampton*' (1893), Vol. I.
COLONIAL SCHOOLS jg
Town of Sanbornton (N. H.).— This town, settled in
1764, voted in 1774 '* to hire a school teacher part of this
year and raise $30 for that purpose." Capt. Eben San-
born, the teacher, was paid $5.00 a month. He taught in
a barn, and many of his pupils used birch bark as writing
paper.
Town of Pittsfield (N. H.).— This town was settled in
1768, largely by emigrants from the town of Hampton.
The following extracts from the manuscript records show
that the custom of electing the teacher in town meeting
had been kept up in parts of New England for more than
a century. This record also illustrates the manner of elect-
ing ministers, which was common in parts of New England
for more than a century. It further shows the natural
development of the academy.
"1782. — Voted. To hire Jonathan Brown to teach a school for
six months at nine dollars a month."
" Voted. To build a meeting-house of the same bigness of Hamp-
ton Falls meeting-house, except the posts to be one foot shorter."
" Voted. To raise some money this year for preaching, to be paid
in corn, grain, and other produce."
1789. — Voted. Mr. Christopher Paige a salary of sixty-six pounds
yearly, the one-third part in cash, and one-third part in corn at three
shillings per bushel, and a third part in good beef at twenty shillings
per hundred, during his ministry in said town."i
Forty years after the preceding record the farmers of
this small town of less than a thousand inhabitants con-
tributed labor, lumber, and money ; erected a building ;
and established an undenominational academy. This
institution had no endowments, no apparatus, and no
library. The successive preceptors of the school were
young graduates of Dartmouth College, who were study-
^ Original unpublished records of the town of Pittsfield.
20 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
ing law, medicine, or theology. But this almost unknown
academy, typical of many others, made a good record. It
sent many students to college. Of its farmer-boy students,
one became a United States senator from his native
state ; another a judge of the Supreme Court ; a third,
a judge in the Supreme Court of Minnesota. A large
number studied law, many became teachers, and still more
became successful business men in the various pursuits of
life. More than half of the young men moved West, and
a few reached California. Half a century after its foun-
dation the academy was transformed into a town high
school.
Dame Schools, — These schools, both in England and
New England were small private schools set up by
women, generally in their own homes, for teaching young
children to read in the primer or catechism. In most
of the grammar-school towns the dame schools, for a
century or more, fi tted the boys for admission to thej Latin
schools , that is to say, taugh t them *^ to r ead t he English
la nguage by spelling the same .*' It was in such schools
that the little girls learned to read ; but girls were not
allowed in the sacred precincts of the grammar school
until about the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the
course of time, some of the towns began to aid these
private dame schools by small subsidies as an encourage-
ment to continue their good work. Next, one town after
another began to employ teachers at a regular salary.
This innovation was the beginning of the modern primary
school.
The town of Woburn(i64i) agreed to pay Mrs. Walker
ten shillings for the first year. In 1673 the town records
show that two " dame teachers " were paid a total sum of
ten shillings, or five shillings each, for the year. But
COLONIAL SCHOOLS^iUSSS!^ 21
these '' dame teachers " undoubtedly collected the con-
ventional tuition-fee for supplementary support.
Town of Springfield (Mass.) — 1682. " The Selectmen agreed with
Goodvvife Mirick, to encourage her in the good work of training
up of children and teaching children to read, that she should have 3d.
a week for every child that she takes to perform this good work for."
Town of Hadley (Mass.). — 1749, March 13. It was voted that the
committee should " hire three School Dames for three or four months
in the Summer season to learn children to read." In 1752 it was voted
that " 30 pounds be improved to hire a scool master all the fall of
the year ; and that the other 30 pounds be improved to hire Scoole
Dames in the Summer."
Town of Salem (Mass.). — " 1764, May 16. Order for ^10 to pay for
learning the poorest children to read at women's schools,"
" 1771, Feb. 12. Widow Abigail Fowler, a noted 'school dame'
finished her earthly labors. She was in her 68th year, and began to
teach children before she was 18, and continued so to do till her de-
cease, with the exception of a few years after she was married."
Education of Girls. — The records of the town of Hamp-
_ton (N. H.),j64g^ show that"~nTg~-fTr st sch ot?t"estaBlIshed
there was open to '' al l the childrenor~o r_ belonging ^t6^
our town, l?ot /i nialTand female^ In most of the rural
town or district schools estabHshed after that date in New
Hampshire and the small rural districts of Massachusetts
the schools were open to both girls and boys. The
grammar-sc hool tow n s lagg f^d far bphinH thp mral Hk,
frjctsj^n pr oviding ^ for the edu catio n of gir ls, seeming to
have been content with English precedents.
Town of Salem (Mass.). — 181 2, June 11. The historian of this town
quotes from the records of this date, as follows : " In the four public
schools for English there are 465 boys and 295 girls. The latter at-
tended, as usual, an hour at noon, and another in the afternoon. The
Grammar school (Latin) had 40 pupils." To the credit of this town
it may be here stated that 13 years later when it had become an incor-
porated city, two high schools were opened, one for boys and another
22 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
for girls. " At this time," says the historian, " the tuition of females
for an hour each day during a part of the year at the masters' schools
seems to have been relinquished."
COLONIAL SCHOOL LAWS IN NEW ENGLAND.
Turning to legislative records, we find that in 1642
the General Court of Massachusetts enacted that the
selectmen of every town *' should have a vigilant eye
over their brethren and neighbors to see that none of
them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their fami-
lies as not to endeavor to teach by themselves or others,
their children and apprentices so much learning as to en-
able them to read perfectly the English tongue, under a
penalty of 20s for each neglect therein." The Connecti-
cut code of 1650 contained a similar provision.
The General Court of the Plymouth Colony (1658)
proposed " unto the several Townshipes of this Jurisdic-
tion, as a thing they ought to take into their serious con-
sideration, that some course may be taken that in every
Towne there may be a schoolmaster sett up to traine up
children to reading and writing."
In 1677, the General Court of the Plymouth Colony made the fol-
lowing order : " That in whatsoever Townshipe in this Government,
consisting of 50 families or upwards, any meet man shall be obtained
to teach a Gramer Scoole, such townshippe shall allow at least twelve
pounds in currant merchantable pay, to be raised by rate on all the
inhabitants of such towne, and those that have the more immede-
ate benefit thereof by their children's going to school, with what
others may voluntarily give to promote so good a work and general,
shall make up the residue Necessarie to maintaine the same ; and that
the proffits of the Cape ffishing heretofore ordered to maintain a
Gramer Scoole in the colonic be distributed to such towns as have
Gramer Scooles, for the maintainance thereof," etc.
COLONIAL SCHOOLS 23
The Mass achusetts Colony law of 1647 required ever^
tovvnof fifty families or upwards to appoint a teacher to
instruct children in reading and writin g ; and every town
^ot one hundred families '' to s et up a grammar school, the
expense to be borne by the town or by the parents as the
town may determine." This was pnl y a legal recomrn enda-
tion, as no penalty was attached for not carrying it into
effect. The Connectic ut Colony la w passed a few years
later (1650) enacted that every town hav ing__^eveiity
househo lders, or upwar ds, should mai ntain a school for
eleven months each year, anc^ that a grammar sch ool
should be set up jn every head or co unt y town. F or the
support of such schools a tax of forty shillings ''upon
every thousand pounds in the lists of the respective
towns " was levied and collected by colonial law.
The New Haven Code (1656) ordered "That all Parents and Mas-
ters doe duly endeavor, either by their own ability and labour, or by
improving such Schoolmaster, or other helps and means, as the Plan-
tation doth afford, or the family may conveniently provide, that all
their Children and Apprentices, as they grow capable, may, through
God's blessing, attain at least so much, as to be able to read the
Scriplures and other good and profitable printed Books in the English
tongue, being their native language, and in some competent measure,
to understand the main grounds and principles of Christian religion
necessary to Salvation." H^
If
COLONIAL SCHOOLS IN NEW YORK.
The Dutch West India Company established trading
posts on Manhattan Island and at various other points in
the province of New Netherlands, a few years before the
English made a lodgment in New England. The church
and the school were established together. These sturdy
republicans brought with them some of the best of the
24 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
civil institutions of Holland ; such as the written ballot,
public records of land titles and legal documents, and
elementary schools for the education of the children of
the common people. In 1633 Adam Roelandsen was
sent over from the mother country to take charge of the
school in the town of New Amsterdam on Manhattan
Island. This first public school with an established record
was called '' The School of the Dutch Reformed Protes-
tant Church." It is still in existence in New York city,
and is claimed to be the oldest school in the United States.
Dutch Colonial Schools. — Schools were opened at Al-
bany (1650) ; Flatbush (1659); Brooklyn (1661). In the
town of New Amsterdam a Latin grammar school, or
classical school, was established in 1659 and was supported
partly by tuition fees and partly by taxation. These
early schools seem to have been chiefly managed by the
Dutch Reformed Protestant Church ; but as the town
settlements grew stronger the schools were maintained,
in part, or entirely, by public moneys. The t endency was
in the s ame g^eneral direction as in the rural set tlern^nts
i n New Englan d, that is, towards providing elementary
inst ruction for the many r ather than aliraining in" Lat in^
T orthe few . Instruction was given in reading and writ-
ing the Dutch language, in arithmetic, in the catechism
of the Dutch Church, and in the Bible. Those early set-
tlers, like the Pilgrims and Puritans, highly prized the
right to read the Bible and to worship God according to
the dictates of conscience. They held in living remem-
brance the long and bloody war which their ancestors had
waged against Spain, and in defense of civil and religious
liberty. These colonists from Holland brought with them
advanced ideas about elementary schools for the educa-
tion of the common people. At this time the republic of
COLONIAL SCHOOLS
25
Holland was the leading nation of Europe in commerce,
industries, civil liberty, and the general education of its
people.^
English Schools. — But this pro vince w as seizedbyJEng^
land in 1664 , and the Dutch schools were arrested in devel-
opment. Under English rule the royal governors were
unfriendly to schools that were not under the protecting
care of the English Church. They vetoed several attempts
to establish common schools managed directly by the
people. They established several Latin grammar schools,
and founded (1754) King's College, now Columbia Uni-
versity. One governor, in a letter to the home govern-
ment, urged a charter for King's College in the town of
New York, " not only on account of religion, but of good
policy, to preve7it the growth of republican principles
ivhich already too much prevail in the colonies^ During
the reign of King James, the colony was forbidden to
have a printing press.
Meantime, the strongest of the Dutch colonial schools
maintained a lingering existence under teachers selected by
the Dutch Reformed Church, a right guaranteed to them
under the terms of surrender in 1664. Thus for a long
period there were t wo rival sets of public schools ; one
class under the control of t he C hurch of Englan d, the '
other governed by the Dutch Reformed Protestant Church. ^
Both were eventually fused into a c omposite system of
free common Schools. For a century, however, " The
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts," under the auspices of the Church of England,
looked after the establishment of parish schools, which
were mainly supported by tuition fees. From 1704 to
1 See Motley's " Dutch Republic," also Campbell's " The Puritan in
Holland, England, and America."
26 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
1776 this society established twenty-one schools. These
schools provided for the education of a part of the chil-
dren, but not for all. They were good in their way, and
were the natural development of civil and political con-
ditions.
The common-school record of New York, chiefly made
up after the adoption of the Constitution, will again be
considered in a succeeding chapter. " We must be con-
tent for the present," says Andrew S. Draper, " with the
statement, which is abundantly supported by the facts,
that under the mistaken policy of the English rule, the
schools languished, and during the progress of the war for
independence which raged with great fierceness over our
territory, they were nearly or quite obliterated. The fury
of war had closed the doors or entirely extinguished the
single college, and, practically, all the academies and
schools."
But the Dutch and the English schools together trained
up several generations into a patriotic people. During
the Revolutionary War New York supplied her full quota
of troops and answered all requisitions of the Continental
Congress for money. The descendants of the Dutch set-
tlers proved themselves worthy of their ancestors in Hol-
land who had defied the power of Spain, and established
a Dutch republic. English Puritans and Dutch Puritans
stood together for independence.
COLONIAL SCHOOLS Ijj ^PENNSYLVANIA.
William Penn sent the first colony of English Quakers
to Philadelphia half a century after the Pilgrims settled
at Plymouth. The desire for religious liberty led to the
foundation of Pennsylvania as well as to that of New
COLONIAL SCHOOLS 27
England. The tolerant government of the province soon
attracted great numbers of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians,
German Lutherans, Swedish Lutherans, Dutch Mennon-
ites, Moravians, English Episcopalians, and Catholics.
In 1685 only about half the inhabitants were of English
descent. The Scotch-Irish, driven from the north of
Ireland by the decay of the linen industry, came in great
numbers, and the German immigration from the Palati-
nate was large. The population of the province rose
from 20,000 in 1701 to 250,000 in 1749. It has been
estimated that at the beginning of the Revolution about
one third of the population of Pennsylvania was of Scotch-
Irish stock. 1
Pa rish Schools . — It was impossible for these divergent
peoples to act together in organizing public schools.
Consequently education was provided for by typical
parish and *' society " schools under the control of zealous
religious sects. These sectarian school s were supported
by tu ition fee s, though the children of the poor were some-
times admitted as free charity or pauper pupils. They
educated a^ part of the children, but not all . It was not
possible at that time for the people to conceive of schools
disconnected from church or society control. But the
Scotch-Irish Presbyterian schools and the German schools
educated their children to some purpose ; for this fighting
stock contributed a majority of the Pennsylvania quota
of troops during the Revolution. In Pennsylvania one
third of the population was made up of Quakers who had
conscientious scruples against bearing arms. The fight-
ing men of this state came chiefly from the Scotch-Irish
and the Germans.
' " The Puritan in Holland, England, and America," by Douglas
Campbell (1892).
28 HIS TOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The Provincial Council in 1683, on the i6thof October
established a private school by the following enactment : ^
" The Governor and Provincial Council having taken into their
serious consideration the great necessity there is of a School Master
for ye instruction & Sober Education of youth in the towne of Phila-
delphia, sent for Enoch Flower, an inhabitant of the said towne who
for twenty years past hath been exercised in that care and employment
in England, to whom having communicated their minds, he embraced
it upon the following terms : To learn to read English, 4s by the
Quarter, to learn to read & write and cast accounts, 8s by the Quarter ;
for boarding a scholar, that is to say, diet, washing, lodging, and school-
ing, ten pounds for one whole year."
Fr iends^ Public Schoo l. — A gramma r school was char-
tered by the Council in i68q _ '* at the request7costs, and
charges of the people called Quakers." This school is
stil) in existence as the ** Friends' Public School." The
petitioners stipulated to instruct the rich at reaso nable,
rateg^T the pn nr to he "' ^r hooled f ojuiothing." '* With a
few legislative resolutions," says Dr. J. P. Wickersham in
his '' History of Education in Pennsylvania," " none of
which were in the direction of the common school idea,
the historian of this colony may dismiss the considera-
tion of education for well nigh a hundred years."
BepjanmiJEranklin, remembering his three years' course
in a Mbston grammar school, made a resolute endeavor
to educate popular opinion up to the point of establishing
free common schools, but he failed as Jefferson afterwards
failed in Virginia. He su ccee ded, however, in_securirig
a chartered acad^my^in'rhiladelphia (1755), with the
fSfee_departme4vts-Q£ -charity scTi ooI7 academy, and col-
lege. This triple school eventually was developed into
^ Quoted from Dr. Blackmar's " Bulletin of Information," Bureau of
Education, 1890.
COLONIAL SCHOOLS 29
the University of Pennsylvania, and Franklin's school
itself was a modified form of Penn's grammar school of
1697. It was not until after the adopti on of the Con sti-
tution that any reaTTieadway was made in establishing
puBfic schools, and eventhe n progress wa sslow.
COLONIAL SCHOOLS IN VIRGINIA.
The English settlers in Virginia, and their descendants
for more than a century and a half after the settlement of
Jamestown (1607), were content with priv ate tutor s and
parish_schools established by the Church of England,
supplemented by a few grammar schools, aca demies^^
gejniinaries, and_the^oll ege of William and M ary\ All of
these schools were syp ported chjefly by tuition fees. They
taught the children whose paTents~couM"afford to pay for
an education, and left large numbers in the rural districts
with little or no schooling. In Virginia the system of
land tenure, the absence of town government, a scattered
rural population, the parish schools of the Church of
England, and the institution of slavery, — all stood in the
way of public schools for nearly two centuries. In early
colonial times (1671) Governor Berkeley placed himself
on record as a bluff old English Tory by declaring : " I
thank God there are no free schools or printing, and I
hope we shall not have them these hundred years." Vir-
ginia was filled up by a homogeneous people from Eng-
land, strong in their attachment to the Established
Church. They clung to the civil institutions of England
with extreme tenacity until long after the Revolution.
George Washington was taught to read and write and
cipher in a parish school. He was taught surveying by a
private tutor. He was trained to arms in the French and
30 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Indian War, and was the one man in*all the colonies best
fitted to command the Continental Army, and to organize
civil government as first president of the United States.
In 1776, Thomas Jefferson retired from the Continental
Congress and became a member of the legislature of
Virginia. By his efforts the laws of entail, primogeniture,
and the union of Church and State were removed from
the statute books ; but the hostility of the ecclesiastical
and landed interests proved an impassable barrier to his
earnest efforts in behalf of a system of public schools.
The " old field schools," supported by tuition fees, were
considered to be sufficient for the common people.
But the work of the early educational institutions of
the Old Dominion must not be underrated. They gave
to the new republic great statesmen like Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Patrick Henry, and sent
into the Continental Army a body of patriotic soldiers
worthy of their great commander-in-chief.
SLOW COLONIAL PROGRESS.
During the first century of settlement the colonists
were mainly engaged in fighting the Indians, subduing the
wilderness, and organizing civil government. In the second
century there came the deadly contests with the French and
Indians, soon after to be followed by the long and desperate
struggle for independence. During much of this period
the people guarded their homes, their churches and their
schools with musket always at hand. Without compunc-
tion they exterminated Indians, for otherwise they them-
selves would have vanished from off the earth. Taxation
was heavy ; the people were poor ; and educational prog-
ress was of necessity slow and irregular. But it was
COLONIA,L SCHOOLS 3 1
during this very period of neglect by the mother country
and misrule by royal governors, that in New England
the common schools took root and grew strong. Almost
from the beginning these schools were kept under direct
control of town officers, or under the decision of a general
town meeting, or the democratic vote of a school-district
meeting. If in the beginning the schools were enveloped
in an atmosphere more or less ecclesiastical, it should be
remembered that deep religious convictions constituted
the strength of Puritan character. If at first the right of
voting was limited exclusively to church members, the
elective franchise was soon extended to all town free-
holders. If some of the schools at first were partly sup-
ported by tuition fees, they sopn became free, and at all
times received pupils without distinction of class or caste,
and, in rural districts, without distinction of sex. The
fact that these primitive common schools survived in the
struggle with private schools and denominational institu-
tions proves their adaptation to the needs of a free people.
The Colonial Crisis. — For more than a century these
schools gave to the great mass of the common people a
fair elementary education. Then there came the great
colonial crisis which summoned men to arms against the
oppression of the mother country. The minute-men
who rushed into battle at Lexington, and Concord, and
Bunker Hill, had been trained to arms in the French and
Indian War, and drilled into intelligent patriots in the
common schools. They knew what they were fighting
for. These '' embattled farmers " stood by Washington
in the siege of Boston, and drove out the British troops
and a thousand colonial " tories," who sailed away to
Halifax on board the British fleet. They followed their
great commander to New York, and Trenton, and Valley
32
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Forge. They enlisted for the war in the Continental
Army, and when, after the final triumph at Yorktown,
that army was disbanded, they constituted, according to
the records of the war department, a majority of the rank
and file of the veterans of the war. No wonder the great
Virginian exclaimed : " God bless the New England
troops! "
But the New England troops did not stand alone in
the long battle for independence. The Continental Con-
gress, on the 14th of June, 1775, made the beginning of a
regular army by enacting ** that six companies of expert
riflemen be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in
Maryland, and two in Virginia. These were the first
troops levied by direct act of Congress. It was a call to
frontiersmen of the Alleghanies who were experts in the
use of the famous backwoods rifle, and were trained in
Indian warfare. The hardy pioneers of western Pennsyl-
vania had met in a pi;blic meeting at Hanover, June 4,
1774, and passed defiant resolutions, the last of which read
as follows : " 4th. That in the event of Great Britain
attempting to force unjust laws upon us by the strength
of arms, our cause we leave to Heaven and our rifles."
" On the 1 8th of July, 1775, the first company of rifle-
men, Nagel's Berks County * Dutchmen', arrived at
Cambridge, and within less than sixty days from the date
of the resolution of Congress, 1430 backwoodsmen,
instead of the 810 required, had been raised, equipped by
themselves, and had joined the army before Boston, after
marching from four to seven hundred miles over difficult
roads — all without a farthing being advanced by the Con-
tinental treasury." ^
1 " The Birth of the American Army," by Horace Kephart, Harper's
Magazine, May, 1899.
COLONIAL SCHOOLS 33
The riflemen of Western Virginia and Maryland re-
sponded to the call with equal promptness. Daniel
Morgan, just returned from an Indian war, led the Vir-
ginians.
" About two-thirds of the riflemen were of Scotch-Irish descent,"
says Kephart, " and nearly all of the remainder were ' Pennsylvania
Dutchmen ' — that is to say, of Swiss or Palatine origin. Many of the
Marylanders and Virginians were immigrants from western Pennsyl-
vania. The famous rifle corps which Morgan aftenvards formed from
marksmen picked from the whole army is usually referred to as ' Mor-
gan's Virginians,' but, as a matter of fact, two thirds of them were
Pennsylvanians, including a considerable number of Pennsylvania
Germans. . . . When Washington, one day riding along his lines, saw
the fringed hunting-shirts of the Virginians approaching, the reserve
of his naturally undemonstrative nature broke down. At the sight, he
stopped ; the riflemen drew nearer, and the commander, stepping in
front, made the military salute, exclaiming, ' General, from the right
bank of the Potomac ! ' Washington dismounted, c^me to meet the
battalion, and going down the line with both arms extended shook
hands with the riflemen one by one, tears rolhng down his cheeks as
he did so."
These hardy sharpshooters did effective service in the
siege of Boston. They enlisted in the Continental Army
and fought during the war or fell on the field of battle.
AM. PUB. SCH. — 3
CHAPTER II
EARLY AMERICAN SCHOOLS
The ^seven yea^^_w ar for independ ence was a trying
time for the people of the new republic or confederation.
Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were successively
occupied by British armies. C ommerce wa sin terrupte d
or sus pended, taxation was hi^h, and '' ha jj_t imes " every -
where prevailed. From the close of the Revolutionary
War to the ratification of the Constitution and the inaug-
uration of Washington, there was also a seven years* period
of political unrest, of scarcity of coin and superabundance
of depreciated paper money, of high taxation, of general
poverty and dissatisfaction.
A general census taken in 1 790, one year after the final ratification
of the Constitution by nine states, showed the population of the United
States to be 3,929,000. At this time Virginia had 747,000 inhabitants,
or about one-fifth of the entire population of the whole country.
Massachusetts, including the Province of Maine, had, in round num-
bers, a population of 475,000 ; Pennsylvania, 434,000 ; North Carolina,
394,000 ; New York, 340,000 ; Maryland, 320,000 ; South Carolina,
240,000; Connecticut, 238,000; New Jersey, 184,000; New Hamp-
shire, 142,000; Rhode Island, 69,000; Georgia, 82,000; Delaware,
59,000; Kentucky (soon after admitted) 74,000 ; and Vermont, 85,000.
The New England States together had a population of
a little more than one million ; the four Middle States had
a little less than a million ; and the Southern States footed
up 1,657,000 inhabitants, including negro slaves as "per-
sons.'*
In 1786, four years before this first general census, the
34
EARL V AMERICAN SCHOOLS 35
population of the three great commercial cities of the
country ranked as follows : Philadelphia, 32,205 ; New-
York, 24,500 ; Boston, 14,640. At the beginning of the
Revolution the population of the colonies was estimated
at 2,750,000; at the close (1783) 3,250,000.
The preceding statistics will show, in part, the general
conditions under which the several states began to turn
their attention to the organization of public schools. At
this time there were in this country no steamboats, no
railroads, and no canals. Roads were bad, and land trans-
portation was slow and_costly. A few small cotton mills
"and woolen mills in Massachusetts and Rhode Island had
just been set up with rough imitations of the spinning and
weaving machinery used in England. Arkwright's great
invention of the spinning-jenny had been jealously guarded
by the British government, and it was not until eighteen
years afterwards that the first rough drawings were se-
cured in America. At length, William Som^rs, of Balti-
more, went to England and brought back models and de-
scriptions of machines for carding and spinning wool. He
applied to the legislature of Massachusetts for aid in set-
ting up his models, and was granted $100 for that purpose.
Application was also made in behalf of two Scotchmen by
the name of Barr, who had some knowledge of the spin-
ning-jenny. " The General Court voted to the Barrs,"
says John Bach McMaster, '' six tickets in a State Land
Lottery, and out of the money they drew, the first stock-
card and spinning-jenny in the United States was made.
It was not, however, till Washington had been one year
president that Samuel Slater put up, in the workshops of
Almy & Brown, the first series of machines worthy to be
called copies of the famous inventions of Arkwright."
1 McMaster's " History of the People of the United States."
36 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Thus were made the beginninga-oL-C Qtton factories and
woolen mills, that soon brought about a radical change in
the industrial conditions of New England, and led up to
the rapid growth of cities, towns, and villages, and an
era of unexampled financial and commercial prosperity.
These new ind ustrial co nditions, in turn, soon led to a,
^corresponding- devHo pment of commo n_ schools. About
this time, also, there came the invention of the cotton-gin
by Eli Whitney, of Connecticut (1792), which greatly
stimulated the production of cotton, and laid the founda-
tion of the wealth, power, and prosperity of the cotton-
growing states of the South. In 1786, the Continental
Congress formally adopted a decimal system of currency,
but the people were reluctant to change their local cus-
toms and usages in money matters. The act creating the
United States Mint was not passed until 1792, and the
first regular issue of money was the copper cent of 1793.
Meantime all kinds of European coins, bogus" coins, and
depreciated paper money, were used as a circulating me-
dium. The United States Patent Office was established
by act of Congress, April 10, 1790, and to Thomas Jef-
ferson is due the honor of securing it.
After the adoption of the Constitution, the inaugura-
tion of Washington, and the funding of the national debt
by the wise policy of Alexander Hamilton, the Secre-
tary of the Treasury, the new nation entered upon an
era of great industrial prosperity and rapid expansion of
territory. The people had cut loose from the civil gov-
ernment of the mother country, and from English educa-
tional ideals. Colonial schools begaji_a__sio]^eyohrd^oji_
_[nto an A merix.a n system of public schools adapte d to the
changed civil conditi ons under a re pu blican form of gov-
ernment. The separation of State from Church was fol-
EARL Y AMERICAN Sch^&Si^^SSi^^ 37
lowed by the gradual release of schools from denomiria-_^
tional control. Within a decadealter the inauguration of
Washington, new constitutions were adopted by eight
states, in which the right of suffrage was greatly extended,
and religious tests were either modified or abolished.
The war of 1812-15 greatly intensified the American dem-
ocratic spirit, especially in the valley of the Mississippi.
State Control of Schools. — The new Constitution con-
tained no section on public education. EducationaUc^Oz^^
ditions in the thirteen original states were so divergent
tHatlT would have been impossible for the delegates in the
Constitutional Convention to agree on any educational
provision. At this period the idea of universal education
had not entered into the minds of statesmen. Thus the
maintenance of public schools was left as a matter of state
rights. Of the state constitutions that were framed soon
after the Declaration of Independence, only five mentioned
education, and only two contained school provisions of
any practical value. Thus the establishment and main-
tenance of schools were left to enactments by state legis-
latures. These enactments, in turn, were at first only
general outlines, so that the direct government of the
schools was long left, as in colonial times, mainly to the
local regulations of city, county, town, or district, — that
is, und er immediate contro l of the people.
LAND RESERVATIONS FOR SCHOOLS.
The Old Northwest. — Virginia (1784) ceded to the
general government her shadowy title to wild lands ex-
tending westward to the Mississippi, with the exception
of the Virginia Military Bounty Lands in the Northwest
Territory. Connecticut yielded her claims, with the ex-
38 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
ception of the Western Reserve. New York, Pennsyl-
vania, Massachusetts, North CaroHna and South CaroHna,
Maryland and Georgia, one by one reluctantly gave up
their somewhat indefinite claims to other parts of the
western wilderness. It consequently became necessary for
Congress to outline a plan for governing this vast extent
of territory and for disposing of the public lands. Fortu-
nately for common schools and state universities the policy
pursued was wise and far-reaching.
The ordinance of 1787, entitled "An Ordinance for the
Government of the Territory of the United States North-
west of the River Ohio," passed July 13, by the Con-
tinental Congress, established the territory as one dis-
trict, but provided for its future subdivision into " not
less than three nor more than five states." It prohibited
primogeniture by providing that the estates of deceased
persons should " descend to and be distributed among
their children and the descendants of a deceased child in
equal parts ; " and secured to the widow of the deceased
" her third part of the real estate for life, and one third
part of the personal estate." And '' for extending the
fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, to fix
and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, con-
stitutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall
be formed in the said territory," it ordained a bill of rights
in six articles.
Article First declared that no " person demeaning himself in a
peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his
mode of worship or religious sentiments, in the said territory."
Article Second secured the writ of habeas corpus and the right of
trial by jury ; and declared that " No law ought ever to be made which
should interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements, bo7ia
fide, and without fraud, previously formed,"
Article Third declared that " Religion, morality, and knowledge, be-
EARL V AMERICAN SCHOOLS
39
ing necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind,
schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged."
Article Sixth, most important of all for the future of the United
States, read as follows : " There shall be neither slavery nor involun-
tary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of
crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted : Provided,
always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or
service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugi-
tive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming
his or her labor or service as aforesaid."
Ten days after the passage of this famous ordinance,
there was passed a supplementary act relating to the
survey and sale of public lands, which reserved the i6th
section (640 acres) of each township for the support of
common schools, and also set apart two townships (46,080
acres) " to be given perpetually for the purposes of a
seminary of learning [or university], to be applied to the
intended object by the legislature of the state." This
reservation of two townships in each future state for
university purposes was secured, largely, through the ef-
forts of Nathan Dane, Rufus King, Rufus Putnam, and
Manasseh Cutler.
Land System. — The beginning of the present land
system of the United States had been made two years
before, by act of Congress (May 20, 1785), under which
government land was to be surveyed in townships of six
miles square, laid off by meridian range lines and parallels
of latitude. Each section included 640 acres, and each
township 36 sections, or 23,040 acres. This land was to
be sold for one dollar an acre, in tracts of not less than
one entire section of 640 acres. Section 16 of each town-
ship was to be reserved for common-school purposes,
which provision was secured by Rufus King, a member of
the Congressional committee, at the suggestion of Timothy
40
HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Pickering.^ The committee report also contained a res-
ervation of one section in each township for the purposes
of religion, but this was stricken out by Congress. This
reservation of the i6th section for common schools was
6
7
i8
5
8
17
4
9
t
3
10
15
2
II
14
I*
12
13
19
30
20
29
21
28
22
23
24
27
26
25
31
32
33
34
35
36
Diagram Showing the Division of a Township.
* Section. t School Section.
reaffirmed in the land act of July 23, 1787, and supple-
mented by the reservation of two entire townships in each
new state to be formed out of the Northwest Territory,
for university purposes. The sale of public lands was a
vexed question in Congress until May 20, 1800, when a
land act was passed on the recommendation of William
Henry Harrison, then a delegate from the Northwest Ter-
ritory. Among other things, this law provided that pub-
lic lands should be sold at two dollars an acre, but only
one twentieth was to be paid down at the time of purchase
the remainder to be paid in installments running through
five years. This act also provided for the opening of four
government land offices in the western territory. Half a
century later (1848) Congress enacted that in states there-
after formed the 36th section, in addition to the i6th sec-
tion, should be reserved for common school purposes.
^ See McMaster's " History of the People of the United States,"
Vol. III.
EARLY AMERICAN SCHOOLS 41
The supplementary act of July 23, 1787, is often re-
ferred to as a part of the ordinance of 1787, passed ten days
before, on- July 13th. It became a precedent for the rule
afterwards followed in the organization of new states,
though in a modified form after 1889.
The passage of this ordinance was hastened, if not ab-
solutely secured, by the demands of the disbanded veter-
ans of the Continental Army, who had been paid off in
certificates of indebtedness worth ten or twelve cents on
the dollar. They had returned to their homes poor.
In 1786 General Rufus Putnam and General Benjamin
Tupper, both veterans of the Revolution, organized an as-
sociation, under the name of the " Ohio Company" and
issued a circular addressed to officers and soldiers of the
late army who might be, under the ordinance of Congress,
entitled to lands in the Northwest Territory. The pur-
pose of the Ohio Company was to raise a fund, not to ex-
ceed one million of dollars, in depreciated continental -cer-
tificates, and with it to purchase and settle a tract of land
in the " Ohio Country." Putnam, Parsons, and Manasseh
Cutler were made directors. Brigadier General Rufus
Putnam was a graduate of a New England common school
who had been successively a blacksmith, a millwright, an
engineer, and an able military officer during the Revolu-
tion. Dr. Manasseh Cutler started in life as a lawyer,
then became a clergyman, an educator, and a shrewd busi-
ness and political agent. Parsons and Cutler went on to
New York city to make a business proposition to the
Congress there in session.
The members of Congress, anxious to sell the public
lands, lent a ready ear to the claims of veterans of the
war who wished to buy and settle on a part of the public
domain. Cutler and Parsons proposed to buy one and a
42
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
half million acres for one million dollars, to be paid for
in government certificates at par value.
But the conditions exacted were that civil rights should
be guaranteed in the territory, and that slavery should be
prohibited. The committee, consisting of Carrington and
Lee of Virginia, Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, Kean of
South Carolina, and White of New York, reported a bill
which was amended by the sixth article, prohibiting slavery,
offered by Nathan Dane, and was passed by Congress, July
13, 1787, with only one dissenting vote, and that vote
was from the state of New York. The states that voted
in favor of the sixth article were Massachusetts, New
York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Georgia. When the land contract
was finally concluded with the officers of the Treasury, it
included the sale of five millions of acres at two thirds of
a dollar an acre, of which the Ohio Company took a mil-
lion and a half acres, and other land operators secured
three and a half millions of acres.^ As United States
certificates of debt were worth at that time only twelve
cents on a dollar, the cash price in this great land transac-
tion was eight or nine cents an acre. But it proved a
good bargain for the United States.
After the passage of this Magna Charta of land ordi-
nances, the disbanded veterans of the Revolution took up
their peaceful line of march into the wilderness of the
Northwest Territory. The first band of settlers from
New England numbered only forty-seven, not quite half
the number of Pilgrims that landed at Plymouth 167
years before. Under the leadership of Rufus Putnam
this little company of pioneers started in November,
1 For details of this transaction, see " McMaster's Historj^ of the
People of the United States," Vol. I.
EARL V AMERICAN SCHOOLS 43
wintered thirty miles above Pittsburg on the banks of the
Youghiogheny River, built a flat boat which they named
the "■ Mayflower," and early in April, floated down the
Monongahela into the Ohio, and landed in the wilderness
of the West, as their ancestors had settled the wilderness
in the East. Dr. Manasseh Cutler soon despatched a
second party of settlers who followed in the wake of
Putnam and united with the first expedition in the set-
tlement of Marietta in Ohio. These pioneers carried
town government and the common school into the North-
west Territory and founded a "■ Greater New England " in
the heart of the Mississippi Valley. The eastern contin-
gent was swelled by veterans of the Revolution from New
York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. It is
estimated that ten thousand emigrants poured into the
Ohio region during the year 1788; and in ten years it
was fortified by log schoolhouses and made sure forever
to free labor.
SCHOOLS IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.
Ohio became a state in 1802 ; Indiana in 1816; Illinois
in 1818; Michigan in 1837; and Wisconsin in 1848. In
these states the school land reservations were not immedi-
ately available, but the recognition of public schools by
the general government greatly stimulated the educational
efforts of pioneer settlers. The money to pay the first
teachers at Marietta, in Ohio, was sent on from Massa-
chusetts by Dr. Manasseh Cutler. The first state school
law in Ohio (1821), was modeled after that of New York.
It provided for the subdivision of townships into districts,
the appointment of school committee men, and the levy-
ing of rate bills. Four years later (1825), the law was re-
44
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
vised, and provision was made for levying a county tax
for school purposes. In 1837 a state superintendent of
schools was appointed by the legislature. In 1853 a law
was enacted making each township a school district, and
creating a township board of education. This board was
authorized to establish a high school in each township
upon a majority vote of the people, and to levy a tax for
its support not to exceed two mills on the dollar. As a
result of this town provision, Ohio ranks as one of the
foremost states in respect to- the number and excellence
of high schools. The other states of this territory de-
veloped their school systems later in time, but after the
manner of Ohio. All had the usual number of private
and denominational schools and colleges, but these were
soon overshadowed by the rapidly developed common
schools and high schools. Here, as in all the other new
states of the West and the Pacific Coast, public education
proceeded from the common school upward to the high
school, and, finally, t o the college^and the_free state^ uni-
versity. The precedents of both Old England and New '
England were in a measure reversed. Up to this time it
had been generally believed that the only possible scheme
of education began with the foundation of the college or
the university for educating the professional classes, which
was afterwards to be extended downward through the
Latin grammar school to the parish school, the charity
school, or the common school for the mass of the people.
SCHOOL LEGISLATION IN NEW ENGLAND.
Taking up once more the subject of common schools in
New England, we find that the Massachusetts law of 1789
required '' every town of one hundred families or upwards
to maintain one school six months in the year, or two or
EARLY AMERICAN SCHOOLS
45
more schools for terms that should together equal six
months." Towns of two hundred families and upwards
were also required to maintain a grammar school.
This law required instruction in '' orthography, reading,
writing, the English language, geography, and decent
behavior." It ordained that the masters or mistresses of
schools for primary instruction should be approved in
respect to character and qualifications. It provided for
official examinations of schools by the ministers, the
selectmen, or a special school committee. It authorized
the selectmen to divide the town into school districts.
This law was soon amended (1800), by empowering the
district to levy a tax for building a schoolhouse ; was
again amended (1817), by making the district a corporation,
with power to sue and be sued, etc. ; was further amended
(1827), by requiring towns having districts to choose for
each district a *' prudential committee man," who should
have the care of school property and the power to ap-
point teachers. The law allowed these committee men to
be elected by vote of the electors in special district elec-
tions, or to be appointed in the general town meeting.
Most of the. districts preferred to elect their own com-
mittee man, who held office for the " term of one year."
Thus the school district became a political unit, subject
only to the general state law. The amendments of 1827
provided that the district schools should be maintained
by a compulsory town tax. Notwithstanding some de-
fects, this law contained several foundation principles,
which were subsequently adopted by the other New Eng-
land states, by New York, and by the Western states.
In Massachusetts it was disastrous to many of the original
town " Latin grammar schools," but, on the other hand,
it led to the foundation of academies. If these new insti-
46 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
tutions fitted fewer boys for college, they recognized the
higher education of girls, and took a strong hold on the
common people. The academies, when their usefulness
came to an end, were superseded by high schools for both
girls and boys, with a classical course for some pupils and
an English course for those who desired it. In fact, the
experiments of the people under this law were only in-
cidents in the great wave of American spirit that swept
over the whole country. There had prevailed a strong
tendency to local self-government, as opposed to central-
ized power. On this point William T. Harris remarks :
" The central power had been largely theocratic, or
ecclesiastical, at the beginning. The reaction against
ecclesiastical control went too ifar in the direction of in-
dividualism. The farthest swing of the pendulum in this
direction was reached in 1828, when the districts obtained
exclusive control of the schools in all matters except the
examination of teachers."
In 1795 New York provided for the election of three
district school trustees, having power to appoint teachers,
build schoolhouses, etc. California, in 185 1, made a sim-
ilar provision, which is still suited to existing conditions.
In variously modified forms like provisions are now found
in most of the states of the West and the Pacific Coast.
Town or County. — I n New En gl and the to wn, from the
beginning, was the unit of local civil go vernment, the
county bei ng_us ed for judicial p u£poses_only^ In the
Southern states t he__rr>nni-y _was the ^ unit of governme nt^
the^town being_xinly an election distr ict and the juris dic-
tion of a justice^ f the peace ^ These reversed conditions,
though ifT modified forms, still exist at the present time.
In New York, Pennsylvania, and the Western states there
is a compromise of these two extremes. In a thickly
EARL V AMERICAN SCHOOLS 47
settled manufacturing state, cities, villages, and towns
are multiplied, and town government becomes relatively-
strong. In sparsely settled agricultural states, the county
government dominates that of the town. It is evident
that the school sy stem must of necessity be develope d
along the lines of the civil governm ent. The law of 1789
ill Its amended forms served its purpose in Massachusetts
for half a century, but as population became dense, as
cities and villages sprang up, the tendency grew strong to
revert to the original town schools under control o f town
governmen t. The other New England states at various
later periods followed the lead of Massachusetts.
But under different civil conditions in the Middle,
the Western, and the Pacific states, the district schools
with local school trustee s grew strong, and they still
nourish with undiminished vigor. In twenty states dis-
trict school trustees are elected by direct vote of the elec-
tors in district elections.^ But they are now under the
supervision of county superintendents, or county boards
of education, and are governed by specific provisions of
state law. In most of these states a heavy state property
tax is levied for the support, in part, of comipon schools.
Schools in Boston. — Turning again to schools in Boston
we find that as late as 1818 it was a law of the Common-
wealth of Massachusetts that " No youth shall be sent to
the grammar schools unless they shall have learned in
some other school, or in some other way, to read the Eng-
lish language, by spelling the same."
" The laws likewise provided," says Wightman in his " Annals of the
Primary Schools of Boston," " for the establishment of preparatory
schools where grammar was not taught ; but to this time (181 8) there
1 See " The Social Unit in the Public School System of the United
States." Report of the Commissioner of Education, Vol. 2, 1895-96.
48 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
were no public schools in Boston where children could be qualitied for
admission to the ' Grammar Schools.' The age at which they were
eligible was fixed at seven years, and but few were ever admitted
under that age. It was consequently necessary for parents to send
their children io private schools."
Boston in the year iSiowasa city of 33,250 inhabitants.
'* There are seven public schools, viz. : one Latin gram-
mar school, three English grammar schools, and three for
writing and arithmetic, supported wholly at the expense
of the town."-^
It was in 18 18, one hundred and eighty-eight years after
the settlement of Boston, and four years before Boston
became an incorporated city, that the selectmen of the
town appointed, in answer to a petition from the people,
a Primary School Committee to establish and control
primary schools for children under seven years of age.
Such schools were soon opened and made free to both boys
and girls between four and sev^nyears of age. " At a legal
meeting of the inhabitants of fflh^wn of Boston, held at
Faneuil Hall, on Monday, the 3isl^^ of May, A.D. 1819,
the following report was read, accepS»and ordered to be
printed and distributed for the information of the inhabit-
ants. Attest, Thomas Clark, Town Clerk." So reads the
town record. This report of the committee shows that
they had established twenty schools and admitted to them
over 1 100 children. The report further shows that wo-
men were appointed as teachers, and that in most of the
schools the girls were taught knitting or sewing as well
as reading. The town of Boston at this time had about
40,000 inhabitants. But however slow in pr oviding for
free _primary school s, Boston Jinally took the lea d in main-
taining free high schools; in supporting modern graded
^ Morse's Geography, Boston, 181 2.
EARLY AMERICAN SCHOOLS
49
grRm<r>'-^f^£JTj22Li-^^ priin;^ry scliools ; and ill building
substantial and well planned schoolhouses. In 185 1
Nathan Bishop became the first city superintendent of
schools. He was succeeded by John D. Philbrick, who
held the office for eighteen years, and by his wise admin-
istration brought the Boston schools to a high degree of
excellence.
Parish Schools. — Q onnecticu t was the only New Eng-
land state that made the unfortunate exp eriment of sur-
rendering, in part, the control of ^public-sc hools int o th< ^
hands of '* scho ol societies." This experiment began in
-VjvThy makiTig the church parish a school district, and
by putting into the hands of '' school societies " the local
management of schools, and. school moneys. These
" societies " were not strictly sectarian, but they had strong
church affiliations. When the state had secured a school
fund of one million of dollars derived from the sale of
state lands in the Western Reserve, the income of this
fund became a matter of importance to the school " so-
cieties." Under the statute of 1794, the parish society
schools received their /r<? rata of the state school moneys
in common with town and district schools, but for the sole
use of the schools, the parishes being compelled to make
special application to the legislature for the use of any
of the money for church purposes. This parish _sod ety
scheme linge red along un til the midd le of the ce ntury,
^when It "diedout . But rnean w hile, The common schools
of this state had fallen below t h e "standard^lnamtamed m
other New England states.
COMMON SCHOOLS IN NEW YORK.
It was not until after the adoption of the Constitution
that the state of New York took up in earnest the organ-
AM. PUB. SCH. — 4
50 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
ization of common schools understate control. In 1795
Governor George Clinton urged the establishment of com-
mon schools throughout the state, and an act was passed
by the state legislature " for the purpose of encouraging
and maintaining schools in the several cities and towns in
the state, in which the children of the inhabitants of the
state shall be instructed in the English language, or be
taught English grammar, arithmetic, mathematics, and
such other branches of knowledge as are most useful and
necessary to complete a good English education." Under
this law each town was to elect three or more school com-
missioners, empowered to license teachers and apportion
public moneys. The people in each school district elected
local school trustees empowered to employ teachers and
provide for schools. This act also levied a state tax for
the support of schools, to be continued for five years. This
beginning was supplemented by the act of 181 2, which
required that every town should be divided into school
districts ; that each town should elect from one to six in-
spectors, who with the commissioners were to examine
teachers and supervise the schools. The law also created
the office of state superintendent of schools ; and Gideon
Hawley, born in Connecticut, but a graduate of Union
College, N. Y., was the first man appointed to fill the place.
George Clinton, of Scotch-Irish stock, held the ofifice of
governor of New York for seven successive terms of three
years each, and during the whole period of twenty-one
years was untiring in his efforts for common schools.
The law of 181 2 annually appropriated $50,000 to be dis-
tributed /r^ rata among the counties of the state, and
authorized the levy of a county tax equal to the state
apportionment.
County superintendents were appointed under the law
EARL Y AMERICAN SCHO OLS 5 1
of 1 841. A succession of able governors and secretaries
of state carried on the good work. The state school laws
became models for the new states of the Northwest. But
in New York city, which was excepted from some of the
vital ])rovisions of the state law, the schools under the
control of " The Public School Society " remained in a
condition of arrested development for many years.
One of the most remarkable educators in New York
during the formative period of common schools was Dr.
Eliphalet Nott, who became president of Union College
in 1804. Under his wise management a feeble denomi-
national college became in a few years '' an American un-
sectarian Christian University." There went out from
this institution a long array of educators and public men.
" It is doubtful," says Dr. Mayo, " if any American col-
lege ever sent forth a larger number of influential men in
public and professional life than Union during the sixty-
two years' presidency of Dr. Nott. In Governor William
H. Seward and in JohnC. Spencer, Secretary of State and
Superintendent of Schools, he gave to New York the
most important agents in the organization of the common-
school system of the commonwealth."
New York City. — The schools of NewYork ci ty ha d
a slow and _co^p1ey t^vnj^ii-mr^ At theTIrne of surrender
to the English (1664) there were in the town of New
Amsterdam three public schools, a " Latin grammar
school," and ten or twelve private schools. The Dutch
schools were finally fused with English, but up to the
close of the Revolutionary War public schools made little
progress, while parish and private schools grew strong.
In 18 1 3 a special state law for New York city directed the
payment of state school moneys to *' the trustees of the
Free School Society and such incorporated religious so-
52
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
cieties as now support, or shall hereafter establish, charity-
schools within the said city." '' The Society for Estab-
lishing Free Schools in the City of New York for the
education of such poor children as do not belong to or
are not provided for by any Religious Society " had been
chartered in 1805, and De Witt Clinton was elected as its
first president. It established (1806-15) three large schools
on the *' Lancastrian System," an experiment imported
from England. In 1826 it was rechartered under the ab-
breviated title of " The Public School Society," under
which name it gradually gained practical control of the
city public schools. It received tuition fees, public funds,
and private contributions for the support of its schools.
This " society," though not strictly sectarian, had strong
Protestant ecclesiastical affiliations, and this fact led to a
demand that the Catholic parochial schools should share
di pro rata division of the school funds. After much con-
troversy, the state legislature decided against such division
of the school fund, and passed the law of 1842, by which
the public schools of New York city were placed under
the direct control of the civil government. This law
provided for the election of a New York city board of
education ; and for local ward school trustees, and the
establishment of schools directly under the control of the
civil government. In 1853 the ''society schools," which
still maintained a lingering existence, were finally and
effectually fused into modern public schools by state
enactment. But the system included only primary and
grammar schools, with the exception of one free academy
for boys. This famous free academy, established in 1849,
was chartered in 1866 under the name of " College of the
City of New York." It is a part of the public school
system of the city, and is supported entirely by taxation.
EARLY AMERICAN SCHOOL^ ^T"^ $?>
Tuition, books, and stationery are free. It stands as the
first fully organized free public college in the United
States, under municipal government and support. It has
a strong pedagogical department. Its counterpart is
found in the " New York Female College " (1870), which-
is a high-grade normal school for young women. In
1867 rate bills for the partial support of rural common
schools were abolished and the state property tax was
raised to one mill and a quarter on a dollar.
NewJ^rSfiJT. — This colony was settled by Swedes,
English Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Quakers,
who brought with them preachers and teachers and estab-
lished churches and schools side by side. As early as
1676 public schools maintained by subscription began ^o
be organized. In 1693 there appears on the statute book
an act which authorizes, by local option, the people of any
town, " by the consent and agreement of the major part
of the inhabitants," to employ a teacher and collect tuition.
The College of New Jersey (now Princeton) had its begin-
ning in 1747. In 1 8 16 a state school fund was established,
and in 1820 there was enacted the first general law au-
thorizing the township to raise money for the support of
schools. In the general development of a c ommon-school
system this state followed the lead of New York, and
Dela\varertliat of Pen nsylvania^ "
PROGRESS IN PENNSYLVANIA.
The revised state constitution (1790) contained a sec-
tion which reads as follows : " The legislature shall, as
soon as conveniently may be, provide by law for the es-
tablishment of schools throughout the state in such man-
ner that the poor m ay be taught gratis . The arts. and
54 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
sciences shall be promoted, in one or more seminaries of
learning." It was not convenient for the legislature to
carry this section into effect until twelve years later (1802),
when a law was enacted entitled : '' An act to provide for
the education of the poor gratis." This law provided that
parents too poor to pay tuition fees, could send them to
school at public expense, on application to the proper
authorities. Slightly amended in 1809, it remained in
force for more than a quarter of a century. But the
" P^LUpe^ 3.ct " was u npgpidar. People disliked to declare
their poverty, and children were unwilling to be called
*' charity scholars." Meanwhile, denominational acade-
mies and seminaries were aided by appropriations of pub-
lic moneys. All these subsidized instit utions were arraye d
in ope n hostility to a system ot Amencaii coniji ion^schools.
^npor forty years after the organization of the state
government, there were no laws enacted for the creation
of a public-school system. ^ Nearly all the educational
legislation was in favor of academies and seminaries.
During this period many acts were passed favorable to these
institutions, and nearly $300,000 were spent in their aid.
In 1833 there were two universities, eight colleges, and
fifty academies, all of which had been liberally aided by
the state."
It was not until 1834 that the sfate^f Penns ylvan ia
secure d an'"e?fecti ye^ chool lav^\ THeconservatives and
sectarians made desperate attempts to repeal this act at
the next session of the legislature (1835), and the repeal
was defeated only by the heroic efforts of Thaddeus
Stevens, then a member of the legislature. Thaddeus
Stevens, born to poverty in Vermont, began his education
1 See "Bulletin of Information" No. 9, 1890, by Dr. Frank W.
Blackmar.
EARL V AMERICAN SCHO OLS 5 5
in a country school, continued it in a country academy,
worked his way through Dartmouth College, emigrated to
Pennsylvania, succeeded in business, and represented his
adopted state in the senate of the United States.
The ''Agricultural College of Pennsylvania" became
fully established in 1862. It had its beginning in the
" Farmer's High School " (1854) and changed its name
when the state came to its aid to the extent of $100,000.
The land grants of 1862 came to its aid, and its name was
changed to " Pennsylvania State College."
Philadelphia Schools. — The city of Philadelphia was
slow in pr oviding school s for the children of the co mmon
people. Private schoolsanTsociety sch'ooTFTong stood
in the^ay of free public schools. In 18 12 the common
council was authorized by state law to establish common
schools, but nothing was done until five years later, when
the '' Society for the Promotion of Public Economy " was
organized. Public schools modeled after the Lancastrian
(monitorial) system of England were finally established.
These schools for the poor were cheap, but not good. At
this time the embargo and the war with England (1812-
1 5) had crippled the commerce of Philadelphia, New York,
Boston, and all the other seaport towns, and thousands of
their inhabitants had been reduced to poverty. When
"hard times " came on, the prisons of all these cities were
crowded with thousands of debtors. The semi-barbarous
English laws of imprisonment for debt were established
during colonial times, and were kept on the statute books
of all the states long after this period.
" By an old law which went back to the days when Pennsylvania
was a colony," says McMaster,^ " magistrates were allowed cognizance,
^ McMaster's " History of the People of the United States." Vol. IV%
56 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
without appeal, of debts under forty shillings or five dollars and thirty-
three cents in amount. When the indebtedness exceeded that paltry
sum the debtor was allowed a stay of proceedings. But no such hap-
piness awaited the poor wretches who owed a sixpence or a shilling,
and who each year were dragged to prison by thousands, on what
were truly called " spite actions." Murderers and thieves, forgers and
counterfeiters, were fed, clothed, and cared for at the expense of the
state ; but for the unhappy man whose sole offence was his inability
to pay a trifling debt of a few cents, no such provision was made. The
food he ate, the sheets that covered him, the medicine he took — nay,
the very rags he wrapped about his sores — were provided, if provided
at all, by his friends, by the public, or by some Humane Society or
Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons."
In 1794, this law was amended by ordering that the prison inspector
should provide fuel and blankets for the poorest prisoners, make an
allowance of seven cents a day for food and charge it to the creditor,
but the main part of the statute remained in force.
Things were no better in the city of New York. In
18 1 7 there were 1984 debtors confined during the year ;
and of these 729 were imprisoned for debts less than
$25. During the period of hard tim es one in every
seven of the inhabitants in this city was wholly or in part
supported by charity. In Boston the condition was quite
as bad. During the fifteen months from January i, 1820,
to April I, 1822, 3492 men and women were imprisoned
for debt, of which number 2000 were thrown into jail for
sums less than $20. One debtor had been in prison for
thirty years. Another froze to death in the jail at Cam-
bridge. In each of these three great cities of this country,
the jails and penitentiaries were exceeded in wretchedness
and filth only by the debtor prisons in London, so real-
istically pictured by Charles Dickens.
But such awful conditions could not long continue.
One by one, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Vermont, and
Massachusetts, in the period from 18 17 to 1825, p rohibited
EARLY AMERICAN SCHOOLS . ^y
imprisonment_ for-sm all .debts in sums varying from thir-
teen to twenty-five dollars. After this time, the constitu-
tions of the new states of the West prohibited imprison-
ment for small debts, — an evidence of a great advance in
civilization.
During the period of demoralization , the cities were full
of dramshops, and drunkenness was a prevailing vice.
Lotteries were universal. They were authorized by state
law, and even started in aid of colleges, churches, schools,
and many other purposes. But at length the tide of re-
form set in. The bloody criminal code of England which
had been fastened on the colonies was ameliorated, and
the number of crimes punishable with death was reduced
from fifteen and thirty to two or three. The bands of
idle boys prowling in the streets for evil, were gradually
gathered into public schools. This episode in the histoiy
of the civil and social conditions of that period shows
why common schools made but little headway in the
great cities, and why state legislation was so long
delayed.
The city o f Philadel^ hjaLJinally establishedL^common
schools, which educated the children of the common
people without distinction of class, caste, or charity, but
the evolution was sIoav. The city remained . without a
superintendent of public schools until 1883, when the
office was created and James McAllister was appointed to
reorganize and modernize the city school system. He did
the work well.
One of the most notable educational bequests ever made
in this country was the fou ndation of Girard Colle ge,
with an endowment of seve 3l__m ill ions of donars^_by_
Ste2hen_&rard. It was established as a hom e for orpha n
boys where they should be trained and educated for the
58 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
prac titalp ursuits ^ LJilg- The course of instruction
adopted for Girard College was the Jirst practical and
jDotential protest against the conventional educational
formalism of those days. ^ =^-
EDUCATION IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.
Virginia. — We have seen that, during the colonial
period, education was provided for in Virginia after the
manner in England, by means of parish schools, private
schools, academies, and the endowed College of William
and Mary. Though Jefferson failed in his p lans jto,pro-
vide sc hools for t he educa tion of the commo n peopl e, he
succeeded^, after a quarter of a century of untiring efforts,
in_organiziti£ _the University o f Virginia, which was opened
in 1825, one year before the death""of its illustrious
founder. The distinguishing features of this institution
were worthy of the great statesman who planned them.
The University provided for elective courses of study ;
the honor system of discipline ; the voluntary system of
religion ; and the prohibition of merely honorary titles.
The state school law of 1820, however, provided that
the county could be divided into s^hooldistricts of six
miles square. If the people of the district raised three
fifths of the sum required to build a schoolhouse, the re-
maining two fifths might be appropriated from the state
" literary fund." But the small income, — $45,000 a year
from the interest of the state school fund, — could do but
little in establishing a public-school system. In the west-
ern part of this state the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians — those
" Puritans of the South " — supported their church schools
with their accustomed zeal. From these people sprang
the Breckenridges, the McDowells, the Pickenses, and
EARL V AMERICAN SCHOOLS
59
many other prominent families in the South. Emigrants
of this sturdy stock poured into Kentucky and Tennessee
in early days, and became prominent in fighting the
Indians and in establishing schools.
A century after the rejection of Jefferson's pl ans for
p^ublic scho ols, — at the close of a war greater than that of
the Revolution, — Virgin ia fell into line and established a
system of Am erican free public schools .
Most of the other Southern states followed the lead of
Virginia. Efforts were made (1810-30), to secure State
School Funds, the interest of which should be applied to
said rural public schools and subsidize county academies
Several states attempted to establish schools for educating
^'the children of the poor." Maryland subsidized from a
scanty school fund a small number of county academies
of the classical type. The city of Baltimore experimented
with a Lancastrian school in 1820; made in 1830 a
beginning of public schools; and in 1839 opened a high
school.
South Carolina. — South Carolina, in 1801, established
the CoUegeof SouthCarolina, appropriated $50,000 for
J?uildmgs, and $6000 annually for its support. The
academies and private schools in Charleston were good,
but, prior to 1730, there were no grammar schools in the
state, and in 1776 there were only five. The Huguenots
and Scotch-Irish that settled there were active in support
of education, and both races stamped their impress on the
educational, social, and political institutions of the state
and the nation. The first public school movementjiithis_
state was made by'anact of the legislature (181 1), which
creat ed a f i ee -school fund withThe^roviso " that the use
of this fund should be confined to educating the children
of the poor in case it was not adequate for all." The few
6o HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
schools that were established under this act were made
unpopular by the charity proviso. '* The annual appro-
priation by the state, which, for a period of forty years,
averaged $37,000 a year," says Dr. Mayo, '' was of itself a
. pittance for the education of at least 50,000 children and
youth in need of elementary schooling." In 1868 the
new constitution provided for a uniform system of public
schools supported by taxation.
Georgia. — Georgia, the l atest settled of the thirteen
original states (1732), had a comparati vely slow gro wth
both in population and schools . The English settlers
were reinforced by large numbers of Scotch-Irish Presby-
terians, and the usual number of Episcopal and Presby-
terian parish schools and denominational academies were
opened, as in other Southern states. In 1784 the Uni-
versity of_Geor gia was endowed by a state grant of 40,-
^oo^res of wild lands, worth perhaps a thousand dol-
lars ; and a land grant of 1000 acres was offered to each
county to aid in opening an academy. Most of the in-
come from a small state school fund was used in subsidiz-
ing academies, seminaries, and other private institutions,
leaving but a pittance to the elementary schools for teach-
ing " indigent children " to read and write. Richard
Malcolm Johnson has written a graphic history of early
schools in middle Georgia, which is well worth reading by
the historical student.^
North Carolina. — North Carolina secu red j^state school
^iujid (1825-40) of two millions of dollars, and then dis-
tributed the annual income in aid of county district
schools, thus making a nea rer approach to common schools
1-]Tan_airy _pther Southern st ate. This state"was strong""
in small private incorporated academies. During the
^ See Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1894-95, Vol. 2.
EARL V AMERICAN SCHO OLS 6 1
period from 1760 to 1825, more than 150 of these
academies were incorporated. Into the middle and
western parts of this state and the Piedmont region there
was a steady stream of Scotch-Irish settlers, and of Ger-
mans and Quakers from Pennsylvania. These Scotch-
Irish Presbyterians, Moravians, Lutherans, and Friends
set up their churches and church schools and maintained
both with great zeal. The University of North Carolina
was chartered in 1789 and opened in 1795! It is well to
remember that the Scotch-Irish settlement of Mecklen-
burg, in a public meeting on the 20th of May, 1775, made
the first public declaration, in the form of resolutions,
that the Americans were " a free and independent people."
In 1840 this state had 141 academies and grammar schools
and 632 primary and common schools. In i860 the num-
ber of primary schools had increased to 4000, with an
attendance of 160,000 pupils.
" This state is also conspicuous," says Commissioner
Harris, " for the advanced position it occupied in matters
of education in the constitution adopted in 1776, in the
early chartering and opening of its State University, in
the breadth of the educational thought shown by Archi-
bald D. Murphey, the father of her common schools, and
in the administration of Rev. Calvin H. Wiley, her first
general superintendent. This state, too, was alone among
the Confederate states, in keeping her schools open dur-
ing the war."
Rural Schools of the South. — Even the primitive " old
field," or neighborhood, rural schools of North Carolina,
Virginia, and other Southern states deserve to be held in
grateful remembrance, along with incorporated academies
and endowed colleges. These schools, like those of New
England in early days, enable d many boy s , born to p ov:_
62 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
e rty. but gi ited_wiih-43£>wer, to mak e a star t in life_and_
fight their way in the^wQiLcL
It was in one of these schools in North Carolina that a
sandy-haired lad of Scotch-Irish descent, named Andrew
Jackson, learned *' to read and write and cast accounts,"
otherwise he would never have been heard of among men.
Though born to poverty, he was richly endowed by
heredity with the qualities that command leadership. His
real education was mainly acquired by the study and prac-
tice of law. In the state of Tennessee, to which he emi-
grated, he rose to leadership in political and military
affairs. In the War of 1812 he was the one man in the
nation best fitted to take command of the western fron-
tiersmen, and to beat back the British army of trained
veterans at New Orleans. His election as President of
the United States marked the growing political power of
the West, and the birth of an American spirit of demo-
cracy as a reaction against the federalism of New England
and the British conservatism of Virginia. This awaken-
ing of the common people gave a fresh impetus to com-
mon schools in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio, and
other states soon to be formed out of the Northwest
Territory.
J ohn C. Calhoun, of Scotch-Irish descent, born in South
Carolina, educated at Yale, and bred under the influence
of the old regime of his native state, lived to become the
great political leader of the old South. His career, com-
pared with that of Andrew Jackson, affords a striking
illustration of the effect of different environments.
A generation later, James K. Polk , born in North Caro-
lina, of Presbyterian Scotch-Irish stock, studied law, emi-
grated to Tennessee, rose to leadership, and became Presi-
dent of the United States. Here, also, was born Thomas
EARL V AMERICAN SCHOOLS 63
H. Benton. He too emigrated to Tennessee, studied law,
served under General Jackson at New Orleans, removed
to St. Louis, and represented Missouri for thirty years
in the senate of the United States.
Henry Cla y, of English stock, born to poverty in Vir-
ginia, obtained a limited school education in Peter Dea-
con's log-cabin schoolhouse, which had no floor but the
earth and no window but the door. He earned his living
at an early age as clerk in a law office, studied law, and
emigrated to Kentucky. Gifted by nature with a winning
manner and great power of oratory, he became a political
leader in the senate of the United States.
From this state, also, came William Henry Harriso n, of
notable English descent. Educated in Hampden-Sidney
College, he entered the army as an ensign, and was
ordered to the West, where he combined a military with
a civil career. He was appointed as the first secretary of
the Northwest Territory, then territorial delegate to Con-
gress, next, governor of Indiana Territory, and was finally
elected President of the United States.
Abraham Lincoln, whose ancestors dwelt in Virginia,
was born to theTiardships and poverty of pioneer life in
Kentucky. His school education was limited to reading,
writing, and arithmetic, which he learned during a few
months* attendance in the primitive schools of that period.
He emigrated to Illinois, earned his living by farm work
and other occupations, educated himself by the study and
practice of law, and became one of the greatest of Amer-
ican presidents.
The lives of this group of leaders among men make an
interesting study on the comparative effects of heredity,
school education, and environment. Washington, Jeffer-
son, John Marshall, Patrick Henry, John Tyler, and
64 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Andrew Johnson make another group worth special con-
sideration as a psychological study.
Besides these few notable men, there went out from
these states into the wilderness of Kentucky, Tennessee,
and the Northwest Territory^ thousands of hardy pioneers
of the type of DanieljB oone, J o hn_ Sevier, an d Georg e
Rogers Clark. THeywent there in search of new homes
on fertile lands, and because there was little chance for
them to make their way in the older settlements. These
constituted the advance guard of civilization. They
fought the Indians, subdued the wilderness, and helped to
lay the foundation of civil government and common
schools in the states of the West. Though most of them
had but scanty scj io pling, an d^orn^o^f them none at all^
they made a success of life under ne w con ditions.
THE AGE OF ACADEMIES.
The half century after the adoption of the Constitution
was marked by great financial, commercial, and industrial
prosperity, broken only by the war of 1812-15, and the
financial panic of 1837. It was during this period that
academies and seminaries were established to supplement
the elementary instruction of the co mmon jchpols. These
acadernies were establisHed in great numbers in all parts
of the United States. In Massachusetts alone they num-
bered nearly one hundred, and they were numerous and
strong in New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
A few of these endowed institutions, like the Phillips-
Exeter Academy (1781), in New Hampshire, and the
Phillips-Andover Academy (1780), in Massachusetts, were
preparatory schools exclusively designed to fit boys for
college ; but, in general, they provided a course of study ^
■ EARLY AMERICAN SCHOOLS 6$
pre paratory for college , and al so a general educational
course, largely elective . These academies were mainly
supported by tuition fees, though often aided by state
subsidies or individual bequests. They were governed by
boards of trustees, were generally denominational in name,
but liberal in management. They were, in fact, quasi
public schools, as whatever endowments or state aid they
received, reduced their rates of tuition. They were no
longer modeled after English schools ; they were, like the
common schools, American institutions. They were
open, at least in New England, to both young men and
young women, f orerunners of the co-education of the sexes
in modern high schools an d state universities^ They sup-
plied teachers for the rural common schools. They
trained, for two generations, the leaders in business.
They recognized the higher education of women. After
flourishing for more than half a century , they were grad-
ually superseded, except in rural districts, by city and
town high schools.
Endowed Academies. — The first endowed academy in Massachusetts
was the Dummer Academy at Byfield (1763,) Leicester Academy
was incorporated (1784); Berwick (1791); Westfield (1793); Brad-
ford (1803) ; Hampton, N. H. (1810). The first academy in New
Hampshire for girls exclusively, was the endowed Adams Academy in
the Scotch-Irish town of Londonderry, or Derry (1823) ; the first for
girls in Massachusetts was at Ipswich (1823). The Troy Seminary
(N. Y.) for young women, was opened in 1 821, by Mrs. Emma Hart
Willard. Mt. Holyoke Seminary for the education of young women
was founded by Mary Lyon, at South Hadley, Mass., in 1836.
Concerning the influence of academies in Massachusetts, George
H. Martin in his Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School Sys-
tem says : " Besides this work as fitting schools, the academies
had an immeasurable influence in broadening non-college students.
They reached an immense multitude of young people, Leicester had
received from six to eight thousand pupils, of whom perhaps four
AM. PUB. SCH. 5
(i^ HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
hundred had been fitted for college : Westfield had over eight thou-
sand persons ; Lawrence, at Groton, nearly eight thousand ; New
Salem not less than seven thousand. In eighty or ninety years — three
generations — these four schools alone had brought into a scholarly
atmosphere, had kept under the instruction of scholarly men and
women, for a longer or shorter time, not less than thirty thousand
young men and young women — ten thousand to a generation ; and
these are only four of more than a hundred such schools."
District Schools. — The district scho ols and rural
academi es were adapted to the sodal and industri al con-
ditiong_ of the perim i_jn^ which they flourished. They
turned out good American citizens. They brought the
children of all classes together on one common footing.
The strict discipline of the school was backed up by a
firm home training. T he value of an education was a
common topic in every family. Parents saw to it that
tlTeir~children stiTdied at home during the long winter
evenings. The forehanded farmers sent all their children,
boys and girls alike, to the district school ; they sent
them, also, for a few terms to the academy ; they toiled
and economized to send at least one son to college.
HOME EDUCATION.
In addition to the supplementary education furnished
by the academy we must take into account the value of a
correlative course of manual trai ning j n_farmjvork and
domestic industries, which j)y indu strial con dition s_was
Rigidly enforced on the great majority of th e children
during the period under consideration. Agriculture was
the leading occupation of the people. For half the year at
least the boys were kept at home hard at work in plowing,
planting, hoeing, haying, harvesting, and taking care of
live stock. The girls took a manual training course in
EARL V AMERICAN SCHO OLS ey
cooking, washing, mending, knitting, and sewing. Before
the era of cotton factories and woolen mills, every farm-
house contained a loom and a spinning wheel. The
girls assisted their mothers in carding and spinning wool,
in weaving it into cloth, and in making up clothing
for the family. Thus both boys and girls were trained
into steady habrts_ofwork. If they lacked somewhat in
book knowledge, the loss was made up to them by a
training in the p ractical d uties of life. If this strict and
sometimes over-exacting school and home training failed
to develop the aesthetic side of human nature, it resulted
in a stock of vital common sense as a guide in earning a
living.
" That our successful men have come so largely from the country,"
says Dr. John Dewey, "is an indication of the educational value bo und
up with participation in this practical life . It was not only an ade-
quate substitute for what we now term manual training, in the devel-
opment of hand and eye, in the acquisition of skill and deftness ; but
it was initiation into self-reliance, independence of judgment and ac-
tion, and was the best stimulus to habits of regular and continuous
work." Back of the common school and behind the home education,
there lay, also, the strength of heredity transmitted from ancestors
who loved liberty and prized learning. All these things were further
supplemented by the strong social influences of the church, the town
meeting, ai;d the free discussion of public affairs.
PRACTICAL VALUE OF THE COMMON SCHOOL.
Horace Greeley was graduated from a district school into
a printing ofifice in the Scotch-Irish town of London-
derry in New Hampshire. From a neighboring school
district Colonel John Stark went out to the battle of
Bunker Hill, followed, according to tradition, by all the
able-bodied men in town, save only two. Later in the
68 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
war the same townsmen followed General John Stark to
the battle of Bennington. Generals John Sullivan, John
Reid, and Alexander Scammell belonged to the same
fighting stock and were trained in similar schools in
neighboring towns.
Benjamin Franklin when seven years old entered a
Boston public school, left it at ten years of age, and
began his great career as printer, statesman, and philoso-
pher. George Peabody at eleven years of age left a
Massachusetts common school to become, first a clerk in
a small store, next a merchant, and finally the educational
philanthropist who created the Peabody Southern Edu-
cational Fund which has done so much to aid the
establishment of common schools in the South.
In the common school and rural academy of this same
state Mary Lyon fitted herself for her great work in
founding Mt. Holyoke Seminary and College for young
women. Clara Barton, whose great work in the Red
Cross Society is known to all the world, was educated in
similar schools.
In common school, academy, and Dartmouth College,
Daniel Webster was trained. His father mortgaged the
home farm to send Daniel to college, and his mother
made for him with her own hands a homespun Suit as an
outfit.
In an obscure common school in Massachusetts, Roger
Sherman got all the school education of his life. By suc-
cessive stages, he rose from the shoemaker's bench to
become, first a county surveyor, next a lawyer, then judge
of the Superior Court ; afterwards a member of the Con-
tinental Congress, and member of the committee of five
to draft the Declaration of Independence.
But the greatest strenj[th-_Q£j the com mon schools con-
EARL V AMERICAN SCHOOLS
6g
sisted in their power in molding the c ommon people
into intelligent and industrious cit izens^ many of whom,
for successive generations^^ pushed out into jthe West
and aided in the ex tension of free schools^ _and_ free^
labor.
The real power of this Republic consists, not in a few
great statesmen, orators, or political leaders, not in a
few highly educated philosophers or scientists, not in a
few millionaires, but in the consolidated character, intelli-
gence, and public opinion of the masses who cast the
ballot on election days, who shoulder the musket and
man the battleships in times of war ; of the men who in
time" of peace carry on the industrial pursuits of the
nation ; of the women who protect the homes and
educate the children, — and if these lack the wisdom of
intelligence the republic will suffer harm in spite of the
educated few. Neither does the wealth of this nation
consist alone in real estate, agricultural products, manu-
factures, and mines ; for all these material things onty
furnish the means for higher ends and a more complete
civilization. The world has been enriched largely by the
creative power of inventive genius ; and the great inven-
tions — the steam-engine, the steamship, the railway, the
cotton-gin, the spinning-jenny, the electric telegraph, the
countless labor-saving machines in every department of
industry — none of them were the blundering products of
unskilled men held in the bonds of ignorance. Even
the elective franchise is a menace to the republic unless
the great majority of voters know how to think intelli-
gently and act wisely in political affairs. The right of
trial by jury — what is it but a shadow of justice when
the jury box can be filled by the '' born thralls " of
illiteracy ?
70 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
THE PERIOD OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM.
The decade of 1 830-4 marks the beginning of a g reat
educat ional awakening in t he United States. In conse-
quence of the rapid development of ma nufactures, com-
merce, and_jii£aniIoL lJ'ai^sportation, there had begun a
tendency of the po pulation to jconcentrate in ^ities_ai]Ld-
villages^ The urban population, which, in 1790, consti-
tuted only one in thirty, had increased in 1830 to one in
twelve. Changes in social and industrial conditions led to
corresponding modifications of school laws and school or-
ganization. The " age of homespun," the *' old-fashioned
district school," and the denominational academy began
to fall into decadence together.
It was at this period (i837)that Horace Mann appeared
in M assachusetts as Secretary of the S tate Board of Edu-
cation. " He was," says WiUiam^nTarrTsr " like so
many of the great men of the Puritans, modeled on the
type of the Hebrew prophets." He went out into all
par ts of the^ tate as an educational missionary, lecturing
^o_the_p>eaple wherever he could gather them together, in
hall, or meeting-house, or country schoolhouse, on the
need of reforms in schools and school management. He
advocated the consolidation of the independent school
districts into township schools under the control of one
central school committee ; the levy of town taxes for
school purposes; the establishment of graded schools, nor-
mal schools, and high schools; a higher standard for teach-
ers* certificates ; the addition of oral teaching to text-book
memorizing; institutions for the deaf and dumb and
blind ; special schools for the reformation of vicious chil-
dren ; and he attacked the extreme severity of corporal
punishment in the Boston schools. He wrote school re-
ports so eloquent that they are still read as classic educa-
EARLY AMERICAN SCHOOLS yi
tional literature. His fiery zeal roused th e pe ople to
action. H enry Barnard took up the same work in Con-
necticut, and the two greatest of early American educa-
tional leaders together inaugurated a refor m movement.
felt even in the remote stat e^ of the South and West.
" The school children of Massachusetts," says George H.
Martin, " made no mistake when they placed in front of
the capitol of the state a statue of Horace Mann, as of
their benefactor and their ideal."
The establishment of normal schools in Massachusetts
and New Y QTir~^ ed~tcrTTiark edr' nnprovemen ts7'bojh_In^
methods of teaching and in courses of study. New and
improved text-books appeared j^cityschools were graded ;
and high schools began to be organized. School laws
were amended. City, town, and county superintendents
were appointed and school supervision was begun in
earnest. Since that period of educational revival, there
has been no reaction in the spirit of progress.
THE GREAT NATIONAL CRISIS.
We are apt to consider accomplished results rather than
the remote causes which lead up to them. Seventy years
after the adoption of the Constitution there came the great
crisis in national affairs in which the stability of the Re-
public was at stake. It was then that the beneficent re-
sults flowing from the ordinance of 1787 were clearly
made evident. The powerful and populous states, carved
out of the Northwest Territory, which had been dedi-
cated by law to freedom, gave to the nation that wisest of
modern statesmen, Abraham Lincoln. The President's
call to arms was answered by hosts of volunteers, made
intelligent and patriotic citizens in the common schools,
which had been fostered by the Magna Charta of 1787.
^2
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
In these public schools were trained, in their boyhood, the
great military and civil leaders, — Grant, Sherman, Har-
rison, Hayes, Garfield, and McKinley — better known but
not more patriotic than the rank and file of the army.
Shoulder to shoulder, with the common-school recruits
from the older Eastern and Middle states, and the newer
states of the Pacific, they fought through the war or fell
on the field of battle, in defense of the Union.
The spirit of these patriots is clearly set forth in Gen-
eral Grant's address to his comrades, at Des Moines (1875),
which reads, in part, as follows : " In this centennial year
of our national existence, I believe it is a good time to
begin the work of strengthening the foundation of the
house commenced by our patriotic forefathers, one hun-
dred years ago, at Concord and Lexington. Let us all
labor to add all needful guarantees for the more perfect
security of free thought, free speech, a free press, pure
morals, unfettered religious sentiment, and of equal rights
and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color,
or religion. Encourage free schools, and resolve that not
one dollar of money appropriated to their support, no
matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of
any sectarian school. Resolved that either the state or
nation, or both combined, shall support institutions of
learning sufficient to afford to every child growing up in
the land the opportunity of a good common-school edu-
cation, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical tenets.
Leave the matter of religion to the family circle, the
church, and the private school supported entirely by
private contribution. Keep the Church and State forever
separate. With these safeguards I believe the battles
which created us * the Army of the Tennessee ' will not
have been fought in vain."
CHAPTER III
SECONDARY AND HIGHER PUBLIC EDUCATION
THE BEGINNINGS OF HIGH SCHOOLS
Public High Schools. — We have seen that for more
than a century the academy, th e seminary, the private
sc hool, and the Latin grammar school furnished the
mean s of sec ondar y educatio n as a supplement to the
elementary common school, or as a preparation for col-
lege. It was not until nearly the middle of the nine-
teen th century that public hig^h schools and public normal
schools began to form an essential feature in public edu-
cation.
The modern free high schoo l is a modified type of the
academy and seminary of former times with traces of the
early Latin grammar schools. Its distinctive points of
difference from the older institutions are that it is under
pub lic managemen t instead of denominational or private
control, and is free from tuition fees . It came into exist-
ence to meet the demands of modern life. It was not the
work of the college or the university reaching downward*;
nor was it the creation of speculative philosophers. It
came naturally from the upward pressure of the common
schools, and the demand of the masses of the American
people for a free education of a grade higher than that of
the comir.on school. One of the functions of the high
school is to fit pupils for the college or univ ersity ; but
its chief purpose is to give the great mass of pupils, after
74
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
they have completed the grammar school course, the
means of acquiring an English _ £.rlii rati on which shall
better fit them for good ci tizgnship and for the nrclinjirj7
pursuitsoflife.
Leaving out of consideration the colonial Latin schools,
and other " grammar schools *' of like type, the modern
free high school may be said to date, in this country, from
the establishment of the Boston English High School
(1821), with George B. Emerson as head master, and a
course of study which included, besides EngHsh, the
French and Spanish languages, physics, mathematics,
mental and moral philosophy, rhetoric, and general his-
tory.
Massachusetts in 1826 made the modern high school a
part of the state school system by enacting a law that
towns having at least 500 families should organize an
English high school, and that towns having at least 4000
inhabitants should establish a classical high school. In
1840 this law was repealed, but was re-enacted in 1848.
For some time the high school had to encounter the de-
termined opposition of private preparatory schools, de-
nominational academies and seminaries, denominational
colleges, and many tax-payers. It took all the fiery zeal
of Horace Mann and his co-workers to break down these
antagonizing influences and finally to win a victory for
the American people.
The dates of the establishment of free modern high schools in the
great cities afford a striking illustration of the slow evolution of this
part of the American school system: — Boston (1821), English high
school for boys, and (1825 and 1852) one ^ for girls; Philadelphia
(1837), boys' high school, and (1840), a girls' high school; Buffalo
1 Continued only one year and abolished because it was considered
too expensive.
SECONDARY AND HIGHER PUBLIC EDUCATION
75
high school (1838) ; Baltimore (1839), boys' high school; Providence
(1843) ; Cincinnati (1847), Central high school ; New York city (1849),
free academy for boys ; Cleveland high school (1852) ; St. Louis
(1853), high school for boys and girls; Newark high school (1855) ;
San Francisco (1856), English high school for boys and girls ; Chicago
high school (1856) ; Detroit high school (1858) ; New York city
(1870,) normal school for girls, and (1897) three modem high
schools.
In 1838 there were fourteen high schools in Massa-
chusetts; in 1852, sixty-four; in i860, one hundred and
two. But during the last half century, under the impera-
tive demands of the people, the high school has been ex-
tended not only into every city, but also into towns,
villages, and rural districts, so that in 1897 no state 01
territory was without one, except Alaska.
According to the Report of the Commissioner of Edu-
cation (1896-97), there were 5109 public high schools in
the United States, of which, in part, Ohio had 576 ; In-
diana, 343 ; New York, 341 ; Illinois, 323 ; Iowa, 322 ;
Michigan, 280 ; Pennsylvania, 249 ; Massachusetts, 223 ;
and other states in varying numbers from 218 in Nebraska
to 2 each in Utah and Wyoming, 3 in the Territory of
Oklahoma, and 3 each in Indian Territory and Arizona.
In these public high schools there were enrolled 235,988
girls and 173,445 boys, making a total of 409,433 students.
Of this number the returns for 1897 show that only 12.17
per cent, were preparing for college.
In the total enrollment the state of New York reported
38,957 students; Ohio, 37,958; Illinois, 31,909; Mas-
sachusetts, 31,360; Michigan, 25,745 ; Iowa, 24,626; and
Pennsylvania, 24,044. There were 627 high schools in
cities having a population of 8000 or upwards, and 4,482
in rural districts or in cities and towns with less than
8000 inhabitants. In the 2100 private high schools.
76 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
academies, and denominational institutions in tlie United
States there was reported an enrollment of 107,633
secondary students, or a little less than 21 per cent, as
against 79 per cent, enrolled in the public secondary
schools. The total number of secondary students in both
public and private secondary schools shows that there is
an average of 819 such students in every 100,000 of the
population of the United States. In the department of
higher education the ratio is 196 students to each 100,000
inhabitants.
High School Courses of Study. — It would be outside
of the scope of this chapter to treat of high school courses
of study, but I cannot forbear quoting a paragraph from
the pen of Professor Paul H. Hanus, of Harvard Univer-
sity, which presents a matter of vital importance to sec-
ondary schools.
" The efforts to improve the secondary or high-school courses of
study, like the corresponding efforts for the improvement of the gram-
mar-school courses of study, have been directed to an enlargement of
its scope (content) and such modification of its form as would best
adapt it to modern needs. In bringing about these very desirable
changes in the high-school course of study the West has rendered im-
portant service. In those newer regions traditions have had less
weight in determining educational practice, and the non-classical high-
school courses have thrived there especially. A very important inci-
dental gain, traceable largely to these modifications in the high-school
course of study made in response to external demands, deserves to be
noted here. These modifications have had much to do with insuring
the permanence of the public high school as an integral part of our
public-school systems. ... At the present time the public high
school may justly be said to be firmly established throughout the coun-
try. These are great gains. At the same time, however, another im-
portant modification is gradually finding recognition in our secondary-
school programmes. Not only may the pupil choose one of several
courses of study offered to him in every considerable high school, but
SECONDARY AND HIGHER PUBLIC EDUCATION yy
choices are permitted within these courses, and there are schools —
and the number of such schools is increasing — in which at least one
course of study, the ' general course,' which is not determined by col-
lege admission requirements, is entirely elective throughout. That is
to say, not only does the modern high school aim to provide an intro-
duction to the culture and training demanded by modern life, but in
so doing it seeks also to adapt its opportunities and demands to the
tastes and capacities of individuals. The importance of this change
in our secondary-school opportunities it is difficult to overrate." i
THE BEGINNINGS OF NORMAL SCHOOLS.
The First Training Schools. — During the colonial
period and for nearly half a century after, the common
schools were mainly supplied with teachers by the acad-
emy, the seminary, and the college. But after the war of
1812-15, the great i ncrease of schools in commercial cities
and manufacturing towns and villages, created a demand ^
for teachers having some special training fo r their work.
Rev. Samuel R. Hall opened in the town of Concord.
Vermont (i 823), a private s chodL^for— the training o f
teachers, which he continued for seven years. Mr. Hall,
when a young man, teaching his first common school in
the state of Maine (181 5), showed his radical tendencies
towards innovations by introducing the writing of compo-
sitio ns, which excited a storm of protests from parents and
pupils. In 1829 he published one of the first notable
American books on common school pedagogics, entitled,
*' Lectures on School Keeping." In 1830 he took charge
of a teachers' department in the Phillips- A ndover Acad-
emy, and also established a private normal school at
Plymouth, New Hampshire.
The state of New York made an experiment (1830-44),
1 Educational Review, December, 1896.
78 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHO OLS I
... , - 1
in establishing teachers' departments in incorporated \
academies by a system of state appropriations for that
purpose. Such departments were organized in sixteen \
academies, but the results fell short of expectations, and ^
state aid was withdrawn on the passage of an act (1844), \
to establish a state normal school at Albany. i
Meanwhile, i n New England, the norma l-school idea ]
_wa s brought bef ore_the._aublicby a group of educatio nal _ \
reformers of remarkable ability and zeaH Among these j
were James G. Carter, Rev. Samuel R. Hall, George B. \
Emerson, Professor William Russell, Rev. Charles Brooks, \
Edmund Dwight, Thomas Gallaudet, Horace Mann, Henry \
Barnard, and many others. ^ i
The Ainerirn/y,- fnnrnnl pf F^nrnfinn^ one of the first \
in the English language, appeared (1826), in Boston, \
edited by William C. Woodbridge, William Russell, and j
William A. Alcott ; the Massachusetts Common School '\
Journal {\Zi(^, was started and edited by Horace Mann; j
the New York Cojumon School Assistant (1836-40) was
edited and published by J. Orville Taylor ; and a Con-
necticut School J ourjial (1838), was edited by Henry \
Barnard. j
A s ociety for the improvement of common schools was !
organized (1827), in Connecticut; a similar society in \
Pennsylvania (1828); another in Ohio (1829) ; the Ameri- \
can Institute of Instruction, in Massachusetts (1830); the \
American Common School Society (1838), New York. 1
All these combined influences r esulted in the b eginning \
of a great upward extension of the"common-scho^ system j
by including in it the public high school and the state \
n ormal school. 1
^ Public Normal Schools. — The first public normal school )
in the United States was opened at Lexington, Massa- J
SECONDARY AND HIGHER PUBLIC EDUCATION 79
chusetts(i839), with Cyrus Pierce as principal ; the second
at Barre, Massachusetts (1839) 5 ^^ third at Bridgewater,
Massachusetts (1840); the fourth at Albany, New York
(1844) ; the fifth at New Britain, Connecticut (1849) 5 the
sixth was established at Ypsilanti, Michigan (1850), but
was not opened until two years later. At the middle of
this century (1850), there were only six state normal
schools in the United States.
Concerning the immediate results of the three pioneer
state normal schools in Massachusetts, Mr. George H.
Martin says : ^ " Their early graduates encountered every-
where prejudice and suspicion, in many cases active and
persistent opposition ; but steadily, year by year, they
fixed themselves more and more firmly in public esti-
mation and support."
Since 1850 state normal schools have been rapidly
multiplied and have become, like the high schools, an
essential part of the public-school system. Local normal
schools are maintained by the cities of New York, Phila-
delphia, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Balti-
more ; and many other cities have normal classes in con-
nection with high schools.
The total number of state and municipal public normal schools
(1896-97) was 164. Of these schools Pennsylvania and New York
had 14 each ; Massachusetts, 9 ; North Carolina, West Virginia, and
Wisconsin, 7 each ; Alabama, Ohio, and Iowa, 6 each ; California, 5 ;
and other states had varying numbers from 4 each in Maine and Con-
necticut, to I each in New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma. The total
enrollment in public normal schools was 43,197 students. In the
public normal schools for colored students, the Southern States reported
an enrollment of 1800. The number of graduates from public normal
schools was 8,032, of which number 62.6 per cent, were women. The
^ " Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School System " (1894).
8o HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
aggregate amount of public appropriations for the support of these
schools was nearly two and one-half millions of dollars.
The public colleges and universities reported i ,839 normal students ;
and public high schools having normal departments reported 9,001
normal students. In 198 private normal schools there were 24,181
students ; in private universities and colleges, 4,650, and in private high
schools, 7,064. The aggregate of normal students in all public institu-
tions was 54,039 ; in all private institutions, 35,895.
STATE PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES.
Colleges. — The colleges founded in colonial times and
during the first half century after the Revolution were,
in the main, den omination a l or non -public institutions^
supported, like the primitive colonial public " grammar
schools " and academies, bv _endowment and by tuition
fee s, though _someUmes^-aided--by--pxLbli£_ appropriations.
Their chief purpose was to fit young men for the profes-
sions of law, medicine,_a rui- the ministcy. Little or no
provision was made for the higher education of women.
But within the last half of this century, the enormous ex-
pansion of industrial, mechanical, and commercial pur-
suits, has created the _imperativ eji eed of a modified type
of the higher education adapted to the ne w_enyi ronmep t-
This demand has been intensified by the powerful upward
pressure of the public high schools, by the demands of
women for equal education, and by the more general dif-
fusion of science among men.
Endowed State Universities. — The germ of free state
universities is found in the land act of July 23, supple-
mentary to the ordinance of 1787, which reserved for
each new state to be formed out of the Northwest Terri-
tory, two entire townships of public lands (46,080 acres)
vfor the purpose of aiding the establishment ty each state
SECONDARY AND HIGHER PUBLIC EDUCATION 8 1
of a '' seminary of learning," or, in other words, a state
college, or university. This original act of 1787 set the
precedent for a series of subsequent acts and land grants
by the Federal government in aid of state colleges and
universities.
Under the land act of 1787 and^its successors in direct
line up to 1889, the Federal land grants specifically for
" seminaries of learning," that is, state universities,
amounted to 20,000 square miles, estimated to have real-
ized five millions of dollars.
Many of the states, following the example of the gen-
eral government, have endowed their universities by grants
of state lands. But endowments furnish only an incidental
part of university revenue. Like other public schools,
the state universities are supported mainly ^by direct st ate.
taxation.
These universities are f lourishing with great vigor.
They r epresent the b es t thought of the American people .
They have strengthened and stimulated the high schools,
normal schools, and common schools. They are organized
in general with el ective courses of study which include
■^riVnrp^ a^^welj^^gjjteratiire and rPf^^^phj^'^JC'^^ Most of
Them, like the common school and the high school, are
open to young men and women on equal conditions.
They have pedagogical departments for the training of
teachers. They are closely connected with the human
life of to-day. They fit some students for the professions,
and others for the highly differentiated industri al,- com-
m ercial , r nechanic^ and business pursuits, of a complex
civilization. More than any other agency they have
brought the higher education home to the common inter-
ests of mankin d^ They have opened to talented and
ambitious students, gifted by nature but born to poverty,
AM. PUB. SCH. — 6
82 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
the doors of the higher education which before had been
barred by tuition fees.
The state universities in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michi-
gan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri, the
Dakotas, and Nebraska, represent the culmination of
a strong common school system in the North Central
division of states. In 1897 Michigan University had
2878 students, including professional departments ; Min-
nesota, 2647 ; Illinois, 2356; and Wisconsin, 1650.
The University of Texas, representing the southwest, is
the crown of a public-school system richly endowed by
the reservation of the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections
of each township in the vast domain of that state.
On the Pacific coast the State University of California,
founded in 1868, is a natural sequence of the ordinance of
1787 and the land-grant act of 1862. Its doors are open,
without tuition fees, to 1700 young men and women
within the university proper, and to 3000 students, in-
cluding its affiliated colleges of law and medicine. It has
a strong pedagogical department. It has numerous elec-
tive courses in language, literature, science, philosophy,
history, the mechanic arts, agriculture, horticulture, and
viticulture. It is liberally supported, in the main, by
direct state taxation, though it has an endowment fund
derived from state and Federal land grants, and has re-
ceived several large bequests from educational philan-
thropists. It is an integral part of the public-school sys-
tem of California, intrenched in the state constitution,
and held in trust by a board of regents appointed by the
governor of the state.
California is fortunate in having another free university
which, though not under direct state control, has all the
other characteristics of a modern state university. Stan-
SECONDARY AND HIGHER PUBLIC EDUCATION 83
ford University, founded and endowed by Mr. and Mrs.
Leland Stanford (1890), is open to both men and women;
it has the elective system in studies ; it has a department
of pedagogics; it has no tuition fees. Opened in 1891,
it has now more than a thousand students.
The state universities of Washington and Oregon are
yet in their infancy, but are rapidly growing. In the
other states of the western mountain division — Colorado,
Montana, Wj^oming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and the terri-
tory of Arizona — the public-school system is well estab-
lished, and state universities and colleges of agriculture
and the mechanic arts are taking root.
In the older states along the rim of the Atlantic, non-
public, quasi-public, and denominational colleges and uni-
versities; grown powerful by age and by great endow-
ments, still chiefly hold the field of higher education.
But the tuition fees of most of these institutions are not
high. Moreover, many of them, broadened, liberalized,
and modernized, exercise most of the functions of state
universities. To this class belong Cornell, Harvard, Yale,
Columbia, Johns Hopkins, and the universities of Penn-
sylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Cornell, indeed,
is to all intents and purposes a state university, be-
cause it has a college of agriculture and the mechanic
arts richly endowed by the land grant of the act of Con-
gress (1862), and because it annually receives a fixed num-
ber of students free from tuition rates. Harvard Univer-
sity received in its infancy liberal appropriations from the
commonwealth of Massachusetts, as did Yale from Con-
necticut, Columbia from New York, and the universities
of Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia
from their several states.
University Departments of Pedagogy. — The normal
84 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
idea began to appear in the State University of Iowa in
1855 in the form of elementary instruction, and in the
State University of Missouri in 1856, in which institution
it took shape as a normal college department in 1867.
The early state-university pedagogical departments were
established in order of time as follows: Iowa (1873);
Michigan (1879); Wisconsin (1881); North Carolina
(1884); Indiana (1886).
Within the decade of 1887-97 pedagogical departme nts
have been opened in the state universities of California,
Colorado, Kansas, I^'evada, OhioT'Pennsylvania, Minne-
sota, Mississippi, South Dakota, South Carolina,Tennessee,
Utah, West Virginia, and Washington. In several other
state universities there are classes of normal students,
but no organized pedagogical departments. Pedagogical
departments have also been opened in numerous colleges
j£i d univ ersit ies not unde r rate contro l, such as Cornell,
Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Clark, Brown, Columbia, and
New York city.
It seems a fitting close to this chapter to quote a
thought from the president of the oldest university in the
land, who has been the pioneer in leading the way up to
the modern idea of elective courses of study in all institu-
tions of learning, whether public or non-public. Charles
W. Eliot says : ^
*' As a force in the world, universal education does not go behind
this century in any land. It does not go back more than twenty years
in such a civiHzed country as France. It dates from 1871 in England.
Plato maintained that the producing or industrial classes needed no
education ; and it is hardly more than a hundred years since this Pla-
tonic doctrine began to be seriously questioned by social philosophers.
It is not true yet that education is universal even in our own land ; and
1 " Educational Reform" (1898).
SECONDARY AND HIGHER PUBLIC EDUCATION 85
in all lands educational practice lags far behind educational theory.
In this process of educational construction, so new, so strange, so hope-
ful, I believe that the chief principles and objects are the same from
the kindergarten through the university ; and therefore, I maintain that
school teachers ought to understand and sympathize with university
reform and progress and that college and university teachers ought to
comprehend and aid school reform and progress."
COLLEGES OF AGRICULTURE AND THE MECHANIC ARTS.
Industrial Education. — The demands of modern in -
dustrial pursui ts first found expression in trade schools
endowed by ed ucational philanthropists, m manual train-
ing^ chools, and in polytechnic schools ofv arious kinds^
The constitution ot MicETgan (1850) contained a provision
that the legislature should provide for the establishment
of an agricultural school. Accordingly, the first state agri-
cultural school was opened in 1857, at Lansing, the state
capital. In 1850 the legislature of Michigan petitioned
Congress for an endowment of 350,000 acres of land for
the agricultural school provided for in the state constitu-
tion of that year, but the request was denied. It soon
became evident that it would be a wise policy for the
Federal government, following the lead of the ordinance
of 1787, to extend indirect aid to a higher grade of tech-
nical institutions of learning, in which special instruction
should be given in subjects relating to agriculture and the
mechanic arts. Congressman Justin S. Morrill, of Ver-
mont, introduced a bill into the House (1857) authorizing
the establishment of industrial colleges, and granting to
each state 20,000 acres of public land for each member of
Congress. In 1858, the committee on public lands made
an adverse report. At the following session the bill passed
both houses, but was vetoed by President Buchanan.
S6 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
In i86i Mr. Morrill introduced an amended bill which
was reported on adversely by the committee on public
lands, but was passed in 1862, and was signed by Presi-
dent Lincoln. This bill persistently followed up for five
years, in the face of the most determined opposition, en-
titles Senator Morrill to high rank as an educational states-
man. This act reads, in part, as follows :
" Each state now existing and each new state admitted into the
Union shall be entitled to as many times 30,000 acres of public land
(not mineral bearing) as it had in i860, or has, at the time of its admis-
sion, representatives in both houses of Congress. ... The interest of
the entire remaining gross proceeds of the grant shall be used for the
endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where
the leadh % object shall be, without excluding other scientific and clas-
sical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of
learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such
manner as the legislatures of the states may respectively prescribe, in
order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial
classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."
Land-Grant Colleges. — Under this act New York re-
ceived 990,ocx) acres; Pennsylvania, 780,000; Ohio, 630,-
000; Illinois, 480,000; Indiana, 390,000; Massachusetts,
360,000; Kentucky and Missouri, 330,000 each ; Virginia
and Tennessee, 300,000 each, and other states in propor-
tion to their number of Senators and Representatives in
Congress. This act of 1862, with its successors up to 1889,
yielded a total of 10,500,000 acres, estimated to be worth
$10,500,000. Some of this land was thrown upon the
market by some states and sold for fifty or sixty cents an
acre. Most of the land-scrip issued to the state of New
York (990,000 acres) was bought by Ezra Cornell for sixty
cents an acre, on condition that whatever amount exceed-
ing this price was derived from the sale of these lands after
their location, should constitute a fund for the support of
SECONDARY AND HIGHER PUBLIC EDUCATION 87
the agricultural college of Cornell University. These
land warrants were located with great business foresight
on the pine timber lands of Wisconsin, held for some
years, and sold at an average price of $6.73 an acre.
These colleges were further aided by act of Congress, March 2,
1887, which provided that " there shall be established under the direc-
tion of the college or colleges, or agricultural departments of colleges,
created by the law of 1862, in each state, a department to be known
as an agricultural experiment station," and provided for an annual
subsidy of $1 5,000 to each state. By the act of Aug. 30, 1890, to more
completely endow the colleges established imder the law of 1862, it
was provided that the annual appropriation of $15,000 should be sub-
ject to an annual increase of $1,000 until a maximum appropriation of
$25,000 annually should be reached. Provision was also made for a
division of this subsidy between one school for white and one for
colored students. The act of 1890^ specifies that the appropriation
shall " be applied only to instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts,
the English language, and the various branches of mathematical, phy-
sical, natural, and economic science, with special reference to their
applications in the industries of life, and to the facilities for such in-
struction."
These ^Mand-grant *' colleges^ were regarded, at first,
with little favor by the'older classical institutions. Small
and feeble in the beginning, most of them have passed
through the stage of experiment. S tandards of admission^
are gradually made high er, and th e number of students is
rapidly incre asi ng year by year. They are steadily grow-
ing in publ ic favor, and are sending out skilled experts in
agricultural, horticultural, viticultural, mechanical, and
other technical pursuits. In a few states, they have been
united with other endowed institutions, as in New York
with Cornell University; in Indiana with Purdue Uni-
versity ; in New Jersey with the Rutgers Scientific School ;
in Vermont with the University of Vermont ; in Dela-
ware with Delaware College. They are unij^d with
f(
88 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
state universities in California, Georgia, Illinois, Louisi-
ana, Minnesota, Missouri, Maine, Nebraska, North Caro-
lina, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin,
Wyoming, and Arizona. Altogether there are sixty-six
of these institutions, established under the Morrill acts of
1862 and 1890, sixteen of which are college departments
of universities, and the remainder are separate institutions.
The sixteen colleges which are departments of state
universities practically maintain a standard of admission
equal to that of other department colleges in the uni-
versity ; that is, the completion of a high-school course for
admission to the freshman class. The larger class of
separate colleges, especially in the newer states, must re-
ceive its students from the eighth or ninth grade of the
public schools. In other words, the stan dard fo rthe time
being is de termined by conditio ns. This flexibility is in
accord with the wisdom with which the common-school
system has been adapted to meet successive stages of the
political, social, and industrial advancement of the people.
These colleges are winning their way in the face of criti-
cism, opposition, and ridicule as did the common school,
the high school, and the normal school in the days of
their beginnings. Altogether they have an annual rev-
enue of $6,000,000, and give instruction to about 30,000
students.
At the meeting of the Association of American Agricultural Col-
leges and Experiment Stations,i Nov. 10, 1896, the Chairman, Presi-
dent J. E. Stubbs, President of the State University of Nevada, made
an interesting summary of admission conditions, and courses of in-
struction offered in these colleges, from which the following brief
statements are drawn : " Out of 46 colleges reporting, 16 have no sub-
freshman class and 30 have preparatory departments. The institu-
1 See Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1896-97, Vol. i.
0-
SECONDARY AND HIGHER PUBLIC EDUCATION 89
tions which have no preparatory departments are chiefly in the wealthy
and populous states where there are first-class high schools in all cities
and towns. In the newer and less populous states a well-tequipped
preparatory school of high-school grade, with courses of studies cov-
ering a period of three or four years, is a necessity, and will continue
a necessity for many years to come." As to four-years' courses of
study in these colleges, the statement is made that California, Purdue,
Kentucky, Minnesota, Cornell, Virginia, and Wyoming, offer 7 ; Del-
iivvare, Idaho, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, 6 ; 13 give from 4 to 5 ; and
14 give one and two courses with numerous electives.
Federal Aid for Higher Education. — In the report _ of_
the Commissioner of E ducation (1896-97), there is found
a report (Chapter XXIII), giving, in a condensed form the
amount of Federal and state aid for the establishment of
higher education . Thetotal amount given by the United
States for state universities, act of July 23, 1787, and its
successors in direct line up to 1889, is 20,000 square mil es,
of pubHc land, realizing five millions of dollars ; for State
Colleges of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, act of
July 2, 1862, and its successors, up to 1889, 15,000 square
miles,, realizing ten and a half millions of dollars ; lands
granted by act admitting seven new states since 1889,
3,260 square miles, realizing $20,864,000. The annual
appropriations of money from the United States treasury
towards the support of agricultural colleges and experi-
ment stations, by acts of 1887 and 1890, capitalized at
four per cent., would represent an endowment fund of
$44,400,000.
The increasing power of state univ ersities, agricultural
and me chanical colleges and similar public ins titutions
under jnunicipaT control, is made evideiit b y the latest
educat ion_al stat isUcs. _^.
The total enrollment of graduate and undergraduate students re-
ported by public institutions for higher education was 27,654, an in-
go
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
crease of 1,358 over the previous year. The total number of students
reported in the collegiate, graduate, and professional departments of
institutio is for higher education, public and private, and in professional
schools, of all kinds, was 140,1^3, of which number 42,999 were en-
rolled as professional students pursuing studies in law, medicine, and
theology, leaving 97,134 students reported as pursuing what are gen-
erally known as liberal studies. Of this latter number, 27,654 students
belong to public institutions, and 69,480 in private, parochial, and
other non-public institutions.
Higher Education. — In a paper read before the American Social
Science Association, December, 1898,1 William T. Harris made the
following statements relativ^e to the higher education :
" In 1872 the records of higher education show for the entire nation
an enrollment of 590 students in each million of inhabitants, — a little
more than one college student, on an average, for each community of
two thousand population. Not only did the growth of schools for
higher education keep up with the growth in population, but the en-
rollment increased, year by year, until in 1895, instead of 590 students
we had 1 190 in each million. The quota had doubled, and it has since
increased. . . . The number of students reported as engaged in post-
graduate work in all our colleges and universities in 1872 was only 189.
This has steadily increased, doubling once in five or six years until in
1897 the number was 4419. They are twenty-five times as numerous.
Professional students, too, have increased. The number studying law,
medicine, and theology in 1872 was only 280 in each million of inhab-
itants. In 1896 the 280 had become 740 in the million. In the same
quarter of the century, scientific and technical schools have multiplied.
In the six years from 1890 to 1896 the number of students in engi-
neering and applied science increased from 15,000 to 24,000."
NATIONAL SCHOOLS.
With the exception of a few Indian schools on various
Indian reservations and in Alaska, there are o nly two
great national schools esta blished bY act of Congress a nd
supportecientireiy by^irect appropriations of national
1 Journal of American Social Science Association, 1898.
SECONDAR V AND HIGHER PUBLIC EDUCATION
91
revenue. These are the United States Military Academy
^t West Point (1802), and the United States Nava l
Academy at Annapolis (1845). They are not usually
considered as public schools, but they form in reality an
important part of the American system of public educa-
tion. They were established for training men in the art
of war, and for purposes of national defense. Their an-
nual cost is over $800,000. Their value has been proved
in every war since their establishment, but was never
more clearly demonstrated than in the recent war with
Spain. The skilled naval officers who destroyed the
Spanish navy at Manila and off Santiago were educated
in the Naval Academy. All these great sea-captains write
in praise of the skill and valor of the engineers, gunners,
firemen, and seamen who were trained in technical schools,
and common schools. West Point supplied, in part, the
trained army officers. The rank and file who stormed the
Spanish intrenchments at El Caney and San Juan had
been trained, some in common schools, some in high
schools, some in college and university, but whether
regulars or volunteers, ex-federals or ex-confederates, cow-
boys, or college graduates, they proved themselves equals
in patriotism and valor.
A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY. ^
There remains one more stage of development to com-
plete the Am erican public-school_systern, — the estab-
lishment of a free national univers it y in the na tional rap-
ital, which shall utilize the great museums and libraries
and government scientific departments at Washington,
and represent the culmination of the free state universi-
ties in one national institution of learning such as George
92 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Washington hoped for when he bequeathed in his will
half of his estate towards that noble end. In 1796, Pres-
ident Washington, in his message to Congress, urged the
establishment of a national university as well as a military
academy. His reasons for desiring a national university
are set forth as follows :
" True it is that our country contains many seminaries of learning
highly respectable and useful ; but the funds upon which they rest are
too narrow to command the ablest professors in the different depart-
ments of liberal knowledge for the institution contemplated, though
they would be excellent auxiliaries. Among the motives to such an
institution the assimilation of principles, opinions, and manners of our
countrymen by the common education of a portion of our youth from
every quarter well deserves attention ; the more homogeneous our
citizens can be made in these particulars, the greater will be our pros-
pects of permanent union ; and a primary object of such a national
institution should be the education of our youth in the science of
government."
At various intervals during an entire century, Washington's recom-
mendation has been a subject of discussion, but not of legislation. In
1899, President David Starr Jordan says of it : " In matters of educa-
tion, no other agency can take the place of the combined effort of the
people. To the end that a great university, worthy of a growing na-
tion, should be established at the national capital, Washington left a
large part of his property in trust to Congress to form the nucleus of
such an establishment. The scholars and investigators now main-
tained at Washington exert an influence far beyond that of their offi-
cial position. To the force of high training and academic self-devotion
is to be traced the immense influence exerted in Washington by Joseph
Henry, Spencer F. Baird, and Brown Goode. Of such men as these
are universities made. When such men are systematically selected
from our body of university professors and brought to Washington
and allowed to surround themselves with like men of the next genera-
tion, we shall, indeed, have a national capital. A university is simply )
a contrivance for making wisdom effective by surrounding wise men
with the conditions most favorable for rendering wisdom contagious."
CHAPTER IV
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
THE SOUTHERN STATES
Reconstruction. — When the Civil War was over and
reconstruction completed, the people of the Southern
states took up the common-school question with all the
zeal of the early educational reformers in the North dur-
ing the days of Horace Mann and Henry Barnard. "The
South," says Dr. A. D. Mayo, " that so long remained
outside the expanding circle of the common school, has
responded to the cry of the children during the last
twenty years by the most remarkable achievement in the
organization and support of popular education recorded
in history."
During the reconstruction period (1866-76) all the
Southern states made provisions in their new constitu-
tions for establishing a syste m of free pub lic^ schools.
"The^siluatrdn was complicated, because separate schools
were required for the children of the colored race. More-
over, civil government was unsettled, and the people,
exhausted by the Civil War, were poon The pioneer
educators in the new states of the Northwest or of the
Pacific states can realize from their own experience, in
some measure, the untiring efforts and devotion to duty
necessary to provide for a general system of education, —
a work which required the combined energies of edu-
cators, philanthropists, and statesmen.
93
94 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The preliminary steps were taken when General John
Eaton, afterwards U. S. Commissioner of Education, was
ordered by General Grant to look after the freedmen in
Tennessee and Arkansas, and to open schools for colored
children wherever it was possible to do so. In 1864 a
considerable number of schools was opened in and around
Vicksburg and Memphis, so that in 1865 the reports
showed a school attendance of 7000 pupils.
The Freedman's Bureau. — The Fr eedman's Burea u,
attached to the War Department, was organized in 1 865,
a nd a part of its work was educational. General O. O.
Howard, the Commissioner, entered vigorously on his
duties. In 1867 he reported to the Secretary of War
that $115,000 had been expended for schools. His later
official reports show that, from 1866 to 1870, about
$2,600,000 was expended for school purposes.
Dr. J. M. L. Curry states that the American Missionary
Association was the chief body, apart from the govern-
ment, in the great enterprise of meeting the needs of the
colored race. Its expenditures from i860 to 1893 in the
South for freedmen, including church extension as well
as education, amounted to $11,600,000.
The Peabody Fund. — George Peabody, educated in a
Massachusetts common school, placed in the hands of a
board of trustees of which Robert C. Winthrop was presi-
dent (1867), a fund of $2,000,000 to be used "for the
promotion and encouragement of intellectual, moral, or
industrial education among the young of the more des-
titute portions of the Southern states of our Union."
Dr. Barnas Sears, the general agent of the trustees,
wisely presented the plan of confining aid to public
schools, allowing them partial support, but requiring the
people to tax themselves for the remainder necessary to
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
95
maintain the schools. He said : " The object of the
Peabody Education Fund is free schools for the whole
people, neither more nor less. We have nothing in view
but what is comprised therein."
Robert C. Winthrop, president of the trustees, said in his address
at the Yorktown Centennial celebration : " There must be aids and
appropriations, and endowments by cities and states, and by the nation
at large through its public lands if in no other way, and to an amount
compared with which the gift of George Peabody — munificent as it was
for an individual benefaction — is but the small dust of the balance.
. . . The whole field of our Union is now open to education, and the
whole field of the Union must be occupied. This government must
stand or fall with free schools. These and these alone can supply the
firm foundation, and that foundation must, at this very moment, be ex-
tended and strengthened and rendered immovable and indestructible."
The Slater Fund.— John F. Slater, educated in a
Rhode Island common school and academy, made a be-
quest of $1,000,000 (1882), and placed it in the hands of
a board of trustees, of which Rutherford B. Hayes was
president. The income from this fund was to be ex-
pended in aiding education in the Southern states. In
his letter to the trustees Mr. Slater expresses his pur-
pose as follows : " The general object which I desire to
have exclusively pursued, is the uplifting of the lately
emancipated population of the Southern states, and their
posterity, by conferring on them the blessings of Chris-
tian education. . . . But it is not only for their own sake,
but also for the safety of our common country in which
they have been invested with equal political rights, that
I am desirous to aid them with the means of such educa-
tion as shall tend to make them good men and good
citizens. . . . The means to be used in the prosecution of
the general object above described I leave to the discre-
tion of the corporation, only indicating as lines of opera-
96 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
tion adapted to the present condition of things, the train-
ing of teachers from among the people required to be
taught." The trustees decided that students should be
trained in some manual occupation simultaneously with
their mental and moral instruction, and confined their
aid exclusively to such institutions "• as were, with good
reason, believed to be on a permanent basis." The trus-
tees paid out for educational aid from 1884 to 1894 the
sum of $439,000.
Dr. J. L. M, Curry, secretary of the John F. Slater Fund, in an ex-
haustive paper on the " Education of the Negroes since i860," ^ makes
the following statements in relation to education in the South : " All
the states of the South, as soon as they recovered their governments,
put in operation systems of public schools which gave equal opportuni-
ties and privileges to both races. It would be singularly unjust not to
consider the difficulties — social, political, and pecuniary — which em-
barrassed the South in the efforts to inaugurate free education. It
required unusual heroism to adapt to the new conditions, but she was
equal in fidelity and energy to what was demanded for the reconstruc-
tion of society and civil institutions. The complete enfranchisement
of the negroes and their new political relations, as the result of the war
and the new amendments to the Constitution, necessitated an entire
reorganization of the systems of public education. Comparisons with
densely populated sections are misleading, for in the South the sparse-
ness and poverty of the population are almost a preventive of good
schools. Still the results have been marvelous. . . . The urban pop-
ulation is small and agriculture is the chief occupation. Of the 858,-
000 negroes in Georgia, 130,000 are in cities and towns and 728,000 in
the country ; in Mississippi, urban colored population 42,000, rural 700,-
000 ; in South Carolina, urban 66,000 ; against 498,000 rural ; in Ala-
bama, 65,000 against 613,000; in Louisiana, 93,000 against 466,000.
While the colored population supplies less than its due proportion of
pupils to the public schools, and the regularity of attendance is less
than with the white, yet the difference in length of school terms in
schools for white and schools for black children is trifling. In the
1 Report of the Commissioner of Education, Vol. 2, 1894-95.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER TH,
same grades the wages of teachers are about the same. The annual
State school revenue is apportioned impartially among white and black
children, so much per capita to each child."
In 1893-94, the common-school enrollment of colored
pupils in the sixteen former slave states and the District
of Columbia was 1,425,000 as against an enrollment of
white pupils of 3,835,000. " In 1880, on my first visit to
the South,"says Dr. Mayo, " I found these public schools
everywhere acknowledged models and centers of light.
Their boards of education were composed of the leading
men of the community, who gave character to the move-
ment and from the first assured its success. It would be
impossible to make a Northern public fully understand the
enthusiasm I witnessed in scores of villages and cities, ex-
tending the * whole region roundabout,' awakened by the
strange and beautiful spectacle of all the children going
to school together, instructed, disciplined, and interested
in a way that had never been known before in the
memory of the oldest inhabitant."
School Organization. — The following exact statement
is quoted from an exhaustive paper on " The Social Unit
in the Public School System of the United States," by
Mr. Wellford Addis, Specialist in the Bureau of Edu-
cation : 1
" It seems legitimate to conclude that the school systems of the
southeastern and southern coast are systems of state schools, while in
Massachusetts, to. take the most striking example, the school system
is a town (ship) system, though most freely directed by the legislature
to carry out reforms or inaugurate innovations. Five Southern states
have a county board as the real local school authority. In one of
these (Florida) the county is divided into three districts, and a member
of the board is elected from each ; in another (Georgia) the grand jury
choose the county board ; in another (Mississippi) the county board is
2 See Report of the Commissioner of Education, Vol. 2, 1894-95.
AM. PUB. SCH. — 7
98 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
composed of a member from each supervisor's district appointed by
the states uperintendent, and in the fourth and fifth the county board
is appointed by the governor. The other states of our southern coast
have a county superintendent as the local school authority, who is
appointed in Alabama and Virginia by the state superintendent, and
in South Carolina (under the old law) by the people.
" North Carolina has no county superintendent, and its schools are
under authority of its ' county commissioners ' sitting as a ' county
board of education.' The more local or district authority, as far as it
occurs, is appointed by the county authority, except in Mississippi, where
the ' patrons* elect three district trustees, and in Virginia, where an
electoral board, composed of the county judge, commonwealth attor-
ney, and county superintendent, elect the district boards for the school
subdivisions of the county."
Recent Statistics. — The report of the Commissioner of
Education (1896-97), shows that the total school enroll-
ment in the sixteen Southern states and the District of
Columbia was 5,398,000, the number of colored pupils
being 1,460,000, and the number of white pupils 3,938,000.
In Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina the colored
school population exceeds the white school population.
The total expenditure for the public schools of this sec-
tion was $31,145,000. The estimated cost of colored
schools alone is $6,575,000. Since 1870 the total amount
of money expended in the Southern states has reached
$514,922,000, of which it is estimated that $100,000,000
has been expended on schools for colored children.
Secondary and Higher Education. — The Report of
1896-97 shows that in the 169 schools of all kinds, public
and private, in the United States, exclusively for the edu-
cation of the colored race, there was an enrollment of
45,402 students. Of these schools all but nine were in the
Southern states. In the secondary grades there were
15,203 students, and in collegiate grades 2108 students.
Separate state institutions belonging to the class of
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVH WAR
99
" land-grant " colleges, receiving their share of the Con-
gressional subsidy for such colleges, have been established
for colored students in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware,
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia,
and West Virginia. One of the most notable of these
schools is the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute
in Virginia (1870). Dr. Mayo tells the story of this school
as follows :
" The one great educational genius developed by the Civil War was
General S. C. Armstrong. Born in Hawaii, educated in Massachusetts,
a brave soldier and a worker with the colored people during the war,
he established at Hampton, close by the beach where the first slave
ship landed, the most original and characteristically American and mis-
sionary organization for the uplifting of the humbler classes, still the
majority of mankind, now in existence. The Hampton system com-
bines all that can be done for the lower orders of mankind in one
institution. It organizes worship on unsectarian basis, establishes
military discipline and training in a soldier's life for the boys, compels
every pupil to learn some method for self-support, introduces the girls
to new modern ways of home life, organizes the principal industrial
occupations, gives instruction in English in a good graded system,
with a great normal school at the center for teachers, and through its
summer schools reaches outward. On the one hand, it joins hands
with the state of Virginia, and on the other, with the nation, in the
training of the negro and the Indian, and with no complications ap-
peals to the American people for support. Armstrong wore himself
out in a ministry of education, died in middle life, and, like the good
soldier he was, asked for a soldier's funeral."
The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Ala-
bama, receives from the state a small appropriation, and is
further aided by contributions from philanthropists. The
story of this school is an object lesson in education, and
I let the founder and president of the institution give it
in his own words. In an address on the " Industrial Edu-
lOO HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
cation of the Blacks" ^ (1896), Booker T. Washington
spoke, in part, as follows :
" I was born a slave on a plantation in Virginia in 1857 or 1858, I
think. . . . With the long prayed freedom in actual possession, my
mother decided to locate in West Virginia. Soon after, I began work
in the coal mines for the support of my mother. While doing this I
heard in some way of General Armstrong's school at Hampton, Va.
I heard at the same time that it was a school where a poor boy could
work for his education so far as his board was concerned. I began at
once to save every nickel I could get hold of. At length, with my
own savings and a little help from my brother and mother, I started
for Hampton. ... I at once found General Armstrong and told him
what I had come for, and what my condition was. In his great hearty
way he said that if I was worth anything he would give me a chance
to work my way through the institution. ... While at Hampton I
resolved, if God permitted me to finish the course of study, I would
enter the far South, the black belt of the Gulf States, and give my
life in providing as best I could the same kind of chance for self-help
for the youth of my race that I found ready for me when I went to
Hampton, and so in 188 1 I left Hampton and went to Tuskegee and
started the Normal and Industrial Institute in a small church and a
shanty, with one teacher and 30 students. Since then the institution
of Tuskegee has grown till we have connected with it 69 instructors
and 800 young men and women representing 19 states. . . . From the
first, industrial or hand training has been made a special feature of our
work. While friends at the North and elsewhere have given us money
to pay our teachers and to buy material which we could not produce,
still, very largely by the labor of our students, we have built up within
about fourteen years a property that is now valued at $225,000; 37
buildings, counting large and small, located on 1,400 acres of land, all
except three of which are the product of student labor."
Taxation for Public Schools. — The burden of school
taxation^in the Southern states has been heavy and it
must long remain so. The people fully realize that while
^ Address at the dinner in honor of Alexander Hamilton, Brooklyn,
N. Y., 1896. Report of Commissioner of Education, Vol. 2, 1894-95.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS 'AFTER THE CIVH WAR loi
endowments, bequests, and denominational appropriations
may aid them, to some extent, in educating some of the
children, the main support of the public schools for the
great mass of children must be derived from a regular and
unintermittent revenue derived from state and local tax-
ation. Heavy as the burden is, it is no greater, relatively,
than it was in New England during the period when the
common schools first gained a foothold in the world. The
gra ded schools of cities and large towns in the South now
differ buMrttle from the urban scho ols in other pa rts of
the United States; the j niral schq ols, as in all other
sparsely populated states, will be subject, as in other
states, to slow deve lo^pment.
THE PACIFIC STATES.
For a brief typical study of this section, we may take
California, which was acquired by conquest in the Mexican
War and was ceded by Mexico to the United States in
1848. Owing to the discovery of gold this region was
rapidly filled up by emigrants from every state in our own
country and from most of the nations of the old world.
California was admitted as a state (1850) without the
usual preliminary stage of a territorial government. The
state constitution, framed and adopted by the people in
1849, provided for the election of a state superintendent
of public instruction by the people for a term of three
years ; made it the duty of the legislature to " provide
for a system of common schools by which a school should
be kept up in each school district at least three months in
every year ; and provided that the proceeds of school lands
should constitute a perpetual fund to be inviolably appro-
priated to the support of common schools, and to protect
any land grants for a state university."
HIS TOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
State Legislation. — At the first session of the legisla-
ture (1849-50) no school law was enacted, the Commit-
tee on Education reporting " that the taxes laid on the
people, for state, county, and municipal purposes were
so heavy, the committee did not deem it advisable to
report a bill to tax the people still further for the support
of public schools." At the second session of the state
legislature (1850-51) a school law was enacted, provTdTng"
toFThe subdiyisfon-gTc^o unties into schoot jlstric ts ; for a
distri ct school committee of thre e, elected annually by
"direct vote of the people ; gave the school committees
power to build schoolhouse s, to examine and j^point
teachers, and t o report to the state superint endent.
David C. Broderick, afterward U. S. senator from Cali-
fornia, educated when a boy in the public schools of New
York city, was an active supporter of this bill. In 1852,
the imperfect act of the preceding year was amended by
making county assessors ex officio school superintendents ;
and by authorizing counties to levy a school tax *' not to
exceed three cents on a hundred dollars " — a meager pro-
vision for a flourishing and already populous state.
This law also contained a section which enabled the
parochial schools to secure a pro rata of the public school
moneys, a provision which led to several bitter contests
in the state legislature for a period of ten years.
School Beginnings. — Meanwhile, the peopl e of Am eri-
can descent set t o work and organized schools, after th e^
rnarmer jDt thetF^ ncestors on the A t]antic_c oast in ea rly
days, w ithout_anyi^- law other than l o c al ordi nances^ In the
town of San Francisco, October 11, 1847, a committee of
" Town Council " (Ayuntamiento ) built a small one-room
schoolhouse on the corner of the town plaza (now Ports-
mouth Square), and on February 23, 1848, a small num-
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVH WAR 103
ber of townsmen held a meeting and elected the first
school committee in California, consisting of seven mem-
bers. This school committee appointed as teacher,
Thomas Douglass, a graduate of Yale College. The
school was opened in April, 1848, with six pupils. This
was a public school, mainly supported by tuition fees, but
indigents were admitted as charity pupils, after the
manner that prevailed in public and parish schools two
hundred years before in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New
York. The town council agreed to pay for these charity
pupils the sum of $400 towards the support of the school.
But this school was short-lived. When the stampede for
the gold mines became general the school dwindled down
to eight pupils, and schoolmaster Douglass joined the
prospectors and set out for the mountains. In December,
1849, ■'^^- ^'^^ Mrs. John C. Pelton opened a school sup-
ported by " voluntary subscriptions," but free to the
" children of the poor." This school was made a free
public school by ordinance of the Common Council of
San Francisco, April 8, 1850, and John C. Pelton was
appointed as teacher, in which position he continued
until September 25, 185 1. During this period (1848-51),
numerous small private schools and denominational
schools were opened in San Francisco and other parts of
California where the population had become grouped into
villages and small towns, such as Sacramento, Stockton,
San Jose, Santa Clara, Nevada City, Grass Valley, Rough
and Ready, etc. At this time the total number of chil-
dren in the state between 4 and 18 years of age was
estimated to be about 6,000. Outside of San Francisco,
there were only a few feeble public schools, and the his-
tory of these is known only by tradition.^
iSwett's " History of the Public School System of California."
I04 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Further State Legislation. — At thethird sessionjof JJie
Legislature (1851-52) Frank Soule, chairman of the
senate committee on education, made an able report in
favor of common schools and introduced a revised school
law containing several important provisions in advance.
/^This law, as approved May 3, 1852, created a state board
of education, consisting of the governor, surveyor gen-
eral, and state superintendent ; defined the duties of
all school officers ; authorized the common council in
incorporated towns to raise a school tax not to exceed
three cents on a hundred dollars, and fixed the county
tax at the same rate ; and provided that no school should
receive any apportionment of public money unless free
from all denominational and sectarian bias, control, or
influence whatever. This last provision was rendered
necessary from the fact that under the previous law (185 1-
52), parochial schools had obtained a pro rata of public
moneys.
School Beginnings in San Francisco, 1851-53. — The
first city school ordinance passed under the state school
law of 185 1, was that of San Francisco, adopted Septem-
ber, 185 1, which provided for a city board of education
and a city school superintendent, and appropriated
$35,000 for the support of schools. During the forma-
tive period of 1851-53, among the small group of school
principals, James Denman was a graduate of the Albany
{ N. Y. ) State normal school ; Ellis H. Holmes and Ahira
Holmes were from the Bridgewater ( Mass.) State normal
school ; and William Russell's Merrimack ( N. H. ) private
normal school was represented by the writer of this
history.
The first schools were held in rented buildings, small,
rude, and cheap, and roughly fitted up for temporary
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVH WAR 105
school purposes. For instance, the Happy Valley School
( now the Denman School) occupied for a time a livery
stable, sub-divided by thin board partitions. The Rincon
School was held in a shanty half-buried in a sand bank.
But these rooms were crowded with pupils. In 1851
there was an enrollment of 400 pupils; in 1852, of 600 ;
in 1853, of 1500; and in 1856, of nearly 8,000, including
1,421 in the ward or parochial schools. The school
appropriations, at first, were niggardly. The common-
school spirit had not yet been developed. The new city
was full of parochial and other denominational schools,
and of small private schools. It required heroic efforts to
organize and maintain common schools in the midst of a
cosmopolitan population drawn from the four quarters of
the globe. The political elements were unstable, and the
tenure of teachers was uncertain. The Vigilance Com-
mittee, in 1856, purified the city, and for a decade the
school administration was good, and prospects began to
brighten.
The parochial schools of the Catholic Church were
strong, and were attended by more than a thousand chil-
dren. For several years these schools, known as ward-
schools, received their pro rata of public-school moneys.
This question became a vexed one in state legislation.
The first high school in San Francisco (1856) was
started under the name of " The Union Grammar School,"
because some of the city officials held that a high school
was not legally a common school. At the end of a year,
however, the school was allowed to assume its proper
name, " The English High School."
State Legislation Again. — At the fifth session of the
legislature (1853-54), Hon. D. R. Ashley "submitted a
carefully-prepared school bill, biit as it contained a section
Io6 HISTORY OF AMERICAN RUBLIC SCHOOLS
that prohibited sectarian schools from receiving a pro rata
of public school moneys, it was buried in the rubbish of
unfinished business. During the next session (1854-55),
Mr. Ashley introduced, in substance, his rejected school
bill of the preceding year, which became a law May 3,
1855. This enactment provided among other things that
no school should be entitled to any share of the public
fund that had not been taught by teachers duly examined
and approved by legal authority, and that no sectarian
doctrines should be taught in any public school under
penalty of forfeiting public funds.
In 1857, Andrew J. Moulder, a graduate of the Uni-
versity of Virginia, was elected to the office of state sup-
erintendent, which he held until 1 863. From his varied ex-
perience as a teacher in a Virginia academy, and as a
journalist in California, he brought to the office good
qualifications for his work. He secured numerous amend-
ments to the state school law, and his six annual reports
afford a good record of the advancement in common
schools. _.
In 1 861, John Conness, afterwards U. S. senator from '
California, introduced a bill in the assembly, which be-
came a law, providing for the sale of the i6th and 36th
sections of school lands, and also that the proceeds should
be paid into the state school fund. Thus, after many
years of impracticable legislation in tinkering on town-
ship land bills, a practicable law was enacted by which in
less than one year 200,000 acres were sold, and the pro-
ceeds applied to the state school fund.
Another attempt was made to secure a pro rata of
school money for parochial schools ; but it was defeated
by the determined stand taken against it by Hon. John
Conness.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
07
Important school legislation was secured in 1865-66 by
the enactment of the *' Revised School Law " — a law
drafted by the Superintendent of Public Instruction and
passed almost without amendment. This law contained
liberal provisions for state, county, and district taxation ;
and marked the beginning of free common schools in
every rural district in the state. It fixed the rate of state
school tax at eight cents on each hundred dollars of tax-
able property ; the' county school tax at a minimum of
$3.00 for each school census child, and the maximum at
thirty-five cents on each $100; authorized and required
schooL trustees to levy a school tax sufficient to keep a
free school five months in each year. It provided for a
state board of education ; for life diplomas for teachers ;
for district school libraries ; for county institutes ; for the
election of district school trustees for a term of three
years, one to be elected each year ; and for many other
details of a modern public school system.
State Taxation. — In i874 _thestate school tax was in-
creased to an annual levy of $7.00 for each school census
child, which yielded an annual school revenue of over a
million of dollars. Another provision secured for each
school district, even the smallest, a minimum annual ap-
portionment of $500, thus securing at least an eight months
school in all rural district schools.
The original state tax of half a mill on the dollar was
secured in 1864 by a petition to the state legislature from
each school district in the state. There were nearly a
thousand of these petitions, and the legislators were
forced into an immediate compliance with the demands
of their constituents. This petition, drafted by the state
superintendent, and sent out for circulation in every school
district, read as follows :
I08 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
"Whereas, We believe that it is the duty of a representative
government to maintain pubhc schools as an act of self-preservation,
and that the property of the state should be taxed to educate the
children of the state ; and whereas, the present school fund is wholly
inadequate to sustain a system of free schools ; we, the undersigned,
qualified electors of the state of California, respectfully ask your
honorable body to levy a special state tax of half a mill on the dollar,
during the fiscal years 1864 and 1865, the proceeds of the same to be
disbursed in the same manner as the present state school fund."
In 1866, the rate of state school tax was raised to eight
cents on each $icx), and at a later period was more than
doubled.
State Normal Schools. — The first state normal school
was opened in San Francisco, July, 1862, with Ahira
Holmes, of the Bridgewater Normal School, as principal.
Henry P. Carlton was soon after appointed vice principal.
In 1873 the school was removed to San Jose. Since that
time additional state normal schools have been established
at Los Angeles, Chico, San Diego, and San Francisco.
The State University. — In 1868, John W. Dwindle
drafted a bill and secured its passage in the legislature of
which he was a member, providing for a state university
with an agricultural college. The College of California,
a liberal denominational college, founded in 1855, dis-
incorporated and conveyed its grounds at Berkeley to
the State University, which assumed the debts of the
college. The State University opened its doors in Oak^
land, September 23, 1869, with Professor John Le Conte, of
South Carolina, as acting president. In 1870, Henry
Durant, of Yale, who had been president of the College
of California, was elected president of the State Uni-
versity. The endowment fund of the State University,
derived from Federal and state land grants, may be roughly
estimated at two millions of dollars. A state tax of ^eT"
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
109
cents on $100 is annually levied for the support of the
university, and liberal appropriations have been made
from time to time for the erection of buildings. Several
large individual bequests have been made to the uni-
versity by educational philanthropists.
State Publication of Text-Books. — The special student
will discover that most of the states made, at one time or
another in their history, some blunder or some unfor-
tunate experiment in school legislation. California made
an ill-advised experiment by a law providing for the state
publi cation of co mmon-school text- book s. This law was
enacted during a period of great social agitation and in-
dustrial discontent. Various causes led up to this result.
Under a law enacted in 1863-64, the State Board of
Education was authorized to adopt a uniform series of
school-books for rural school districts, which at that time
included only about one third of the school children in
the state. Incorporated cities and towns having special
boards of education were left free to adopt their own
text-books. This law was enacted on the repeated de-
mand of the teachers assembled in state institutes. It
had been found that district school trustees made ill-
advised selections, or else made no adoptions whatever,
leaving pupils to use whatever miscellaneous books they
brought to school. This law worked well enough before
the days of county boards of education ; but by influences
other than good public policy, San Francisco and all other
incorporated cities were soon included in the state uni-
formity law. The question still remained a vexed sub-
ject of legislation. Finally, in 1885, a law was enacted
which provided that the State Board of Education should
edit or prepare a series of text-books, to be printed by the
state printer, published by the state, and furnished to
1 10 HISrOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
pupils at the cost price of publication. At the outset, the
majority of public-school teachers were opposed to this
plan ; after an experience of fifteen years, the teachers are
almost unanimous in condemnation of it.
Educational Evolution. — Jn a quarter of a century, "^
California rapidly passed through a l l the successive sta ges
of educational development, — first, private and denomina-
tionaTschools; next, city schools^; then, ungraded district
schools, partly supported by rate bills ; thetTTree public
prirnarv^_a nd grammat ^^schools ; and, in due time, high
schools, no rmal schools , and a f ree state university^
Incidental to this system, there were provided, as in other
states, reform schools, institutions for the deaf and dumb
and blind, and for feeble-minded children. In 185 1, the
public-school enrollment was less than 2000; ten years
later it had increased to 18,000; in 1 871, it was 64,000,
and in 1875, to 130,000. The public school expenditures
amounted in 1851 to $33,000; in 1861, to half a million,
and in 1875, to $2,500,000. From 1850 to 1875, the
total expenditure for school purposes, including state
normal schools and state university, amounted to nearly
$25,000,000. The expenditure for public-school purposes s
in 1897 was $5,748,000.
Other Western Mountain States. — The history of the
school system of the other Pacific and Rocky Mountain
states, — now classed by the Bureau of Education as the
" Western Division," — resembles, in general outlines, that
of California. Oregon had a slower development ; Wash-
ington and Colorado a quicker growth. The state uni-
versities of Washington, Oregon, and Colorado are excep-
tionally promising, and are based on well-organized sys-
tems of public schools. Idaho, Montana, Wyoming,
Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, are marching along
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVIL WAR m
their mountain highways in the public-school procession.
Alaska has its system of schools for Indians, in charge of
the National Bureau of Education, and will soon have its
common schools for white children, and in due time its
state university and experiment stations.
In all this western mountain group of states the total
public-school enrollment is 700,000, or 200,000 less than
that of the New England states. Out of the total public
and private school enrollment, only about six per cent are
found in private schools. In the universities, colleges, and
schools of technology, there are 5,300 students, 60 per
cent of whom are in public institutions. In San Fran-
cisco, the largest city of this group of states, there were
enrolled (1896-97) 39,000 pupils in public schools, and
8,000 in parochial and private schools.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC STATES.
New England. — In N ew England mod ernadvancement
hasjconsist ed chiefly m perfecting the sch ools_alj^alo^ng
t he li nes of original development. The dist rict sc hools
have given place to town sc hools place d u^nder the super-
YJsion o fedn rational ev perts ; wise compulsory educational
laws strictly enforced in all rnanufacturing cities, secure"
the rights of children to attend school at least a part of
each year. Notwithstanding the influx of foreign opera-
tives into cities, ample provision has been made for taking
the children into well-planned and well-ventilated school
buildings, where they are assimilated into American cit-
izens. School attendance has been everywhere increased
by furnishing t ext-books at public expense ; and in rural
districts by ^frg^_£ublicjtraii sportation tO — the central
schools. In the city of Boston (1896-97), there were
1 12 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
82,000 children enrolled in the public schools, and 12,000
attending parochial and private schools.
In Massachusetts the doors of the high schools are open
to all girls and boys who are fitted to enter them and de-
sire to do so, transportation of pupils remote from school
being paid for at public expense. Here is what William
T. Harris said in 1894 :^
" I find, by the returns made to the National Bureau of Education
that the total amount of school education that each inhabitant of
Massachusetts is receiving on an average — basing the calculation on
the attendance in public and private schools and the length of the
annual school term — is nearly seven years of two hundred days
each, while the average schooling given each citizen in the whole
nation is only four and three-tenths of such years. No other state is
giving so much education to its people as Massachusetts, and yet all
the education given in all its institutions does not amount on an
average to so much as seven eighths of an elementary education of
eight years. Even Massachusetts is not over-educating the people.
But there would seem to be some connection between the fact that,
while her citizens get nearly twdce the national average amount of
education, her wealth-producing power as compared with other states
stands almost in the same ratio — namely (in 1885), at seventy-three
cents per day fot each man, woman, and child, while the average for
the whole nation was only forty cents."
New York and Pennsylvania. — Of all the states. New
York ranks highest in the number of pupils enrolled on
public-school registers, having a total enrollment of 1,200,-
000, and Pennsylvania is a close second with 1,140,000.
Each state has fourteen large and well-equipped public
normal schools. Each state has a strong system of high
schools. Each state has an effective system of common
schools, differing in details, but each accomplishing the
^ Editor's Preface to " Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School
System," by George H. Martin.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
113
main purpose of educating the people. Both states have
their public and non-public colleges and universities, of
which they are justly proud. Including the school en-
rollment in New Jersey (295,000), and the New England
states (907,000), the total public school enrollment of the
Northern Atlantic Division is 3,545,000. According to
the Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1896-97, in
the city of Philadelphia, there were 168,000 pupils en-
rolled in public schools, and 42,000 in parochial and private
schools.
The school_systPm of New York city has recently been
reorganized and the executive power has been central-
ized. In 1896, an act"oT~the stateTegTstatnre^-provided
for a city board of educati on for New Y ork_city, consist-
ing of 2i_commissiQa£j :s of common sc hools, appointed by
the mayor, for a term of three years, one third to be ap-
pointed annually. The board have full control of public
schools and of the public-school system of the city, sub-
ject only to the statutes of the state. Teachers are ap-
pointed by the board on the written nomination of a major-
ity of the board of school superintendents. The city
must be divided into fifteen inspection districts, for each of
which there is a board of school inspectors of five mem-
bers, appointed by the mayor for a term of five years, one
inspector being appointed each year. The local or ward
boards elected by popular vote are abolished. Under this
law high schools have been established, and kindergarten
schools opened. T his law is typical of the present ten-
(ien£y_ilL_all_great cities to a centralized management of
school s, under the inspectlon^ f educ ationaTexperts. The
new charter of San Francisco, adopted in 1899, provides
for a board of education of four members, appointed by
the mayor, and each paid a salary of $3,000 a year.
AM. PUB. SCH. — 8
114
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The g£o^^ of New York city in recent years has been
so rapid that it has been difficult for the schools to keep
pace with the population. At the opening of the schools
in September, 1898, there were 15,000 children clamoring
in vain for admission into the over-crowded public schools.
Under the imperative demands of the public press, tem-
porary rooms were rented for most of these children, and
measures proposed for issuing bonds to the amount of
$9,000,000 for the erection of suitable modern school-
houses. In 1897 there were estimated to be 40,000 chil-
dren in this city attending parochial and private schools,
and 226,000 enrolled in the public schools. Yet there
is not room enough to accommodate the children clam-
oring for admission into the public schools. One great
drawback on the public schools of New York city, for the
last quarter of a century has been the over-crowded school-
rooms and the great number of pupils to each teacher.
This condition of things exists in Chicago and most of
the other great cities.
THE NORTH CENTRAL STATES.
The Northwest Territory. — In this central seat of popu-
lation, made secure to public schools and free labor by
the ordinance of 1787, the American public-school system
has full and free development. HereTTn tKe"Tive~staYes
formed ouf of'The ofiginall^orthwest Territory — Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin — there are now
enrolled in the public schools 3,2 15,000 pupils, — an enroll-
ment lacking only 30,000 of being equal to the combined
enrollment of New York, Pennsylvania, and the New
England States taken together. Here, also, are enrolled
in all institutions, public and private, for the higher edu-
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVH WAR 115
cation, 17,000 students, of whom one half are in pubUc
colleges and universities. Here are growing up great
state universities like those of Michigan and Illinois.
Here is the University of Chicago, which resembles the
modern state university in most respects except in name.
Here, too, are congregated the notable leaders of the
American-Herbartian methods of instruction, who are
bringing common-school methods of instruction into ac-
cord with psychological principles and the needs of mod-
ern social conditions.
Other States. — If we add to these five states the other
states included in the North Central Division — Minnesota,
Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Kansas, — we
find a public school enrollment of 5,587,000 pupils, or more
than one-third of the entire enrollment of the republic.
These states, with one exception, came into the Union under
conditions similar to those of the Northwest-Territory
states. Missouri, which remained so long on the border
line of North and South, East and West, is distinguished,
educationally, by the public-school systems of St. Louis
and Kansas city, and the work of William T. Harris and
James M. Greenwood.
Turning to the great cities of this division we find a
large school attendance in parochial and private schools,
but in these states, as a whole, such attendance is compara-
tively small. The public schools of Chicago, like those of
New York, are overcrowded with children, having an en-
rollment of 225,000 pupils; yet there are estimated to be
91,000 children attending parochial and private schools.
The city of St. Louis has a public school enrollment of
75,000 and a parochial, and private school attendance esti-
mated at 25,000.
1 1 6 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
SOUTH ATLANTIC STATES.
In this division are included the states of Virginia, West
Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, North
and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The total
common-school enrollment in these states in 1 896-97, was
2,070,000, Georgia ranking highest in number (446,000),
Virginia second (368,000), and North Carolina third
(258,000). The city of Washington (D. C), had a pubhc-
school enrollment of 42,000, and a parochial and private
school attendance estimated at 5,000 pupils. In Baltimore
the public-school enrollment was 76,000 ; the parochial
and private school attendance was estimated at 16,000.
SOUTH CENTRAL STATES.
This division includes Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.
The total common school enrollment is 2,725,000, Texas
ranking highest (616,000), Tennessee second (482,000),
Kentucky third (400,000). The city of Louisville has a
public-school enrollment of 26,000, and a parochial and
private school attendance estimated at 8,000. New
Orleans has a public-school attendance of 29,000, and no
report on parochial or private school attendance. Nash-
ville has in public schools an enrollment of 10,000; in
parochial and private schools, 1,700.
CONCLUSION.
This chapter may be fitly closed by a quotation from
the Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1896-97 :
" If the conditions existing in the year 1896-97 were con-
tinued indefinitely, what would be the average amount of
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AFTER THE CIVH WAR u;
schooling per individual, counting it in school years of two
hundred days each ? I find that if we include public and
private schools and higher education as well as elementary
and secondary, the amount that each inhabitant would
receive is 4.94 years."
The table which the commissioner submits shows the
comparative rank by " divisions " as follows : North
Atlantic, 6.50 years; North Central, 5.90 years; Western,
5.54 years ; South Atlantic, 3.08 years ; South Central, 2.83
years. Another table shows the total amount of school-
ing per inhabitant, considering only public elementary and
secondary schools, to be 4.37 years. The " divisions "
rank as follows: North Atlantic 5.61 years; North Central
5.29 years; Western 5.02 years; South Atlantic 2.78
years ; South Central 2.49 years. This official exhibit
doesjiot ^eryt to indicate that the republic, as a whole,
^^V^m'Tig frr>m f^^rf-r- e-<\y^^:x\^\c^X\ (^\ thc pCOplc. ' ^
The report of the Bureau of Education further shows
that there were enrolled in the schools and colleges, both
public and private, during the school year 1896-97,
16,255,093 pupils, being an increase of 257,896 over the
preceding year. There were also enrolled 393,194 pupils
in city evening schools, business schools, Indian schools,
schools for defective classes, reform schools, orphan asy-
lums, and miscellaneous schools. This makes the grand
total of pupils and students in the whole nation 16,648,287.
CHAPTER V
COMMON-SCHOOL COURSES OF STUDY.
BRANCHES OF INSTRUCTION
In Colonial Schools. — The curriculum of the primitive
colonial common school included only reading, writing,
and arithmetic. For half a century the course in reading
consisted of the hornbook, some church primer or cate-
chism, the Psalter, and the Bible. In arithmetic the
teachers used some English text-book, such as Cocker's
or Hodder's, and dictated lessons to pupils, who carefully
copied their work into blank-books. When the catechism
and the Psalter began to go out of use, various kinds of
readers and spelling-books were brought over from Eng-
land. Still later, text-books on grammar, geography, and
history were dimly foreshadowed by fragments of each,
roughly " correlated " in various reading books.
In Early American Schools. — During the first half cen-
tury after the War of the Revolution, the colonial course
^'study was enriched by the addition of grammar, geo-
graphy, and, occasionally, history of the United States.
Studies other than these were exceptional, save in a few
cities and large towns, in which the original Latin gram-
mar schools were becoming slowly transformed into
American public schools which supplied an education in
English along with instruction in Latin. The text-books
were few in number and poor in quality. Noah Web-
ster's ''American Spelling Book" was used as a correlated
ii8
COMMON-SCHOOL COURSES OF STUDY 119
text-book for beginners in reading and spelling, though
some schools retained Perry's or Dilworth's, both of Eng-
lish origin. The spelling book was followed by a single
ungraded reading book, usually Murray's ** English
Reader," or the " American Preceptor," or Scott's " Elo-
cution," or the "Columbian Orator," or Webster's " Ameri-
can Selection," or Porter's "" Rhetorical Reader," or the
" Ameycan First Class Book," with the Bible for sup-
plementary reading. There was, in general, one un-
graded text-book for each of the other studies ; such
as Pike's, or Daboll's, or Hodder's, or Welch's, or
Adams's Arithmetic ; Lindley Murray's or Noah Web-
ster's English Grammar; and Dwight's, or Morse's,
or Olney's, or Woodbridge's Geography. Engraved
copy-books were unknown. . The teacher wrote the
copies at the head of each page in each pupil's blank-
book, and made and mended the quill pens. Drawing
was an unknown art, and little or no time was wasted in
school singing. Printed courses of study had no exis-
tence. School desks and seats were rude and uncomfort-
able. Behind the teacher's platform there was usually
found a small blackboard, but it was never used by pupils.
Charts, maps, and globes had not yet come into general
use. The hours of school were from 9 A. M. to 4 P. M.,
with an intermission of one hour at noon. Schools were^
in session six days in the week, though on Saturdays they
closed at noon in order to give pupils time to prepare for
Sunday. In summer time, when the big boys were at
work on the farm, the school was taught by some young
schoolmistress that had attended the academy a few
terms. During the winter term of three months a school-
master was employed, because some of the boys required
9, strong hand in discipline, and the older boys from fifteen /
^
1 20 HIS TOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
to twenty-one years of age took up book-keeping or pursued
the advanced course in algebra and geometry found in
Pike's arithmetic. The schoolmaster was paid from ten to
fifteen dollars a month, exclusive of board ; and the school-
mistress from three to eight dollars a month. As late as
1 8 14, Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke Seminary
and College taught her first district school in Western
Massachusetts for $3 a month, and " boarded round.**
DISCIPLINE.
School discipline was rigid and sometimes sever e, like
that in the schools of England and Scotland. It was
pithily summed up and kept alive by a well-known couplet
in the " New England Primer: "
" The idle fool
Is whipped at school."
The schoolmasters who came over from England dur-
ing the first century of colonial life were firm believers in
corporal punishment as a stimulus to mental activity in
memorizing hard lessons. But the se verity of English
discipline slowly disappeared. The ordinary school dis-
cipImeT except m some of the British types of Latin
grammar schools was reasonably well adapted to the ex-
isting home government and the condition of society. In
the schools of which I gained a personal knowledge, either
as a pupil (1835-44), or as a teacher (1848-52), corporal
punishment was of rare occurrence, and then only in
cases of open insubordination. Whipping a boy for not
learning his lessons was unknown. The usual manner of
punishment was by a few strokes on the palm of the hand
with a light wood ferule. I call to mind only one instance
COMMON-SCHOOL COURSES OF STUDY 121
of punishment on an extensive scale. This was when ten
big boys became so interested in skating on a neighbor-
ing mill-pond that they came into school late after the
noon intermission. They stood up in line manfully and
took their feruling without a whimper. But the next day
they were in their seats promptly after the ringing of the
bell. As for myself, I was never whipped either at school
or at home. During a teaching experience of two winters
in New Hampshire and two winters in a district school in
Massachusetts, the list of corporal punishments began
and ended with one obstreperous boy.
My friend, John Muir, the distinguished writer and sci-
entific explorer, who began his education by six years of
study in a " grammar school " in Scotland, gives me an
account of the severe discipline in the Scotch schools of
that period. " Any failure in Latin, or French, or gram-
mar, or spelling, or arithmetic, was followed by a warm
thrashing, which the boys took as a matter of course and
seemed to be greatly benefited by it. No disgrace at that
time was attached to corporal punishment ; it was as
hearty and natural as the weather ; kept the scholars wide
awake and mindful ; exerted a marvelous influence on
memory ; and developed manly Spartan fortitude." Earl
Barnes, also, takes a very charitable view of the results of
corporal punishment in the English schools of to-day.
METHODS OF TEACHING.
Recitations. — In general there was very little direct
ora Hnstruction . It was the offi ce of thejteacher to keeg
ord er and hear recitations. It was the duty of pupils to
nie morize text:: book lessons and recite them withou t note,^
comrn ent, or question. The end aimed at was the mem-
122 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
orizing of text-book lessons. In arithmetic '^ sums ' '
were worked out by rule, and this work was believed
to be the highest kind of mental discipline. In the un-
graded schools of that time, indeed, it was not possible
for teachers to do much more than to hear recitations.
Thus the text-book became all important, and almost
entirely determined the mental training of pupils. The
dominating influence of this method is strong in American
schools even at the present time. The sharp criticisms of
German educators on our undue reliance on text-book
work is not undeserved.
In the district school that I attended (1835-44), as in
most of the schools of that period, written arithmetic was
pursued on the *' individual system," each pupil attacking
the subject in his own way and working as fast as he
could. We worked by the rules in the book, and when
we " got stuck " by some puzzling problem, went to the
master or to some older boy, who showed us how to do
it. More than half our entire school time was devoted to
working out sums in the book. When Colburn's In-
tellectual Arithmetic appeared, we were put on regular
drill work in class, much to our delight. Great stress was
placed on oral spelling and oral reading, in class. We
had innumerable spelling matches, and frequent evening
spelling schools. Co mposition-writing was unknown to
_us. We were supposed to acquire the " art of writing
the English language with propriety " by a text-book
study of Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody,
without writing even a sentence.
District Schools. — These d istrict school s, however, were
often far better than their limited curriculum would seem
to inciicate. For a long period, the winter schools were
taughtJby_y oun^ college graduates who were enabled by
COMMON-SCHOOL COURSES OF STUDY
teaching to " pay their way " while studying law, medicine,
or theology. These cultured young men were ready to
aid ambitious and promising pupils in beginning algebra,
Latin, or other advanced studies. They encouraged fore-
handed farmers to send their smartest boys through
the academy and to college. The village district school
that I attended was taught for three successive winters by
young law students, graduates of Dartmouth. It was one
of these young liberals that started a class of big boys in
United States history, natural philosophy, and the civil
government of New Hampshire, and graciously allowed
me to enter it when only ten years of age.
A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW.
Attempted Improvements. — There is a recent article
on *' attempted improvements in the course of study,"
from which, by the kindness of the writer, I am permitted
to make a liberal quotation. The theory, practice, and
results of the old school curriculum and its accompanying
method are graphically summed up and set forth by Pro-
fessor Paul H. Hanus, of the pedagogical department of
Harvard University, as follows :^
" Once it was assumed that all knowledge was locked up in books ;
at the same time it was assumed that all knowledge (book-knowledge)
was power. Hence all intellectual development meant the mastery
of books. ' To put a child to his book ' was accordingly the phrase
which described the aim and processes of elementary education. Or,
in other words, the aim was to enable the child to read, write, and
cipher in order that he might possess himself of the contents of books.
Until a command of written and printed speech and facility in numer-
ical operations were secured, it was assumed that nothing else could
be learned.
" Not many years ago, it was still quite generally true that the ele-
1 The Educational Review, December, 1 896.
124 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
mentary school course of study — the pre-high school course — could be
described as chiefly a course of study in the school arts, reading, writ-
ing, arithmetic, and English grammar, together with book-geography
and a little United States history. It was still quite generally true that
the school seemed to be divorced from life. . . .
" It was, therefore, quite generally true that the total permanent re-
sult of the first eight or nine years of the pupil's school life was the
ability to read, but not the reading habit ; the ability to spell and write
words, but no power of expression with the pen ; a varying ability to
add, subtract, multiply, and divide simple numbers, integral and frac-
tional, but much uncertainty in all other arithmetical operations ; some
fragmentary book-knowledge of names and places of our own country
and of foreign countries ; and some scrappy information relating to
the history of the United States.
" A further defect of this barren elementary course of study was to
create a gap between ' the grades,' as they were called, and the high
school. The pursuit of literature, art, natural science, foreign languages,
was usually rigorously excluded from ' the grades ' ; and the pupil, on
entering the high school, found himself face to face with a bewildering
number of conceptions wholly new to him, and consequently often as
uninteresting and as devoid of significance as the drill of his grammar-
school period."
MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.
The Enlarged Curriculum. — The early common-school
curriculum has been enlarged from time to time during
the past half century, by the addition of mus jc^ rawing ,
p hysiology and hygien e, history and lite rature, nature
^udy , and th e^riting^oT^En^risiri In many city schools
and in some rural schools, the course has recently been
further enlarged by the addition of e lementary alg ebra
and_ geometry . Moreover, in many city schools, manual
trainin g has been introduced in the form of sewing, cook-
ing, and tool-work. In many cities graded evenin g schools
are kept open during the winter season, and in some
places, as in San Francisco, such schools are continued
COMMON-SCHOOL COURSES OF STUDY 125
throughout the year, and are regularly graded. These
schools include the common studies of the elementary
course, and also bookkeeping, drawing, typewriting, sten-
ography, and certain high school studies. ^
Nor has this general progress been limited to the ele-
mentary schools. Science and the scientific method have
led t^^^^^^_'jj^j<'^^'^Tic;triir^ Ciirriridnm in high
scHo ols, riormal schools, c olle ges, and univ ersities. /
But the greatest enrichment of the elementary courses ^^
of study consists, not so much in the addition of new sub-
jects, as in the chan ge from the formal, deductive , logical,
philosophical method of former times to the inductiv e,
scientific, genetic method pursued, to-day, in the best
schools. Even primary-grade pupils are now led to the
direct study of nature at first iiand. Instruction is im-
parted by the voice of the earnest teacher. Pupils are
introduced to suitable literature at an early age, and are
led to form a taste for good and wholesome reading. The_[
general equipment of schools with small school libraries
of appropriate modern literature, for supplementary read-
ing at home or in school, has proved one of the greatest
sources of enrichment. In many cities and towns free
public libraries reinforce the school libraries.
The Kindergarten. — One notable means of enriching
the common-school course is the kindergarten method of
training young children from four to six years of age.
This has proved the possibility of beginning school educa-
tion before children learn to read and write. Created by
the genius of Froeb el a little before the middle of this
century, the kindergartenwas transplanted from Qfj^rmariy _
to Ameri ca in 1855. This new educational movement
was taken up by charitable associations and societies,
and free kindergartens were opened in various parts of
126 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
the United States for the children of the poor in great
cities.
The first public-school kindergarten was established in
St. Louis (1873), through the combined influence of Wil-
liam T. Harris, then City Superintendent of Public Schools,
and Miss Susan E. Blow. In 1896 the number of public
school kindergartens in St. Louis was ninety-five. Phila-
delphia, Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York, and
many other cities have made the kindergarten a part of
their school system. According to the report of the
Commissioner of Education (1895-96), there were in the
United States 924 free public-school kindergartens, the
three leading states being Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
and New York.
The kindergarten method has stimulated child study j^
it has si mpHged Jn struct ion in t hp lower prJmgry^graHpg ;
it h as, in tro duced a natu ral ^ method of teaching y oung
children to sing ; it has proved its power in m ^raljtrain-
ing. It is only a question of time when it will become a
vital part of all city school systems. The German type of
kindergarten is not perfect, and it has already been ma-
terially modified to meet its American environment. It
will doubtless experience further changes in methods and
management.
A DECADE OF CHANGE.
During the past ten years (1888-98) there has been a
period of unprecedented educational activity and improve-
ment all over the land. Marked changes in courses of
study and in methods of teaching have occasioned some
friction ; for teachers are conservative, and require time
to adapt themselves to new conditions. It has conse-
quently become a matter of vital importance to make
room for the new studies and to find time for old ones
COMMON-SCHOOL COURSES OF STUDY 127
without overtasking pupils. For the adaptation of courses
of instruction has only begun, and psychological methods
are in their infancy.
The comparative value of studies in the modern school
curriculum, the distribution of time to each study, the best
methods of grading and promoting pupils, the value of
oral instruction as contrasted with the dead formalism
of text-book study and memorized recitations ; the fitting
of grammar school work to connect with enlightened high
school courses ; the closer inter-relation of high schools
with the varied courses in public colleges and state uni-
versities ; the extent of elective studies in grammar
school, high school, college, and university ; — all these are
now the subjects of earnest investigation by the pedagogit
departments of universities, by college presidents, by
normal-school principals, by school superintendents, by
boards of education, by educational journals, by the lit-
erary magazines, and by thousands of thoughtful and pro-
gressive teachers of elementary schools. It may require
many years of observation, experiment, and discussion
before any general conclusion shall be reached. Indeed,
entire agreement on this complex question may never be
reached. All__enlightened educators agree that Chinese
ji niformity is _undesirable, ev en i f it w ere poss ible. Flex-
ible courses, adapted to varying cond itions are most to
"~tie"Hesired.
WHY PROGRESS IS SLOW.
Conservatism and Progress. — Though the development
of the primitive colonial school curriculum into the highly
differentiated course of instruction in the American public
school system of to-day was slow for a period of two
centuries, it kept even pace with the evolution of civil
128 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
government, the extension of the right of suffrage, the
"^increase" in population^ the accumulation of wealth^^nd
tft^'lh^usffialand commercial prospe rity of ou r country.
^nmnTdeFTRe American system of local school manage-
ment, uniform development is impossible. As vestiges
of the *' homespun age " are still found in some rural
sections of our country, so there are schools yet in ex-
istence that closely resemble those of a century ago. The
subject of improvement of rural schools is still under
earnest consideration by all thoughtful educators. The
question of securing good public school management in
great cities is one of the most difficult problems before
the American people to-day.
The Law of Change. — In taking leave of the old cur-
riculum and its antiquated pedagogical methods, we do
so without regret. All enlightened educators recognize
the truth that s chool systems a nd pedagogical methods
mustb e subject to change in order to meet the suj ccessiye
stages in the pol itical, social, and industrial devel opment
ot a]^eopTeT " Every educational system," says a modern
leader of educational thought in Germany, '' grows his-
torically from the general status of science and the views
of the world and life of a people and its age ; conse-
quently there is no system of education generally appli-
cable to all ages." In a recent paper on " Scientific vs.
Poetic Study of Education," Professor Charles De Garmo
says : ^
" How can one make a scientific study of educational ends for the
present age ? Only, I apprehend, by applying to education the methods
that have illuminated other fields of research. If every known science,
natural and human, except education, has been made alive by the his-
torical or comparative method, why should we not expect it will do as
1 Educational Review, March, 1899.
COMMON-SCHOOL COURSES OF STUDY 129
much for that ? Such a method would show that, despite the visions
of the poets, every nation, race, or order having the power, has given
a training to its youth that in its opinion best furnished the true requi-
sites for survival. Open at any chapter in the history of civilization,
and if you would understand the education of the people, study their
ideals and institutions. In these you will find the key to their educa-
tion. If the national purposes are simple, the education is marked by
like simplicity in its aims ; if the national life is complex, the same
complexity is found in education. Would an American teacher study
scientifically the ends for which we educate, let him study the evolu-
tion of this people. It is not an easy task, for in two hundred years
we have many times repeated, in one portion and another of our vast
domain, the principal stages of the more slowly developing European
civilizations. The student will have to follow with fidelity the stages
of our development in religion, government, and politics ; he will need
to follow the unfolding of our material wealth in the development of
natural resources, the growth of manufacture, and the invention and
perfection of wonderful instruments of "transportation and communica-
tion ; he will have to investigate the financial problems of universal
education, the growing independence and increased public services of
women. In short, to comprehend the ends of our education as they
are, he will have to become a student of our civilization as it is."
We believe that the schools of to-day are better in
most respects than those of the period we have had under
consideration. But in contrasting the two systems we
must consider each in relation to its environment. The
real question which the pedagogical student should at-
tempt to decide is whether, on th e whole , the schools of
to-day fit pu pils f qr_their life-work, un der the social co ndk,
tions of present times, better than the old-time school s
fitted children for the life environme nts of their own j
time. By laws, customs, and traditions, the past holds a
strong grasp on the present, and we cannot escape from
it if we would. In a succeeding chapter a few special
studies on primitive school text-books may be of aid in
arriving at a final judgment.
AM. PUB. scH. — 9
CHAPTER VI
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS
It is not a matter of idle curiosity that leads the stu-
dent of educational history to gather up and examine
primitive school text-books. In early day s these t.fext-^
books absolut ely determined the course of study , and
'Fromthem jvve^ can gai nLSome knowledge^of vvhat schoo l
c hildren really studied and memorized und er the narrow
curriculum of the common school in early tiroes. In no
other way can we ascertain the extent to which the
schools of to-day are hampered by the conventional cus-
toms or traditions of the past, or how far we have suc-
ceeded in finding our better psychological or genetic
methods of instruction.
TEXT-BOOKS IN READING AND SPELLING.
The e arly En glML-Colonlsts in Virginia and New Eng-
land brought with them the *' hornbook," the church
c atechisms , a fe:w_§pelling_books, an arithmetjc, and_the_
Bible. The settlers of New York brought with them
from the Netherlands, the catechism of the Dutch Re-
formed Church, the Bible, and the primers of Holland,
and their children were trained to read and write their
mother tongue according to the spirit of the age.
In Boston and the surrounding grammar school
towns, the boys, at the age of seven years, or when they
could ** read the English language by spelling the same,"
130
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 131
or the catechism, or the Psalter, were admitted to the
grammar schools in which the major study was, in
the beginning, Latin grammar, and the minor and inci-
dental branches were reading, writing, and arithmetic.
In the rural schools of New England the hornbook was
the only school chart, and the reading books were Dil-
worth's or Perry's Speller — both English, or the New
England Primer, or the Psalter, or the New Testament.
The " Psalter " was a collection of the Psalms of David,
the Proverbs of Solomon, and the Church Creed.
The Engli sh Hornbook . — This " hornbook " was a
paper sheet on which were printed the alphabet in capitals
and small letters, the vowels, and combinations of one
vowel with one consonant ; as, ab, eb, ib, ob, ub ; ba,
be, bi, bo, bu, by, etc. Then followed the benediction,
the Lord's Prayer, and the Roman numerals. This
printed paper was pasted on a piece of thin woodboard
and covered by a translucent sheet of horn, held in place
by a brass frame or binding. Authentic specimens of the
hornbook are now rare even in England.
The New England Primer. — After the hornbook was
learned, the " New England Primer " was taken up. This
little book, r nainly theolog ical, incidentally educational,
consisted of the ''Assembly's Shorter Catechism,"
with various additions to adapt it for school use. It was
also extensively used in families and Sunday-schools.
The first edition probably appeared about 1660, as an im-
provement on some primer from England. One of the
best-known editions is a fac simile reprint of the edition
of 1777, the full title of which runs as follows : " The New
England Primer improved for the more easy attaining
the true reading of English, to which is added the As-
sembly of Divines, and Mr. Cotton's Catechism, Boston,
132
HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
1777." This correlation of reading and theology affords
a striking illustration of the extreme type of the educa-
tional, metaphysical, and theological formalism of that
time.
The frontispiece is a full-page wood-cut of '' The Hon-
orable John Hancock, Esq., President of the American
Congress." The first page contains the alphabet in capi-
tals, small letters, and italics ; the next two pages include
combinations of single vowels with single consonants, as,
ab, eb, ib, ob, ub ; ba, be, bi, bo, bu ; az, ez, iz, oz, uz ;
za, ze, zi, zo, zu. Following this there are three pages of
words for spelling ; the first lesson consisting of words of
one syllable ; the second, of words of two syllables ; the
third, of words of three syllables ; and the sixth, of such
words as abomination, edification, humiliation, mor-tifi-
ca-tion.
Reading. — The following is half of the first regular
lesson in reading :
" Call no ill names. Speak the truth.
Use no ill words. - Spend your time well.
Tell no lies. Love your school.
Hate lies. - Mind your book.
Strive to learn. Be not a dunce."
Next there follows an illustrated alphabet, with a short
couplet after each letter, each couplet having a rude
wood-cut illustrating the text. The following extracts
will illustrate the character of these rhymes :
A. In Adam's fall ^ Q. Queen Esther sues
We sin-ned all. J And saves ihtjews.
D. The Deluge drown'd T. Young Timothy
The Earth around. Learnt sin to fly.
E. Elijah hid W. Whales in the sea
By Ravens fed. God's voice obey.
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 133
F. The judgment made X. Xerxes did die
Felix afraid. And so must I.
O. Young Obadias, Z. Zaccheus he
David, Josias, Did cHmb the tree
All were pious. Our Lord to see.
In subsequent editions, these rhymed couplets were
often materially changed. In one edition, I find the fol-
lowing substitutes for the original text :
C. The Cat doth play L. The Lion bold
And after slay. The Lamb doth hold.
D. A Dog will bite M. The Moon gives light
A thief at night. In time of night.
F. The idle Fool O. The royal oak it was the tree
Is whipped at school. That saved his royal majesty.
Other Lessons. — The succeeding twenty pages of read-
ing lessons include the following topics : An *' Alphabet of
Lessons for Youth," mostly composed of quotations from
the Bible ; the Lord's Prayer ; the Creed ; Dr. Watts'
Cradle Hymn ; Verses for Children ; " Some Proper
Names of Men and Women, to teach Children to spell
their Own ; " a wood-cut of " Mr. John Rogers, the first
martyr in Queen Mary's reign, who was burnt at Smith-
field, February 14, 1554," followed by a poem of six pages
written for his children a few days before his death ;
Agur's Prayer; and "Choice Sentences," of which the
following is an example : *' Our weakness and inabilities
break not the bond of our duties."
" The Shorter Catechism, agreed upon by the Reverend
Assembly of Divines at Westminster," fills twenty-four
pages of print, all of which children were expected to
read, memorize, and recite. The nature of the task set
before pupils will best be comprehended by a single
quotation.
134 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
" Q. 1 6. Did all mankind fall in Adam's first transgression ?
A. The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but
for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary genera-
tion, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression."
The ** Assembly Catechism" is followed by another
catechism of nine pages, entitled : '' Spiritual Milk for
American Babes, Drawn out of the Breasts of both Testa-
ments for their Soul's Nourishment, by John Cotton."
In the later editions, Cotton's Catechism was omitted.
The book closes with a dialogue in verse entitled : " A
Dialogue between Christ, Youth, and the Devil."
This primer for teaching reading reminds one of the
Chinese primer entitled the " Three Character Classic,"
which consists of 178 poetical couplets in rhyme, with
three words in each line. But this Chinese classic, a
thousand years old, is more difficult than the New Eng-
land Primer. " It is," says Professor John Fryer, of the
University of California, *' a most difficult and abstruse
epitome of the whole circle of Chinese knowledge written
in the classical or dead language, as are all Chinese school
books. This is no more like the language of home, or of
every-day life than Greek or Latin are like current Eng-
lish. When the primer is perfectly memorized, the young
pupil proceeds to the Thousand Character Classic, a book
compiled A.D. 550, which he also commits to memory.
Besides this dreary task, he is expected to spend some
time daily, as a sort of recreation, in tracing or writing
characters with the Chinese brush or pencil, commencing
with large ones, from one to two inches square, and de-
creasing to the size of the ordinary current hand. Here
the poor lad only learns the form of the characters, but is
not given the faintest idea of their meaning."
The young Chinese boy learned by heart from his
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS
35
" Three Character Classic," and shouted aloud to his
teacher, a Chinese sentence, which means in English :
" Man, as to his nature, is originally virtuous." The
American boy memorized from his New England Primer,
the following philosophic rhyme as he learned the first
letter of the alphabet : *' In Adam's fall, we sin-ned all."
The Bible. — In connection with the New England
Primer, the New Testament was largely used as a read-
ing book. As an opening exercise each pupil in turn
read one verse. This custom continued in use in most
schools up to the middle of the nineteenth century.
At a later colonial period various English readers and
spellers came gradually into use, such as the '' English
Reader," Perry's " Spelling Book, the Only Sure Guide
to the English Tongue," and Dihvorth's '' Spelling Book,"
published about the middle of the century, which con-
tained, in addition to columns of words, a few elementary
principles of grammar.
Webster's Spelling Book. — One of the most notable
of the early American school-book authors was Noah
Webster, who published, in 1783, "An American Spelling
Book," which soon went into general use throughout the
United States. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century most of the school children in our country began
both reading and spelling with the use of Webster's
Spelling Book.
This famous old schoolbook was developed in strict
accordance with the formal scholastic logic and the
orthodox pedagogical philosophy of a century ago. Like
the hornbook and the primer, it begins with the alphabet
and proceeds with mathematical exactness to combina-
tions of one consonant with one vowel ; next proceeds to
combine three letters, then takes up words of two sylla-
136 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
bles, and so on up to a-bom-i-na-tion and un-in-tel-li-gi-
bil-i-ty.
This method of developing language by syllables in
general disregard of thought is best made evident by
reproducing a few lessons verbatim. After two pages
devoted to the alphabet in Roman letters, Italic, Old
English, and script, with the numerals, the reading and
spelling lessons proceed as follows :
No. i-I.
ba
be
bi
bo
bu
by
ca
ce
ci
CO
cu
cy
da
de
di
do
du
dy
fa
fe
fi
fo
fu
fy
ga
ge
gi
go
gu
gy
go on.
by
me.
it is.
is he.
go in.
we
go.
to me.
he is.
go up.
to us.
to be.
I am.
an ox.
do
go.
No.
3-
on it
III.
•
on us.
is he to
go-
is it
by
us.
we go to it.
he is to
go-
it is
by
us.
he is
by me.
am I to
go.
if he is in.
so he
is up.
I am to
go.
go up
to it.
sol
am up.
No.
6-VI.
is he to do so by-
me.
it is to be
by me.
he is to do so by
me.
by me it is
to be.
so I am to be in.
I am to be
as he is
he is to go up by
it.
he is to be
as I am
No.
lo-X.
pha
phe
phi
pho
phu
phy
qua
que
qui
quo
spa
spe
spi
spo
spu
spy
sta
ste
sti
sto
stu
sty
sra
see
sci
SCO
scu
scy
swa
swe
swi
swo
swu
swy
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 137
No.
ii-XI.
spla
sple
spli
splo
splu
sply
spra
spre
spri
spro
spru
spry
stra
stre
stri
stro
stru
stry
shra
shre
shri
shro
shru
shry
sera
sere
scri
sero
seru
sery
scla
sele
sell
selo
selu
scly
No. 54, page 41, contains 78 words of three syllables,
among which the following words are found : " liturgy,
blasphemy, litany, betony, scammony, chancery, sorcery,
orrery."
Lesson No. 63, of 39 words, corj^ains, " disbursement,
disfranchise, hydraulics, embargo."
Lesson 121 consists of 2% words of seven and eight
syllables, among which are, "incompatibility, impercepti-
bility, irresistibility, unintelligibility, immalleability, per-
pendicularity, indefensibility."
In the reading lesson attached to this spelling there are
eleven sentences for reading and definition, two of which
run as follows : " The indivisibility of matter is supposed
to be demonstrably false." *' Stones are remarkable for
their immalleability."
In general, about three fourths of each page was de-
voted to short, disconnected sentences in reading, the
other fourth to spelling. Near the end there were seven
short stories and fables of from ten to twenty lines each.
When pupils could read the story of " The Two Dogs,"
and the "Tale of the Boy that Stole Apples," they
were ready to begin Webster's " American Selection " or
the " English Reader."
The Little Reader's Assistant. — There lies on my
table a very rare old book entitled : " The Little Reader's
Assistant, by Noah Webster ; Northampton, 1791. Third
1 38 HISTOR Y OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Edition." The author says in the preface : *' The com-
piler of this work has been repeatedly requested by the
instructors of schools to publish a small book containing
familiar stories in plain language for the benefit of chil-
dren when they first begin to read without spelling."
The table of contents of this primitive first reader is as
follows :
" I. A number of stories mostly taken from the history of America,
and adorned with cuts.
II. Rudiments of English Grammar.
III. A Federal Catechism, being a short and easy explanation of the
Constitution of the United States of America.
IV. General Principles of Government and Commerce.
V. The Farmer's Catechism, containing plain rules of husbandry.
All adapted to the capacities of children."
" The Little Reader's Assistant " is a book of 136 pages,
48 pages being given to reading; 51 to grammar; 16 to
the Constitution ; 8 to principles of government and com-
merce ; 8 to the Farmer's Catechism, and 3 to Reform
in Spelling. It is interesting as one of the first rough
attempts in this country at a " correlation of studies."
It is rudely bound in the thin wood covers of that
period. The history stories would delight the Herbar-
tians of the present day. Some of these are as follows :
" Columbus ; Capt. John Smith ; First Settlers of New
England ; Pequod War ; Philip's War ; Story of the
Taking of Dover; Burning of Schenectady; Speech of
Logan; Putnam and the Wolf; Putnam a Prisoner," etc.
The " Rudiments of Grammar " is a simple presenta-
tion of the subject to beginners. Noah Webster was a
reformer, and he boldly cut loose from some of the an-
cient forms of the Latin grammar. He was half a century
ahead of his times. The " Federal Catechism " is a clear
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 139
statement of the Civil Government of the United States.
" The Farmer's Catechism " is probably the first attempt
made in this country to introduce the teaching of agricul-
ture into the common schools. It doubtless was satisfac«
tory to the hard-fisted farmers of that period. It begins
as follows :
" Q. What is the best business a man can do ?
A. Tilling the ground, or farming.
XQ. Why is farming the best business ?
/ A. Because it is the most necessary, the most healthy, the most in-
miocent, and most agreeable employment of men.
Q. Why is farming the most innocent employment ?
A. Because farmers have fewer temptations to be wicked than other
men. . . . They have but little dealings with others, so that they have
(ewer opportunities to cheat than other men.
Q. What is the great art of cultivating land to advantage ?
A. It consists in raising the greatest quantity of produce on the
smallest quantity of land with the least expense and labor," etc.
Murray's English Reader — The title of this notable school book runs
as follows : " Murray's English Reader, or pieces in prose and poetry
selected from the best writers, designed to assist young persons to
read with propriety and effect ; to improve their language and senti-
ments, and to inculcate some of the most important principles of piety
and virtue," etc.
The first lessons, headed " Select Sentences and Paragraphs,"
were made up of philosophical aphorisms like the following : " Dili-
gence, industry, and proper improvement of time are material duties
of the young,"
" Virtuous youth gradually brings forward accomplished and flour-
ishing manhood."
" Whatever useful or engaging endowments we possess, virtue is
requisite, in order to their shining with proper lustre." " Society,
when formed, requires distinctions of property, diversity of conditions,
subordination of ranks, and a multiplicity of occupations, in order to
advance the general good."
The titles of a few selections will show their didactic, abstract, and
metaphysical character : " The Vanity of Wealth ; " " The Trials of
I40 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Virtue ; " " Reflections on a Future State from a View of Winter ; "
"Change of External Condition Often Adverse to Virtue;" "The
Good Man's Comfort in Affliction ; " " The Pleasures of Virtuous Sen-
sibiHty ; " " The Pleasures of Retirement ; " etc.
The American Selection. — " The American Selection " was a reading
book published by Noah Webster (1785). In his preface the author
says : " I consider it a capital fault in all our schools, that the books
generally used contain subjects wholly uninteresting to our youth. In
the choice of pieces, I have been attentive to the politiqal interests of
America." We find the subject matter of this American reader su-
perior to the metaphysical abstractions and philosophical essays of the
English Reader. In the table of contents there are numerous histor-
ical pieces, such as : Washington's Resignation ; Sketch of the Late
War (14 pages) ; Captivity of Mrs. Howe, etc. ; patriotic selections,
such as Warren's Oration on the Boston Massacre ; State papers, such
as, Declaration of the American Congress, July 6, 1775 ; ^"^ Oration by
Joel Barlow, July 4, 1787. There are several geographical sketches,
numerous extracts from Shakespeare, a number of humorous dia-
logues, and a few rules and directions for reading and speaking.
Modern Reading Books. — About the middle of the
century there were published a number of graded read-
ers to meet the needs of graded schools, among which
McGuffey's series was one of the most popular. For a
long period these readers were extensively used in the
Western and Southern States, and, in a revised form, they
are still in use. Another well-known series was that of
Salem Town.
A marked departure from the purely literary " scrap-
book " style of readers was the series by Marcius Willson,
in which the author correlated nature studies with read-
ing. These readers were the forerunners of the numerous
illustrated supplementary readers and nature stories that
have enriched the course in reading during the last decade.
Ten years later there appeared Appleton's Readers, edited
by William T. Harris, characterized by their high literary
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 141
standard. These were followed a little later by Swinton's
series of readers and supplementary readers, which com-
bined literature with nature stories. Baldwin's School
Reading by Grades (1897), consists of a series of eight
carefully-graded books, each book being adapted to the
work of a single school year. This excellent series is
typical of the most recent form of numerous school
reading books.
The Modern Method. — There has been^ during the
last decade, a great enrichment of the course in reading,
through the introduction of supplementary reading books
and leaflets of good literature. In the primary grades the
fairy tales of Hans Andersen, and of Grimm, stories,
myths, and fables, put into plain language, open a new
world of delight to children and stimulate them to read
for the pleasure of reading. Beautifully illustrated nature
stories are of unfailing interest, while for the higher
grades, the subject-matter is drawn from history, liter-
ature, and science.
SCHOOL ARITHMETICS.
In the beginning of colonial times, primitive ordi-
nances required only reading, writing, and the catechism
to be taught in common schools. But in most schools
some instruction was given in arithmetic to the extent of
the *' f our ru les," and ev en of '* vu lgar_Jractions," and
"me" rule of jthree." George H. Martin says: " In 1789,
no knowledge even of common arithmetic was required
for admission to Harvard, nor was the candidate required
to know anything of geography. But in 18 14 the college
called for arithmetic to the rule of three, and announced
that after 1815 it would also demand a knowledge of
142
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
ancient and modern geography. In 1816 it asked for
the whole of the arithmetic. Yale, too, enlarged its
requirements about the same time."
English Books. — The earliest text-books used by the
colonial schoolmasters were brought over from England,
though afterwards reprinted in the colonies. One of the
most popular of these was *' Hodder's Arithmetic, or, That
Necessary Art Made Easy," which passed through many
editions before 1719. There was another famous English
text-book (1688), the full title of which ran as follows:
" Cocker's Arithmetick, Being a plain and familiar Method,
suitable to the meanest capacity, for the full understand-
ing of that incomparable Art, as it is now taught in City
and Country, Composed by Edward Cocker, late Prac-
titioner in the Arts of Writing, Arithmetic, and En-
graving (1688)." Later there came Thomas Dilworth's
" Schoolmaster's Assistant."
American Books. — " The earliest arithmetic written
and printed in America," says Professor Cajori, in his
" History of Mathematics," " appeared anonymously in
Boston, in 1729." This book had only a limited sale.
But at length there was pubhshed (1788) an American
text-book entitled, "A New and Complete System of
Arithmetic, composed for the use of citizens of the United
States, by Nicholas Pike, A. M., Newburyport, Mass.,
1788." This bulky volume of 512 pages contained over
300 rules. Everything was done by rule. The author
everywhere adheres strictly to the time-honored " logical "
method of rule, example, problems, or exercises. At the
time of its publication there were in use in the United
States nine different kinds of currency, and the various
problems given under the head of business exchange re-
quired fifty-eight specific rules. There were many pages
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS
143
of exercises in '' English Money," but only two pages
were devoted to " Federal Money." These two pages had
become necessary because Congress had adopted (1786)
the decimal currency of the United States. Jefferson de-
sired to extend the decimal system to weights and meas-
ures, but this radical reform was rejected.
This new American schoolbook constituted a tough
piece of resistance for the big boys, who frequently
attended the winter school until they were twenty-one
years of age. It kept them busy for winter after winter,
and few there were that ever got to the end of it. It
contained a full treatment of Permutation, Progression,
Alligation, Single Position, Double Position, and many
other barbarisms which are now, fortunately for the chil-
dren, eliminated from school text-books. The advanced
problems, or '' sums," as they were then called, related to
the mechanical powers, gravity, the calculation of the age
of the moon, and the time of high and low tides. It
dominated the type of succeeding arithmetics for more
than half a century, and its influence on the order of
topics can still be perceived in many of the text-books
now in use.
The order of subjects in this book makes an interesting peda-
gogical study for teachers. This order reads, in full, as follows :
simple addition, subtraction, multiplication (40 pages) ; compound
addition and subtraction, with tables and problems (17 pages) ;
reduction, ascending and descending, and vulgar fractions (14
pages) ; decimal fractions (3 pages) ; Federal Money (2 pages) ;
compound multiplication and division (12 pages) ; reduction of
coins, (12 pages) ; duodecimals and single rule of three (16 pages) ;
rule of three in vulgar fractions and decimals (8 pages) ; rule of
three inverse (3 pages) ; compound proportion (5 pages) ; conjoined
proportion (7 pages) ; single fellowship and double fellowship (8
pages) ; practice (i.e., business calculations in all sorts of problems in
[44
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
all kinds of currency (29 pages) ; tare and trett, extraction of square
root, cube root, bi-quadrate root, sur-solid root, and roots by approx-
^pmation, — in all (24 pages) ; arithmetical progression and geometrical
progression (32 pages) ; simple interest and interest by decimals (14
pages) ; annuities, discount, discount by decimals (17 pages) ; barter,
loss and gain, equation of payments, brokerage, policies of insurance,
compound interest, compound interest by decimals, discount by com-
pound interest, annuities or pensions in arrears at compound interest,
present worth, or annuities at compound interest, annuities, etc., in
reversion, and purchasing annuities forever, — in all (53 pages) ; cir-
culating decimals (6 pages) ; alligation alternate (5 pages) ; single
position and double position (5 pages) ; permutations and combina-
tions (6 pages) ; " Miscellaneous Questions, wuth the Method of Solu-
tion," including problems of all kinds in physics, relating to the me-
chanical powers, specific gravity, the tides, astronomy, etc. (31 pages) ;
tables of exchange (16 pages) ; chronological problems (14 pages) ;
use of logarithms (2 pages) ; " plane trigonometry " (16 pages) ; men-
suration of superficies and solids (36 pages).
The final problem at the foot of page 468 reads as follows : "31.
Suppose a Ship sails from Lat. 43^ North, between North and East,
till her departure from the Meridian be 45 Leagues, and the sum of
her distance and difference of Latitude to be 135 Leagues ; I demand
her distance sailed, and Latitude come to .'* "
Having " gone through " all the topics catalogued above,
which are condensed into 468 pages, ambitious pupils met
with *' An introduction to Algebra, designed for the use
of academies," which carried them through quadratics,
thirty-two pages. The pupils who wanted still more of
mathematics were next ''introduced " to twelve pages on
conic sections. On the whole, this was a valuable text-
book for college-bred teachers, and a passable book for
common-school boys and girls that never got further than
the rule of three (simple proportion). There is no tradi-
tion of any prodigy in any common school that ever
reached and mastered the last proposition under the head
of "Section III. of the Hyperbola": Prop. 4. As the
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 145
transverse axis is to the conjugate; so the conjugate, to
thelatus rectum of the transverse : AB : VY : : VY : LI.
See figure 12."
This full edition was soon followed by an abridgment
in which algebra and geometry were left out. Pike's
Arithmetic was followed (1800) by that of Nathan DaboU
which was succeeded by Daniel Adams' Arithmetic
(181 1) and Oliver Welch's Arithmetic (18 13). At a later
period there appeared Smith's Arithmetic, Greenleaf's
Arithmetic, and an innumerable company of arithme-
tics.
Colburn's Arithmetic. — The first radical departure from
the old, formal, English type was made by Warren Col-
burn in his "Intellectual Arithmetic (1823). This book
went at once into general use. It was characterized by
George B. Emerson as "a faultless text-book." David
P. Page, author of "Theory and Practice," said of it:
" In three weeks I had mastered it, and I had gained in
that time more knowledge of the principles of arithmetic
than I had ever acquired in all my life before." This book
introduced the modern inductive and analytical method
of teaching mental, or intellectual, or oral arithmetic.
The abuse of this book consisted in crowding it upon
young^nd immaturejTiindSj_an^a^us^^ suf-
fered to some extent when a small boy. Such questions
as the following confused me at nine or ten years of age :
Question " 9 " p. 86. " 2 eighths of 72 is 3 tenths of how
many fifths of 40?" Problem 183, p. 143. "A man
being asked how many sheep he had, answered, that if he
had as many more, \ as many more and 2\ sheep, he
would have 100. How many had he ? "
Graded Books. — At a later period, to meet the needs
of graded schools, various " three-book series " of arith
AM. PUB. scH. — 10.
146 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
metics were published, of which the Robinson series and
the Ray series are familiar types.
Reform Movements. — In consequence of the general
introduction of music, drawing, literature, and elementary
science into both primary and grammar school grades, and
of elementary geometry and algebra into the higher gram-
mar grades of city schools, the undue proportio n of time
formerly devoted to arithmetic has, within the last de-
cadeTbeen greatly reduced. The introduction into city
schools of manual training in wood-work, cooking, and
sewing is intensifying the demand for still further limita-
tions of the time given to this study. The reform move-
ment in the teaching of arithmetic has found aggressive
leaders among university presidents, pedagogical profes-
sors, school principals, teachers, and hard-headed business
men.
ENGLISH GRAMMARS.
" The Young Lady's Accidence," one of the early Eng-
lish grammars published in the United States (1804),
seems to have been the first English grammar used in the
Boston schools. It owes its title to the fact that Caleb
Bingham, the author, wrote it for use in a private school
for girls which he had opened in the city of Boston. Pre-
vious to this time, instruction in text-book grammar had
been limited to a few pages inserted in " Dilworth's
Speller."
Lindley Murray's English Grammar. — This book, first
published in England (1795), was soon after republished
in this country, where it immediately went into extensive
use. It dominated the type of all succeeding American
text-books in this school study for more than half a cen-
tury. It was an Anglicized Latin grammar which applied
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS
H7
to the English vernacular most of the forms of the highly
inflected Latin tongue. Special importance was attached
to "parsing" according to Latin models, and to the cor-
rection of innumerable examples of " false syntax."
There lies before me a copy of this famous text-book, printed (1824)
at Exeter, N. H. It is an octave of 334 pages, of which 28 are devoted
to orthography, 95 to etymology, 87 to syntax, 32 to prosody, 17 to
punctuation and capitals, and 60 pages to an " Appendix, containing
rules and observ^ations for assisting young persons to write with per-
spicuity and accuracy. To be studied after they have acquired a com-
petent knowledge of English Grammar." In his preface the author
says it has been his aim to make his definitions and rules " as intelli-
gible to young minds as the nature of the subject and the difficulties
attending it would admit. " From the sentiment generally admitted,
that a proper selection of faulty composition is more instructive to the
young grammarian than any rules and examples of propriety that can
be given, the compiler has been induced to pay peculiar attention to
this part of the subject ; and though the instances of false grammar,
under the rules of syntax, are numerous, it is hoped they will not be
found too many, when their variety and usefulness are considered."
This ancient, " logical," formal, and pedantic text-book
opens with the following misleading definition : " English
grammar is the art of speaking and writing the English
language with propriety." Then there follows a long
treatise on " orthography," which is a formal dictionary
disquisition of eighteen pages on the sounds of the let-
ters. The author's treatment of etymolog}^ has been so
closely followed in many American school grammars that
it might pass current in the schools of to-day. Murray's
twenty-two rules of syntax have been closely followed by
the authors of most modern grammars.
The models of etymological and syntactical parsing,
though formal and Latinized, are shorter and simpler
than those given by many of his successors and imitators.
The first model for " etymological parsing " is as follows ;
148 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
" Virtue ennobles us." Virtue is a common substantive, of the
neuter gender, the third person, the singular number, and in the nomi-
native case. (Decline the noun.) Ennobles is a regular verb active,
indicative mood, present tense, and the third person singular. (Repeat
the present tense, the imperfect participle.) Us is a personal pronoun,
of the first person plural, and in the objective case. (Decline it.)
The " specimen of syntactical parsing " runs as follows : " Vice
produces misery." Vice is a common substantive, of the neuter gender,
the third person, the singular number, and in the nominative case.
Produces is a regular verb active, indicative mood, present tense, third
person singular, agreeing with nominative, vice, according to Rule I.
which says : (here repeat the rule.) Misery is a common substantive,
of the neuter gender, the third person, the singular number, and the
objective case, governed by the active verb, produces, according to
Rule XI. which says," etc. There are only sixteen short sentences
given for " syntactical parsing," but the models cover seven pages.
The thirty-two solid pages on " prosody " must have
proved a stumbling block to the boys and girls of former
times. The probability is that very few of them ever
reached the 224th page of the book. The author states
that the appendix on " Perspicuity and Accuracy " is
quoted, in the main, from text-books on rhetoric by Blair
and Campbell. The student of methods will find in Mur-
ray's Grammar the origin of much of the unprofitable and
distasteful drudgery with which the school study of Eng-
glish grammar has been encumbered for a century, and
with which, in many schools, it is still loaded down.
Webster's Grammar. — Noah Webster, one of the most
notable of American text-book makers, published (1783-
86), " A Grammatical Institute of the English Language,"
which comprised (i) ''The American Spelling Book;"
(2) " A Plain and Comprehensive Grammar ; " (3) " The
American Selection " (a school reading book). Web-
ster's '* Speller " went at once into general use in the
United States, but his " Grammar " seems to have been
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS
limited mainly to New England. In 1793 he published
" The Little Reader's Assistant," which included in one \
small book a correlation of easy reading lessons, the rudi-
ments of grammar, and civil government. \
In his preface to the " Rudiments of Grammar, compiled at the re- \
quest of the Trustees of the Grammar School at Hartford," the author j
remarks : " There has been a general complaint among the teachers ?
of schools that the Second Part of the Grammatical Institute is a work y.
too complex and difficult for young beginners in Grammar. The \
author is sensible of the justness of this complaint, for Grammar is a^,.^ |
subject difficult in itself, and not easily comprehended even by adult^ ;
// t's a 7nistake that children ever learn their native tongue by rule ; \
they learti it by ear and practice. Rules are drawn from the most
general and approved practice, and serve to teach young students how \
far their own practice in speaking agrees with the general practice of j
the nation, and thus enable them to correct their errors." \
The original preface to Goold Brown's " First Lines in English '^,
Grammar " (1823), thirty years later, reads, in part, as follows : " The \
only successful method of teaching grammar, is to cause the principal ;
definitions and rules to be committed thoroughly to memory, that they j
may ever afterwards be readily applied. And the pupil should be '
alternately exercised in learning small portions of his book, and then ]
applying them in parsing, till the whole is rendered familiar." \
A comparison of these two statements made by two eminent gram-
marians shows that the reign of " formal grammar " had not only con- j
tinued unbroken for thirty years, but that it had also become intensi- '
fied. The preface by Webster frankly stated a truth now generally \
accepted by teachers, while that of Brown emphasized the deadening
formalism of the ancient regime.
Other Text-Books on Grammar.— In the half century \
succeeding the publication of Murray's Grammar, there \
were published in this country about two hundred differ-
ent text-books on English grammar, all modeled mainly j
on the plan of that famous book. Among the best known \
of these were the grammars of Kirkham, Smith, Bullions, 1
and Goold Brown. S
1 50 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Kirkham's Grammar (1823) introduced " a new systematic order of
parsing." Taking the sentence, " John's hand trembles," the follow-
ing is the model 'for parsing the word hand: " Hand is a noun, the
name of a thing ; common, the name of a sort or species of things ;
neuter gender, it denotes a thing without sex ; third person, spoken
of ; singular number, implies but one ; and in the nominative case, it
is the actor and subject of the verb trembles, and governs it agreeably
to Rule 3. The nominative case governs the verb ; that is, the nomi-
native determines the number and person of the verb. Declined : Sing,
nom. hand, poss. hand's, obj. hand ; plu. nom. hands, poss. hands',
obj. hands." His model for parsing a verb is too long to be quoted.
Goold Brown in " Brown's Institutes " (1823), says in his preface :
" In the w^hole range of school exercises there is none of greater im-
portance than that of parsing ; and yet, perhaps, there is none more
defectively conducted. Scarcely less useful, as a means of instruction,
is the practice of correcting false syntax orally, by regular and logical
forms of argument ; nor does this appear to have been more ably
directed towards the purposes of discipline."
The author's formula for parsing a verb is found in Praxis V. as
follows : Sentence — " Piety has the purest delight attending it." Has
is an irregular active transitive verb, from have, had, having, had ;
found in the indicative mood, present tense, third person, and singular
number.
1. A verb is a word that signifies to be, to act, or to be acted
upon.
2. An irregular verb is a verb that does not form the preterit and
the perfect participle by assuming d or ed.
3. An active transitive verb is a verb that expresses an action which
has some person or thing for its object.
4. The indicative mood is that form of the verb which simply indi-
cates or declares a thing, or asks a question.
5. The present tense is that which expresses what now exists or is
taking place.
6. The third person is that which denotes the person or thing merely
spoken of.
7. The singular number is that which denotes but one.
After reading a formula like this we cease to wonder
that half a century ago pupils -detested grammar ; and
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 151
that even teachers began a general rebellion against such
interminable repetitions of definitions and rules.
Goold Brown's "Grammar of Grammars'* (1851), a
book of 1002 pages, fortunately intended for teachers
and adults, not for pupils, is a remarkable compilation of
examples of " false syntax " gleaned from English litera-
ture and from the authors of other school grammars. One
rises from its perusal with the despairing feeling that
nobody ever succeeded '* in writing the English language
with propriety."
Having waded through the formalism of the past,
let us turn, as a pleasant relief, to trace the evolution
of a more rational method of studying our mother
tongue.
An Improved Grammar. — It was my good fortune in
a New Hampshire village school to begin the study of
grammar when ten years of age (1840) with a copy of
"■ English Grammar on the Productive System ; a method
of instruction recently adopted in Germany and Switzer-
land, by Roswell C. Smith." The inductive method of
this book was a marked improvement on the logical for-
malism of previous grammars. Though our teacher made
no explanations, confining himself rigidly to asking the
questions in the book, we had Httle difficulty in under-
standing the lessons. At the end of a year we began to
" parse " in Thomson's "■ Seasons," which was followed
by Young's " Night Thoughts.'' This was our introduc-
tion to English literature. But we were never required
to write a composition, nor even a detached sentence.
Learning to write the English language by actually trying
to write it was at that time unknown in the common
school. In the academy, even when pursuing a Latin
course, which included, in order, a Latin Grammar and
152
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Reader, Sallust, Caesar, and Virgil, we were never once
required to render a written translation.
Sentence Analysis. — The publication of Greene's
'' Analysis " (1847) marks the beginning of a revolt against
the dead formalism of grammatical teaching. One sen-
tence in the preface of this book conveys a pedagogical
truth now generally recognized : "As a sentence is the
expression of thought, and as the elements of a sentence
are the expressions for the elements of thought, the pupil
who is taught to separate a sentence into its elements is
learning to analyze thought, and consequently to think.
Greene's " Analysis," a book designed for secondary
schools, was soon followed by Greene's '' Introduction,"
which was well adapted for use in elementary schools. It
contained the elements of etymology and syntax, clearly
stated, and provided for daily exercises in sentence-anal-
ysis and sentence-making.
This new feature of grammatical work was immediately
incorporated into revised editions of other text-books on
grammar ; but parsing according to Latin models was re-
tained in all its dead formalism, and thus a double burden
was imposed on the school children. Sentence analysis,
introduced as a reform, was soon carried to a painful ex-
treme of complicated minuteness, and was finally made
mechanical by the devices of wonderfully constructed
" diagrams." But the children still failed " to write and
speak the English language with propriety." The Mur-
ray type of grammars contained no suggestions whatever
about the writing of compositions.
Language Lessons. — Meantime progressive teachers
were beginning to train pupils to write good English by
requiring them to write s hort comspsitions upon subjects
suited to the age and capacity of children, and upon
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 153
topics connected with school lessons in history, geography,
and reading. This new movement in language practice
was embodied in Swinton's *' Language Lessons " (1874),
which determined the type of numerous succeeding pubr
lications for school use.
The central idea of Swinton's Language Lessons is set
forth in the author's preface as follows :
" This book is an attempt to bring the subject of language home to
children at the age when knowledge is acquired in an objective way,
by practice and habit, rather than by the study of rules and definitions.
In pursuance of this plan, the traditional presentation of grammar in
a bristling array of classifications, nomenclatures, and paradigms has
been wholly discarded. The pupil is brought in contact with the living
language itself ; he is made to deal with speech, to turn it over in a
variety of ways, to handle sentences ; so that he is not kept back from
the exercise — so profitable and interesting — of using language till he
has mastered the anatomy of the grammarian. Whatever of technical
grammar is here given is evolved from work previously done by the
scholar."
Swinton's " English Grammar and Composition "
(1877), for more advanced pupils, emphasized sentence
building and composition writing. It boldly lopped off
orthography and prosody as a part of modern grammar.
The author says in his preface : " The necessity of a grad-
uated course of training in the mother tongue, extending
over some years, and beginning in practice and ending in
theory, is now generally recognized and acted on . . . It is
earnestly recommended that the grammar be taken in con-
nection with the school composition, the author's ideal
study being : three grammar lessons and two composition
lessons a week."
* SCHOOL GEOGRAPHIES.
Dwight^s Geography. — During the colonial period
154
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
geography was not included by law in the common-school
curriculum though sometimes taught incidentally. The
full title of one of the earliest of American text-books
on this subject runs as follows : "A short but comprehen-
sive System of the Geography of the World ; by way of
Question and Answer. Principally designed for Children
and Common Schools. By Nathaniel Dwight. Boston,
1801." In his preface to the first edition, dated Hartford
(1795), republished in the sixth edition (1801), the author
says:
•' During an employment of several years in school keeping I observed
that the science of Geography was but little attended to in the early
days of childhood. . . . The expense of this book is so small that it
may be easily afforded, and the form of a catechism admits of its being
made more comprehensive, and more easily understood by children,
than any of the small geographies, which have heretofore been designed
for them. It will enable them usefully to improve many hours of their
early years, which, for want of something of this kind, are entirely
lost."
Dwight's geography is a well-printed volume of 212
pages, bound in the old-fashioned thin wood covers. It
is descriptive text exclusively, containing neither maps
nor wood-cuts, and no reference is made to an atlas.
It opens with five pages of definitions relating to the
natural divisions of land and water, to latitude, longitude,
mathematical geography, and forms of government.
The following extracts from a general description of New
England illustrate the manner of treatment :
" Q. What are the general characteristics of the people of New
England }
A. They are an industrious and orderly people, economical in their
livings, and frugal in their expenses. . . . They are plain and simple in
their manners, and, on the whole, they form perhaps the most pleasing
and happy society in the world."
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS
55
" Q. What are their diversions ?
A. Dancing is a favorite one of both sexes. Sleigh-riding in winter,
skating, playing ball (of which there are several different games), gun-
ning and fishing, are the principal ; gambling and horse-jockeying are
practiced by none but worthless people, who are despised by all per-
sons of respectability and considered as nuisances in society."
" Q. What is the state of science in New England ?
A. It is greatly cultivated, and more generally diffused among the
inhabitants than in any other part of the world. Every town has or
ought to have a school in it, where the children are early taught read-
ing, writing, and arithmetic."
Morse's Geography. — Jedidiah Morse, D.D., the
father of Professor S. F. B. Morse who invented the elec-
tric telegraph, was the author of one of our first school-
booTcs. The preface to the first edition, dated New Haven,
1789, is interesting reading, not only for the light it throws
on the state of education, but for its illustration of the
pride of American citizenship in the new-born republic :
" There is no science better adapted to the capacities of youth, and
more apt to cultivate their attention, than Geography. An acquaint-
ance with this science, more than with any other, satisfies that perti-
nent curiosity, which is the predominating feature of the youthful mind.
It is to be lamented that this part of education has been so long neg-
lected in America. Our young men, universally, have been much
better acquainted with the geography of Europe and Asia, than with
that of their own State and country. The want of suitable books has
been the cause, we hope the sole cause, of this shameful defect in our
education. Until within a few years, we have seldom pretended to
write, and hardly to think for ourselves. We have humbly received
from Great Britain our laws, our manners, our books, and our modes
of thinking ; and our youth have been educated rather as the subjects
of the British king, than as the citizens of a free and independent na-
tion. But the scene is now changed. The revolution has been favor-
able to science in general ; particularly to that of the geography 6f our
own country. In the following pages, the Author has endeavored to
bring this valuable branch of knowledge home to common schools
1 56 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
and to the cottage fireside by comprising, in a small and cheap vol-
ume, the most entertaining and interesting part of his American Uni-
versal Geography."
In 1 81 2 there was published a revised edition, the full title of which
reads as follows : " Geography made easy : being an Abridgment of
the American Universal Geography. To which are prefixed Elements
of Geography. For the use of Schools and Academies in the United
States of America, By Jedidiah Morse, D.D., author of the American
Universal Geography, and the American Gazetteer. ' There is not a
son or daughter of Adam, but has some concern both in Geography
and Astronomy.' — Dr. Watts. Illustrated with a Map of the World,
and a Map of North America. Fifteenth Edition, and third of this
new abridgment."
•
This well-written book of 360 pages octavo, opens with
20 pages devoted to the history of geography and astron-
omy, and to a full description of the solar system, fol-
lowed by 20 pages on physical geography. Then there
are 180 pages given to North America and " Independent
America, or the United States." The remainder of the
book treats of the rest of the world. The author's re-
marks on the condition of education in the United States
(18 10-12) are of special interest to the student of educa
tional history, and we quote as follows :
" State of Literature. — There are in the United States (1810) thirty
colleges ; three or four of them, however, exist only on paper ; and
upwards of eighty academies. A plan is now forming under the aus-
pices of Congress, for establishing a National University at the seat
of Government."
Massachusetts. — " In Boston there are seven public schools, viz. :
one Latin grammar school, three English grammar schools, and
three for writing and arithmetic, supported wholly at the expense of
the town ; in these schools, the children of every class of citizens (the
black excepted) freely associate. Next to these in importance, are the
academies, of which there are about 20 in the State. In these the
sciences are taught, and youth fitted for the university. Harvard Uni-
versity, at Cambridge, with respect to its library, philosophical appa-
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 157
ratus, and professorship, is the first literary institution in the United
States."
Connecticut. — " In no part of the world is the education of all ranks
of people more attended to than in Connecticut. Yale College was
established in 1 701. The students are divided into four classes. Their
number in 1810 was 255."
Rhode Island. — " The literature of this State is confined principally
to the towns of Providence and Newport. No provision is made by
law for the establishment of town schools."
New York. — " Dutch schools are now discontinued and the lan-
guage will probably soon cease to be used. There are twelve or
fourteen incorporated academies in the State, and two col-
leges. Columbia College, in the city of New York, is in a flourishing
state, and has more than 100 scholars, besides medical students.
Union College, in Schenectady, though an infant institution, is deserv-
edly celebrated. The annual expense of board, tuition, etc., is less
than $100. New York City contained in 1810, 93,914 inhabitants."
Pennsylvania. — " There are many private schools in different parts
of the State ; and to promote the education of poor children, the legis-
lature has appropriated a large tract of land for the establishment of
free schools. A seminary is established at Philadelphia by the name
of The University of Pennsylvania. This State contained in 18 10,
810,091 inhabitants."
Virginia. — " There are three colleges, William and Mary, Hampden-
Sidney, and Washington. There are also several academies, one at
Alexandria, one at Norfolk, one at Hanover, and others in other
places."
Modern Books. — During the first half of the nine-
teenth century Woodbridge's, Olney's, Smith's, and
Mitchell's geographies came into use at successive periods.
They were large books, crowded with formal descriptive
text and crammed with thousands of map questions the
answers to which had to be hunted out in a large separate
" atlas " which accompanied them. At a later period
there came into use the " three book series," Primary, In-
termediate, and Grammar School, such as Cornell's, Mon-
teith's, Guyot's, and some others, with text and maps in
158 HIS TOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
each book of each series. A marked innovation on the
old-style text-books is found in the Guyot series which
made prominent the study of physical geography.
The three-book series having been found too burden-
some for pupils, the latest geographies consist of only
two books, Primary and Grammar School. The modern
psychological and pedagogical method of teaching ge-
ography, so far as it is embodied in text-books, is to be
found in Redway and Hinman's Natural Series (1898),
comprising two books, — " The Natural Elementary Ge-
ography," and " The Natural Advanced Geography," —
both of which will be welcomed by teachers that are in
sympathy with the modern movement to simplify the
teaching of geography and bring it into harmony with the
modern course in nature study.
EARLY BOOKS ON PEDAGOGICS.
The firstLnotable book on common school pedagogics
published in New England (1829), was writtenby Rev.
Samuel R . Hall, and was entitledJ^Lectures on School^
Keepings" The author had taught in "district schools
when he was studying for the ministry ; he had also
organized the first private normal school in New Eng-
land, consequently he knew something about his subject.
This unpretentious little volume, being a practical book,
went at once into extensive use in New England and
New York.
A few years later there appeared several small treatises
such as, " The Teacher," by Jacob Abbott ; " Suggestions
on Education," by Catherine E. Beecher ; " The Teacher
Taught," by Emerson Davis ; and *' The Teacher's
Manual," by Thomas H. Palmer.
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 159
" The School and the Schoolmaster " was a pedagogical
volume of 552 pages pubHshed by Harper and Brothers,
1842. Part I., '* The School," by Professor Alonzo Potter,
of Union College, N. Y., treated of general education,
the existing condition of common schools and the means
of improving them ; of the duties of parents, trustees and
inspectors; and of the need of a state normal school.
It was ably written and is still of interest to the educa-
tional student. Part II., " The Schoolmaster," by George
B. Emerson, of Boston, President of the American Insti-
tute of Instruction, treated of " the proper character,
studies, and duties of the teacher, with the best methods
for the government and instruction of common schools."
George B. Emerson, was one of the foremost practical
teachers in New England, and his part of the book is so
pervaded by common-sense, it is delightful reading even
now. His suggestions on oral instruction and the use of
text-books, on the correlation of geography and history,
on composition and grammar, and on studies in natural
science, all are in accord with modern ideas. Through
the liberality of some friend of common schools whose
name was withheld, a copy of this book was placed in
every school district in the state of New York.
This book constituted my entire pedagogical outfit
when teaching my first district school.
"■ Theory and Practice of Teaching" (1847), t>y David
P. Page, was an inspiring book which went at once into
general use in normal schools and academies.
Wickersham's " Methods of Instruction " (1865), was a
valuable educational contribution by one of the leading
educators in Pennsylvania. About this time Henry
Barnard published '* Russell's Normal Training." Pro-
fessor William Russell, graduate of Glasgow University,
l6o HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
and author of numerous school readers and books on
elocution, was one of the pioneers in organizing private
normal schools in New Hampshire and Massachusetts,
and also one of the active promoters of state normal
schools. He was a prominent leader in the educational
life of New England, as a lecturer at Teachers' Institutes, \
and as a teacher of elocution, during and after the great \
revival inaugurated by Horace Mann. His rich scholar-
ship, his unselfish devotion, and his noble character |
greatly endeared him to his pupils. I
BOOKS FOR CHILDREN. \
\
The first_c entury of colonial life was a dism a l period ;
for children's books. Juvenile literature was limited to ^
spelling book, primer or catechism, and the Bible. The
grown-up people on the isolated farms fared little better ; ;
for books oL any kind we re costly and sc arce. The col- j
lege-bred clergyman had a small library limited to college
class books and a few volumes of ponderous theology. i
The one indispensable book in every family, next to \
the Bible and the church catechism, was the annual \
" almanack," which hung suspended by a string near the ;
great open fireplace. One of the earliest publications of ]
the solitary printing press in New England (1639) was j
Pierce's " Almanack, calculated for New England." In '
addition to the calendar of time, these early almanacs . ;
were filled up with weather predictions, old saws and '
maxims, and bits of theological aphorisms. They were j
well thumbed by all members of the family. At a later {
period, Benjamin's Franklin's almanac, known under j
the name of " Poo r Richard's Al ma nack ," circulated
everywhere in all the colonies. It had a spice of humor, ^
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT- BOOKS i6i
and was full of wise maxims and prudent aphorisms
about diligence and economy, sometimes put into rhyme.
There were things that stuck like burs in the memory of
young and old alike. They exerted a marked effect upon
the American people, and they still hold a place in liter-
ature.
Bunyan's " Pi Igrjrn^ Progress " was reprinted in Boston
(1681), and was eagerly read by the few children that could
get hold of it. About the beginning of the eighteenth
century a few books designed by theologians for the good
of children, drifted over from England, such as, "Godly
Children Their Parents' Joy," " Young People Warned,"
and Janeway's '' Token for Children."
Cotton Mather tried his hand in making juvenile litera-
ture, and wrote a short booklet entitled, " Good Lessons
for Children in Verse." ^ Mather's "Token for the Chil-
dren of New England," was a reprint of an English book,
with a supplement by Cotton Mather containing, " Exam-
ples of children in whom the fear of God was remarkably
budding before they died." From such melancholy leaf-
lets, even the New England Primer was a pleasant relief
for children.
Then came " Robinson Crusoe " (1714), which ^^ttll rank<^
ag one of the most enchanting of all books for gr o win g
boys. Next came " Gulliver^sJLravfils " and " Th£_Vi car
of Wakefield," and near the end of the eighteenth century
several real books for little children, such as " £oody-TwjQ
^pes," "Tom Thumb," and " M other G oose Mejodies,"
all of which were originally published in England by
John Newberry, the notable London printer.
During the Colonial period there were few newspapers,
1 See Neiu England Magazine, April 1899. Article by Charles
Welsh.
AM. PUB. SCH. II
1 62 HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
and those had a limited circ ulatio n. *' In 1775," says
McMaster, " there were in the entire country, thirty-seven
papers in circulation. Fourteen of them were in New
England, four were in New York, and nine in Pennsylva-
nia. In Virginia and North Carolina there were two
each, in Georgia one, in South Carolina three." Most of
these papers were weeklies. They were carefully pre-
served and passed from neighbor to neighbor.
Early in the nineteenth century, the two popular novels
were **The Scottish Chiefs," and *' Thaddeus of Warsaw."
Twenty years later, Pope's " Essay on Man," Young's
" Night Thoughts," and Thomson's '' Seasons," were
read and studied as literature, in common schools and
academies. Watts on the " Improvement of the Mind,"
was a text-book on intellectual philosophy.
My own personal knowledge of books' for children in
New England began about the year 1837. ^7 ^^st
library at that time consisted of Webster's Speller, a
progressive reader, four bound volumes of " Peter Parley's
Magazine," and a book of '* Stories About Indian Fights."
When a little older, I read and re-read two bound volumes
of " The Penny Illustrated Magazine," from which I
gained a pretty good knowledge of all the famous naval
victories of the Americans over the British in the war of
1812. Then I plunged into '' Josephus," and " Rollin's
Ancient History." In my grandfather's library I discov-
ered a large bundle of old " Almanacks," which proved
a source of endless delight. My father was reading
Combe's " Constitution of Man," and I read it too,
though it was then held to be a dangerous book. Next I
found among my father's books Pope's " Essay on Man,"
Pope's '* Translation of the Iliad," Young's " Night
Thoughts," Thomson's " Seasons," Pike's Arithmetic, and
STUDIES ON COMMON-SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS 163
Murray's Grammar, all of which became of more or less
interest. Stowed away on a dusty shelf in the garret,
I discovered " Peter Wilkins," '' Gulliver's Travels," " His-
tory of the Pirates," and several other thrilling books.
The last half of the nineteenth century brought with it
a juvenile literature of great variety from the pens of
Hawthorne, Miss Alcott, Longfellow, Whittier, and a
score of others ; and this has been enriched by Grimm,
Hans Andersen, Charles Dickens, and recent writers too
numerous to mention.
CHAPTER VII
EDUCATIONAL OUTLOOK FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
School Enrollment. — On the latest school celebration
of Washington's birthday, the national flag was unfurled
upon more than two hundred thousand schoolhouses,
stretching from ocean to ocean. Our national songs, sung
at the opening of the schools in New England, were
caught up, hour after hour, with the course of the sun.
It was high noon in the schools of Boston before the
children in San Francisco had sung '* The Star Spangled
Banner," in their opening exercises. Before the waves of
light, and color, and song had reached the school outposts
in Alaska, the symbols of liberty and law along the Atlan-
tic had been furled, and the schools dismissed. During
this day, more than fourteen millions of public school
children saluted the national flag, sung the national songs,
were instructed in American history, and inspired with
patriotic fervor by four hundred thousand public school
teachers.
In all institutions of learning, public and private, in-
cluding elementary, secondary, and higher education, there
is found to be a total enrollment of 16,742,000 pupils and
students. Of this vast number, about one million and a
half are enrolled in private educational institutions, and
over fourteen and a half millions in common schools and
other public institutions of learning.
Who Control the Schools ? — Under a free govern ment, j
public schools j-epresent th^w ants, spirit , and ideals of a N
"^ 164
OUTLOOK FOR THE TWENTIETH CEXTURY
65
nation. As local self-government is a marked characteristic
of our civil institutions, it follows that local control by dis-
trict, town, city, or county, under general state law, should
be a distinctive feature of our public schools. Unlike Euro-
pean nations, we have no centralized national system of
education. We have a multiplicity of state school laws,
hundreds of special provisions in city charters, hundreds
of differently constituted city boards of education, thou-
sands of town or county school ofificers, and tens of thou-
sands of district school trustees. Under such decentral-
ized control, exact uniformity of school management is
impracticable and undesirable. In the words of Dr. A. D.
Mayo, '* the American common school is only the Ameri-
can people keeping school."
If we sometimes become impatient of the slow evolu-
tion of public schools, we must bear in mind that they are
improved mainly b y the public opinion of the communi-
ties in which they are organized. They are under the
gleLl eonliol o f~the people, and are vitalized by the in-
du strial, political, and educational advancement of socie ty.
In the beginning the early colonial schools, modeled after
European ideals, were partly under denominational con-
trol, partly under the civil power; they were chiefly sup-
ported by tuition fees, but were sometimes maintained
entirely by taxation. Under the fostering care of the
people, these primitive schools have been developed into
a system of free public education rising in successive
stages from the kindergarten, through the .primary and
the grammar grades ; through the high, the normal, and the
polytechnic school ; through the colleges of agriculture
and the mechanic arts ; culminating in the free state uni-
versity.
The following axiomatic principles have become estab-
1 66 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
lished in the minds of the people, and are now generally
accepted and acted upon by state governments : First,
that it is the duty of a republican government, as an act
of self-preservation, to establish and maintain a system of '
free public schools under the exclusive control of the civil
power. Second, that the property of the state shall be
taxed to educate the children of the state.
Simple propositions these seem to us now, but it has
required two and a half centuries of experiment and strug-
gle, and two great wars, — the Revolutionary war, and the
Civil war, — to bring them into full recognition throughout ,,
all the land. The public-school system is now fi rmly in-
tre nched in the revi se^Z constifutions of each and every
state in the Unio n, is regulated by state legislative enact-,
ment. is supported, incidentally, by t he interest on in-
vested school ^nds , b ut rn ai nly by direcF st ate, county,
citv^_di strict. and town taxatio n. In the older states,
which have become thickly settled, the school system is
developed in full. In new and sparsely settled states, if
schools are still crude, and are yet in process of formation,
their condition is a necessity of pioneer life.
Educational Progress. — The true economy of scho ol
management consists i n the employment of professionally
trained teachers. While it cannot be claimed, as yet, that
we have reached the standard of fully recognizing teach-
ing as a profession, we are steadily approximating this
high ideal. The demand for professionally educated
teachers is steadily growing, and the number of state and
city normal schools increases year by year. Teachers'
institutes and " summer schools " are everywhere estab-
lished. State associations of teachers are increasing in
number and strength. The National Educational Asso-
ciation is an acknowledged power. Educational journals
> J
OUTLOOK FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 167
are infusing a progressive spirit into the great body of
teachers. Magazines are presenting to the people the best
educational thought of the country. Newspapers are
spreading information on educational matters. The com-
paratively recent establishment of departments of peda-
gogics in state universities and other institutions of learn-
ing, is due to a recognition of the need of special prepara-
tion for teachers in high schools and colleges, as well as
for teachers in the elementary schools.
Imperfections in the School System. — No thoughtful
educator will claim that our school system is free from
Refects. The annual re-election or re-appointmen t of
teachers still stands as a legal barrier against teaching as
a profession. The provisions in state school laws and
city ordinances, limiting the teachers' tenure of office to
dne year, are survivals of the age of primitive schools,
when a schoolmaster was engaged to teach during the
winter term of three months, and a school-mistress was
employed during the summer term. A short term of ap-
pointment was then a necessity. In early days, the terms
of most civil offices were limited to one year ; but there
is now a general tendency to lengthen them, and it is to
be hoped that this reform will soon reach the school de-
partments of cities and towns. There are already a few
cities in which, by ordinance, the tenure of a teacher's
position holds during good behavior. But in many of
the large cities in which boards of education are elected
by direct popular vote, the power of political bosses and
ward politicians to order the appointment or dismissal of
teachers, is a menace, not only to teachers, but to public
school systems of great cities.
Another serious defect is the over-crow ded conditi on of
schools in cities of rapid growth, where from fifty to sixty
1 68 HISTOR V OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
pupils, and sometimes even more, are forced upon each
teacher in a classroom. Under such circumstances, pupils
may learn to read and write and cipher, but even the best
of teachers cannot train them in accordance with modern
pedagogical methods.
Notwithstanding some weak points, however, our free-
school system is broader and better than any other ever
Oman i7jp d ^'^^ ^he hiVstor3 ^j2)f_1jhe[Tm^ The kind
and quality of instruction will be changed to meet new
conditions, but there is no danger that the extent of educa-
tion will be curtailed. When times are hard or taxes high,
the schools, like other departments of government, are
subjected to a running fire of criticism all along the line ;
but only timid and despairing souls will be frightened into
the belief that the foundations of society are breaking up
on account of over education. No prophets of evil can
convince the American people that vice, crime, idleness,
poverty, and social discontent are the results of free public
schools. On the contrary, there is an abiding conviction
that it is only by means of general education brought
within the reach of all classes that a people can permanently
maintain free institutions. T he idea of universal educa-
tion has fairly entered into t he minds of men .
TrueTconomy. — Liberali ty in t axation for public
schools is believed to be enlightened economy for the state.
T^^hat migKt be ext ravagance in The individual is a^ wise
expenditure by the nation. This generation is no t living
jorjtself alone,,^u t for future generations^ an d the glory of
the republic. Complaints about school taxation have
been heard ever since the first town tax was levied in New
England or New York. There are always some taxpayers
who seem to consider that the chief end of man is to
escape taxation. But pub lic schoo ls are worth far more
OUTLOOK FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 169
than they cost ; for they make_ijitel1igent ihe great mass
of electors whose will, expressed by the ballot, makes or
^inmakes cgnstTtutiohs, jn3 enacts laws that make or mar
tHe^ ommon weal. ~
The better the schools are made, the more costly they
become. The era of liberal appropriations for common
schools, public colleges, and free state universities, is
only beginning ; for a modern scientific and literary educa-
tion, however costly it may be, is a good permanent in-
vestment. Now that a free education from kindergarten
to university has been brought within the possible reach
of all classes, we need not fear that intelligent electors
will surrender the power of voting all the money needed
for maintaining the American system of free public educa-
\Jion.
The Outlook. — As the nineteenth century draws to a
close, the educational outlook is full of promise. The
common schools, with an enlarged and an enriched course
of study, fairly meet the needs of the common pursuits of
life ; state normal schools are everywhere training teachers
for their work ; the secondary schools are extending the
culture of the elementary schools and are fitting students
for college ; while the free state universities and colleges
of agriculture and the mechanic arts, constitute the crown-
ing glory of the system. Freed from the scholastic tram-
mels of the ancient curriculum, these new universities and
colleges are training skilled specialists in agriculture, the
mechanic arts, and other industrial, commercial, scientific,
and educational pursuits, but in nowise neglecting classical
courses and the professions of law and medicine. They
are reacting powerfully on high schools, normal schools,
and common schools, raising the standard of all, and bring-
ing the entire system into harmony.
I/O
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The corner stones of our public-school system have
been securely laid and they will long endure. When we
consider how the common schools have reached every
state, city, village, hamlet, and rural district in our country,
how they have molded successive generations into Ameri-
can citizens who have met the demands of every crisis in
our national affairs, we pay little heed to the lamentations
of pessimists. We exult, rather, that we have lived to
behold the glory and grandeur of our reunited country,
and rejoice that our lot is cast among a people whose faith
grows firmer and stronger in republican institutions, free
labor, free schools, free speech, and a free press. The
words of the prophet-poet Whittier have become true :
" The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea shall answer sea,
And mountain unto mountain call : Praise God for we are free."
On the threshold of the twentieth century, as the con-
solidated republic is entering on a new era of prosperity
and power, let us, each and all, do our utmost to hold our
public schools up to their highest degree of efficiency, so
that they may meet all future needs of the new nation.
If our public schools are kept vitalized by enlightened
common sense, patriotism, and righteousness, universal
suffrage will not prove a failure, and universal education
will prove the safeguard of the republic.
REFERENCES FOR SPECIAL STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF
PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
Boone's History of Education in the United States.
George H. Martin's Evolution of the Massachusetts Pub-
lic-School System.
Wickersham's History of Education in Pennsylvania.
Randall's History of the Public Schools of New York.
OUTLOOK FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
71
Barnard's American Journal of Education.
Kiddle and Schem's Cyclopedia of Education.
McMaster's History of the People of the United States.
Motley's Dutch Republic.
Campbell's The Puritan in Holland, England, and America.
Reports of the United States Commissioner of Edu-
cation : —
A series of Historical Sketches by Dr. A. D. Mayo :
(a) Public Schools during the Colonial Period, Report
for 1893-94, Vol. I.
{p) Education in the Northwest, Report foci 894-95,
Vol. 2.
{c) Common Schools in New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania, Report for 1895-96, Vol. i.
{d) Common Schools in the Southern States, Report
for 1895-96, Vol. I.
{e) Horace Mann and the Great Revival of the Ameri-
can Common School, 1830-50, Report of 1896-
97, Vol. I.
PART II
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS IN AMERICAN PUBLIC
SCHOOLS
CHAPTER I .
MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOL GOVERNMENT
The foundat i on of a school, a s_of sodety^_ls_Jaw _and-
order. Teachers must possess the power of enforcing
such regulations as are essential to the existence of the
school as a social organization. In school government
much depends on making pupils feel that rules and reg-_
ulations are intended for their own^ood, not that they
"■^re'made^by the" teacher for his own pleasure in~exercis-
ing arbitrary power. Most pupils really prefer order
to disorder, firmness to weakness, law to lawlessness.
Hence calisthenics and military precision in marching are
efficient aids in securing prompt obedience to commands.
One object of discipline is ^o secure a sufficient degree of
order, qui etness, and regularity to enahlejin pils to p nrsnp^
their studies^and redte^Jji^uiless ons without interrup tion ;
butTEe higher aim is to tra in the will, and incite_^^ils
to put fo rth vigorous efforts for self-control. But upon
untrained children whose impulses are strong and whose
habits of self-control are weak, the hand of power must
be laid, to remind them of duty and compel them to do
it.
173
174
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
Firmness. — The power to govern well is an essential
quality of every successful teacher. V/hen a new teacher
takes charge of a school or a class, there is always a trial
of strength between the ruler and the ruled ; and woe
be to that man or woman who falls a weak prey to young
and merciless school tyrants. At present, in school as in ',
state, judicious severity is, in the end, the truest kindness. ,
Fear of punishment is the only check to the lawlessness
of some children as well as of some men. The penalties
of crime awarded by the law of the state, are designed;
not for the average law-abiding ^tizen, but for the ex-
ceptional offender ; and punishment in sc jiool is held as a
terror only over the exceptional pupi l. When alTcBlId^ren
are "well governed at home, when all teachers are profes-
sionally trained, when all parents are reasonable, when
hereditary tendencies are in harmony with existing social
conditions, all kinds of penalties in school may safely be
abolished. ^
But one of the main objects of the teacher should be'
to lead pupils to do right from a sense of duty and
self-respect rather than from fear of punishment. As the
school is a small social community, its members should
be so trained in their duties to one another that they will
learn to respect the rights of others.
School Opinion. — The public opinion of the school is
an i mport ant_eleme nt in di scipline, and the teacher with
tact will direct this power to the side of order and right-
doing. Many a boy is influenced by the opinions of
his fellows more than by the decisions of his teachers.
Few pupils can resist when they find themselves con-
demned by the common voice of their companions, whose
censure they dread more than that of their superiors.
A wise teacher can win to his side the active, energetic,
AfANA GEMENT IN SCHO OL GO VERNMENT 1 75
leadLng^pupils by puttiiig:tJieiiLiiitQ43laces of honor, trust,
or duty ; and, having done this, it is easy to secure their
co-operation in establishing a wholeson[ie^nd_restraining
school infliieiiee, -
^"^stinate Children. — It is not good policy to drive
strong-willed children into obstinacy. Respect the per-
so nality and individu ality of every pupil._ Indeed, make
every effort to develop positive force of character. The
more will of the right kind in a child the better. By a
little patience and forbearance, you may bring to bear on
the self-willed child the influence of kindness, sympathy,
or reason. Set your own tact againsrilie~dull, brutish
obstinacy of the pupil. A forced submission often ends
in sullen doggedness or a smoldering fire of rebellion.
The child must learn obedience ; that is the first and
greatest of lessons, but with some impulsive children real
affection for the teacher will often secure obedience when
nothing else will avail.
Penalties. — In order to enforce good government in
schools, there must be penalties for violations of rules^
These penalties may be re£nmanHs7lcHeclcs7Toss_of privi-
leges, detention, suspension, or possibly in extreme cases,
cofporal punishment. T'enalties must be certain, and
mu st appe aT js^tlie natural consequence of wrqng_acts.
The child should know what he has to expect, and when
to expect it. The child soon learns to yield to the in-
evitable. It is the certainty, not the severitj^, of punish-
ment that deters~pupils fro m violating 2iig"l^iQ^s. But
rns"lioFwise to make cast-iron rules with unchangeable
penalties. If you fail to enforce fixed penalties, you lose
the respect of your pupils ; and if you do enforce them,
you may often be guilty of injustice. Give your verdict
and pass sentence after the conviction of the offender.
1^6 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
President Eliot, in tlie ** Unity of Educational Reform," ^ remarks :
" Down to times quite within my memor}% the method of discipline, both
in school and college, was extremely simple ; for it relied chiefly, first,
on a highly stimulated emulation and fear of penalty. . . It is now an
accepted doctrine that the discipline of childhood should not be so dif-
ferent from that of adolescence as to cause at any point of the way a full
stop and a fresh start. . . . Among the permanent motives which act
all through life are prudence, caution, emulation, love of approbation,
shame, pride, self-respect, pleasure in discovery, activity, or achieve-
ment, delight in beauty, strength, grace, and grandeur, and the love
of power, and of possessions as giving power."
Liberty. — It is an essential principle of school govern-
ment that everv _ pupil be allowed the largest liberty
^possihle_without infringing on the rights, interests, dutie s,
or convenience of othe rs. Hence the right adm inistration
of school affairs is not always an easy task. It is easy
enough to sit in judgment on the cases that are pure black
or pure white, but the gray cases are complex, requiring
the utmost caution and deliberation.
Trust. — Re gard your ^upils_aS-tr uthful until you hav e
positive evidenceto the contj; ary. Children with a high
sense of honor will never forgive you for doubting their
word, or for making an unjust accusation. Trust your
pupils if you want them to put their trust in you.
Truthfulness. — Encou rage truthfulness by rewarding
full and frank confession _with a remission of penaltie s,
so far as is consistent with school discipline. Undue
severity excites fear, and fear seeks an easy refuge in cun-
ning and evasion. There is a conventional sense of honor
among schoolboys which binds them not to inform the
teacher of the misdeeds of their fellows. They are un-
wise teachers who take ground against this school opin-
ion, and endeavor, by threats of punishment, to compel
1 " Educational Reform " ( 1 898) .
MANA CEMENT IN SCHO OL GO VERNMENT 1 77
pupils to become informers. It is wisdom for teachers to
use tact in so r Q_odifying the school code as to draw a lij ie
of distinction betwee n minor matters th at belong to J^he
""Tattllhg order, and the graver offenses that concern the
real welTafeTofTilie scHooTT ~
Order. — It is wise to make but few rules and not to
indulge in much talk about infringements of them. Put
yourself in the place of your pupils. Recall your own
school experiences, your hopes and fears, your impulses,
your notions, and the motives that influenced you.
Professor Hinsdale, in " Studies in Education," says : " Reasonable
order in the schoolroom, for the most part, must be secured indirectly ;
it must come as the result of keen interest in the work, and close
application to it. What is sometimes called ' good order ' does not
always imply either interest in studies or a good school, since it may
be secured by extreme repression ; but interest and application are
pretty certain to lead to good order . In other words, order should be
largely spontaneous. In the long run, that teacher will best succeed
in securing it who says little about it. Even grown persons who are
consciously trying to keep still, find it difficult to do so. How hard
many find it to sit for a photograph ! The boy whose business it is
to be quiet is likely to make a great deal of noise while about it.
Moreover, a positive direction of order to keep still, given to any
assemblage, tends to provoke nervous and muscular movements.
Great audiences are as still as death, not when the orator is descanting
on order and stillness, but when he loses himself and them in his
subject. Hence attempts to secure order should not be thrust into the
faces of children."
Barbarism. — It is educational barbarism to inflict per-
sonal indignities , such as pulling the hair, boxing the ears,
or slapping the face. Such brutalities excite the bitterest
resentment, and are seldom forgiven.
Punishment. — One of the most effective penalties is to
deprive offe nders of som e privileg e, or to cut them off
fron
from the society of schoolmates at recess or intermission.
AM. PUB. SCH. — 12
178 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
Secure order, if possible, without corporal punishment ;
but secure obedience at all hazards . For in school, as in
an army, discipline is essential to existence. Corporal
punishment is now generally regarded only as a final resort
when all other means fail to secure obedience. In many
cities suspension has superseded corporal punishment even
as a final resort. It will be well for teachers to be guided
in some measure by the public opinion of the community
in which they teach.
Dr. G. Stanley Hall, the kindest and most genial of re-
formers, said in a recent lecture in Chicago (1889): "I
believe in corporal punishment in the schools. It should
not be carried to excess, but the fact that an incorrigible
boy knows that the teacher may whip him is a tremendous
support to the teacher."
CHAPTER II
SUGGESTIONS ON CLASS-ROOM MANAGEMENT
Cheerfulness. — Cultivate a habit of cheerfulness that
shall shine out from your countenance like the light of
the rising sun. *'A teacher has only partially compre-
hended the familiar powers of his place," says Bishop
Huntington, " who has left out the lessons of his own
countenance. There is a perpetual picture which his
pupils study as unconsciously as he exhibits it. His
plans will miscarry if he expects a genial and nourishing
session when he enters with a face blacker than the
blackboard."
Scolding. — The less you threaten, the less you find
fault, the less you scold, the more friends you will have
among the boys and girls, and the better will be your
school. Unless you wish to be hated, beware of sarcasm
and ridicule. A cutting remark is never forgotten and
seldom forgiven.
Courtesy. — Consent cordially and gracefully, but let
your refusals be firm and absolute. Be courteous and
polite ; it is easier to win children by kindness than to
drive them by authority.
Self-help. — Beyond imparting a small stock of specific
knowledge, the chief work of the teacher is to teach pupils
the ri^ htjway of findrnf^o ut thinp:^ for the7nselves ^ just as
little children are taught to walk in order that they may
go alone. It is only the poorest teachers and the un-
trained ones that do all the hard work for their pupils.
179
l8o APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
Agassiz said that the worst service a teacher could render
to a pupil was to give him a ready-made answer. The
best teachers are those whose pupils are made daily more
and more able to pursue their studies without the aid of
teachers.
Praise. — Make use of the stimulus of praise ; but use it
sparingly, so that it may be of value when bestowed.
Given with good judgment, commendation is a powerful
agency, but prizes and distinctions often produce the
worst effect in school. Generous emulation is good, but
the selfish pride of rivalry is bad.
Manner. — In conducting a recitation, look your pupils
in the eye when you question them, and make them look
you in the eye when they answer. Keep your voice down
to the conversational key. A quiet voice is music in the
schoolroom. Lighten up your class with a pleasant coun-
tenance. The teacher who cannot occasionally join in a
hearty laugh with pupils lacks one important element of
power. Have something interesting to say to your pupils
at every recitation. If you can keep them interested you
will have but little trouble about order. Keep them on
the alert by being wide-awake yourself.
Question and Answer. — In general, put questions to
the whole class, in order to make every pupil think out
the answer ; then, after a pause, call upon some one pupil
to give it. Seldom_repeat a question. Train pupils to a
habit of close attention, so that they will understand what
you say the first time you say it. Give slow children
time to think and speak. The readiest children are not
always the soundest thinkers. The highest praise given
by an English inspector to a teacher was " that he allowed
his slow boys time to wriggle out an answer T It is a bad^
habit for the teacher to repeat to the class a pupil's half-
SUGGESTIONS ON CLASS-ROOM MANAGEMENT igi
audihl£__answer. Require every pupil to speak loud
enough to be distinctly understood by every member of
the class. Do not expect pupils to know as much as you
do, neither consider them dull because they fail to per-
ceive things that seem to you to be simple and easy.
Keep in mind the aphorism of Arnold Tompkins:
'* Teaching is the process by which one mind, from a set
purpose, prodtcces the life-unfolding process in another!'
Explaining. — Explain when necessary, but make your
pupils do a part of the talking. Your talk should consist
largely of intelligent questions. Encourage pupils to ask
questions, but do not answer them yourself until after you
have given the class an opportunity to answer.
Good English. — Train pupils to recite in good English,
but do not worry them by interruptions when they are
speaking. Make a note of incorrect or inelegant expres-
sions and have them corrected afterwards. The correct
use of language is a matter of habit ra ther than_a_result_
^ t studying the rules of grammar . It will be one of the
arduous duties of every teacher, whether in high or low
grade classes, to correct inaccuracies of speech. The
teacher should use plain and pure English, and require
pupils to do the same. No provincialisms, no slang, no
careless or slovenly pronunciation should be allowed to
pass unnoticed. Questions should be direct ; answers
concise. But do not expect children to speak perfect
English, and do not become too critical about their ex-
pressions.
Habits of Study. — The text-book is designed as an aid
both to pupils and teacher ; but the teacher should show
pupils how to study their lessons by calling their atten-
tion to leading points, by vitalizing printed words with
the living voice, and by showing children not only what
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
to study, but, also, how to__ study. It is a good plan to
require short intervals of study in school hours. In
graded schools at least ten minutes of the half hour al
lowed for recitation may often be devoted to silent study
by pupils. The common practice of detaining pupils
a fter s choo M:o study i mperfect ly recited^ l essons isj on-^
psychological. It is a physical impossibility for a tired,
hungry, impatient child to do good thinking under such
conditions. " No learning," says Socrates, as translated
by Roger Ascham, *' ought to be learned with bondage ;
for bodily labors wrought by compulsion hurt not the
body ; but any learning learned by compulsion tarrieth
not long in the mind."
Home Study. — No lessons whatever, except perhaps
a reading lesson, should be assigned for home study to
children below the fourth grade. In general, only les-
sons which require mainly an exercise of memory should
be assigned for home work. Many pupils have no con-
veniences for writing at home, and few have a quiet room
to themselves. The giving out of long and difficult prob-
lems in arithmetic to be worked at home is an unmiti-
gated evil. The lessons most suita bl e for home stu dy
seem to be reading, geo graphy, spelling, grammar, h istory,
"^d observation lessonsmnature study.
MentaTHabits.^^In whatever grades you are teaching
train pupils, as far as practicable, to the habit of listening
attentively to what you tell them ; of giving back to you,
in their own words, the substance of your instruction ; of
observing carefully in nature-study or science ; and of re-
cording correctly. These are important things in all
grades.
" We must learn," says President Eliot in " Educational Reform "
" to see straight and clea^r ; to compare and infer ; to make an accurate
SUGGESTIONS ON CLASS-ROOM MANAGEMENT 183
record ; to remember ; to express our thought with precision ; and to
hold fast lofty ideals. . . . The child of five years should begin to think
clearly and justly, and he should begin to know what love and duty
mean ; and the mature man of twenty-five should still be training his
powers of observing, comparing, recording, and expressing. The aims
and the fundamental methods at all stages of education should, there-
fore, be essentially the same, because the essential constituents of
education are the same at all stages. The grammar-school pupil is try-
ing to do the same kinds of things which the high-school pupil is trying
to do, though, of course, with less developed powers. The high-school
pupil has the same intellectual needs which the university student
feels. From first to last, it is the teacher's most important function to
make the pupil think accurately and express his thoughts with preci-
sion and force ; and in this respect the function of the primary-school
teacher is not different in essence from that of the teacher of law
medicine, theology, or engineering."
Reviews. — F requent review s are essential to good
training. However well anything is learned for the time
being, it will pass into oblivion if not called up again and
again. Repetition is absolutely essential to habit, skill,
readiness, thoroughness, and accuracy. But reviews
should not, in general, consist in the assignment of five or
ten pages of the text-book for home study.
" T he best form of revi ew," says McMurry,^ " is that wh ich sprin gs
out ofc ompariso ns, which finds in the new lessons amplifications of old
principles, which makes e very lesso n_a_review_of_old knowledge iri^
t helight of new experienc e. Incidental reviews and comparisons, by
which every new topic is incorporated into the body of our previous
experiences are the rational form of study. It is constantly making
over, modifying, and expanding the old thought material. The stated
periodical review presupposes a static condition in knowledge ; such
knowledge, when finally salted down, partakes of the nature of a petri-
faction and lacks that fluidity and pervasiveness which make it pene-
trate and permeate every nook and avenue of experience."
Child Study. — Above all make a careful study of your
I McMurry's " Method of the Recitation " (1897).
1 84 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
pupils, of their personal characteristics, of their varied de-
grees of capacity, so that you can treat them fairly and
intelligently. The best psychological methods of teaching
are found out by careful study of the spontaneous activi-J
ties and natural tendencies of children. " I cannot but
think," says William James, '* that to apperceive your
pupil as a little sensitive, impulsive, associative, and reac-
tive organism, partly fated and partly free, will lead to a
better intelligence of all his ways."
Professor Earl Barnes closes an able paper on " Methods of Study-
ing Children " with the following summary : " Undoubtedly, the best
student of the natural history of child-life is he who uses all methods
in due proportion. If a man goes about his daily work with his eyes
and his heart open ; if he lives over his own childhood's life, with an
honest desire to see what kind of a child he was, and what kind of a
man he is, quickening his memory with childish records and autobi-
ography ; if he studies children under carefully arranged conditions,
bringing the same fair-mindedness and persistence to his work that
the scientist brings to his laboratory ; and if he brings all thes'e
scattered studies into their due relations, by setting them in a back-
ground of general law, based on large quantitative studies, he will
accomplish all that he can reasonably hope for in these days of begin-
nings."
New Methods. — Stand ready to give a fair considera-
tion to new methods in teaching, even if they differ from
your preconceived ideas. "The only way in which a
human being can make some approach to knowing the
whole of a subject," says John Stuart Mill, " is by hearing
what can be said about it by persons of every variety of
opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked
at by every character of mind. No wise man ever ac-
quired his wisdom in any mode but this ; nor is it in the
nature of human intellect to become wise in any other
manner."
SUGGESTIONS ON CLASS-ROOM MANAGEMENT 185
*' I have never yet seen in any college or university,"
says President Eliot, ** a method of instruction which was
too good for an elementary school or a secondary school.
The alert, inspiring, winning, commanding teacher is just
the same rare and admirable person in school and college.
When it is a question how best to teach a given subject,
the chances are that college or scientific-school teachers of
that subject can help school teachers, and that school
teachers can help college teachers. Moreover, it is im-
portant that each should know what the other does." ^
Individuality. — It is desirable in large schools that
there should be some general unity of method, but teach-
ers ought not to be reduced to the dead level of Chinese
uniformity. The life of all good teaching is the individ-
uality of the class teacher. Principals should allow as-
sistants the same liberty that they ask for themselves.
The general tendency of large graded schools is to weaken
the individuality of both teacher and pupil. Uriifo rmity
i n essentials, diversity in particulars, should be the r ule.
Without some degree of freedom, there can be neither
interest nor enthusiasm. Slaves never become enthusiastic
except in a struggle for liberty.
Grade Promotions. — A quarter of a century ago there
prevailed in most of the cities of our country an epidemic
of official written examinations at the end of the year,
which determined the promotion of pupils from grade to
grade. These examinations belonged to the class termed
by Huxley " the Abomination of Desolation." The
result was disastrous both to teachers and pupils. Finally,
the evils of this method became unbearable, and there
was a general revolt against it. The " lock-step " of
graded schools was broken. In many cities, pupils are
1 "Educational Reform " (1898).
1 86 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
now promoted from grade to grade, or section to section,
by the school principal and the class teacher, semi-annually
or annually, by class recordsandthe judgment of teachers.
In the best schools pupils are changed from section to
section whenever they become fitted for it.
In an address on " Problems in Graded School Management," Dr.
Emerson E. White, of Ohio, makes the following statements : " There
is a growing conviction among the more intelligent observers of our
graded system of schools, that there are serious defects either in the
system itself or in the administration. . . . But whatever may be true
of the necessity or value of test examinations, they are very generally
employed in graded schools, and their character largely determines
the character of school instruction. If the examination tests are
narrow and technical, the instruction will be narrow and technical ; if
the tests run to figures, the instruction will run to figures ; if the tests
demand details, they will ' emphasize and make imperative all the
lumber of the text-books.' . . . Instead of half-time schools, I would
suggest a half-time course of study in all grades above the primary.
It is not necessary to require all the pupils to take the same number
of studies and advance with even step through the course. This pro-
crustean device must be given up if the public school system is to do
its full legitimate work as an agency for the education of the whole
people. Instead of excluding pupils who cannot meet all the conditions
of a complete and thorough course of elementary education, it must
provide for such pupils the best education possible under the circum-
stances." 1
Written Examinations. — In all schools there must be
occasional written examinations. Kept within reasonable
limits, they are productive of great good, provided the
questions are properly prepared. Here again I am con-
strained to quote the tersely put statements of President
Eliot : " Tests of faithfulness and of mental condition are
also necessary at stated periods ; but these tests should
1 Republished in the Report of the Commissioner of Education,
Vol. 2, 1896-97.
SUGGESTIONS ON CLASS-ROOM MANAGEMENT
1^7
be directed to ascertain what the pupils can do, rather
than what they know. There must be examinations, an-
ticipated and unanticipated. Let them always be con-
ducted by the teacher, for the teacher, and as helps and
guides in teaching and learning."
This question of per cent, is nowhere set forth more
clearly than by Arnold Tompkins, when he says : " It
must be remembered that nothing lies like figures when
used to indicate mental attainments ; especially so when
per cents, are used as motives to study, and become an
object of attainment by the teacher."
School Program. — For a full discussion of the rel-
ative time to be given to the different studies, and for the
arrangement of a program, teachers are referred to the
"Report of the Committee of Fifteen " (1895), and the
*' Report of the Committee of Twelve " (1897).
The Chief End. — T-Lc ulgr a]| the mprhanism of crpHpH
schools, and programs, and courses of study, teac hers
must^ol lusL sight Of llTe fact that the chief end o^ the
sc hooland the teacher is to bring about m some way tn'e^
bes t possible development for e ach particular pupil. Now
the ^hildren are variable facto rs. 1 hey neither look alike "
nor think nh'ke. They ha ve inherj tffj fliff^r^nf pr>.irp>rg
of mind and tendencies of temperament. School ma-
c hinery, howev er elaborate and systematic, and beautiful,
must not b e allowed to crush out ail nidividualliy ih th e
child. Each pupil is of more consequence than jthe
system. Child study me ans a recog^nition of differences
in pupifs. In spite of numbers and automatic appliances,
it is th e fine art of t| if ^^'^^ j-p^^^v.^^ f^ ir;,->^i^ Pirh little
souPnito high ideals with some spark of enthusiasm fro m
her own.
CHAPTER III
RECITATIONS AND THE ART OF USING TEXT-BOOKS
Objects of the Recitation. — The objects of the reci-
tation are to induce study, to test preparation, to awaken
inquiry, to cultivate expression and attention, and to en-
able the teacher to give necessary explanation and instruc-
tion. But the main purpose should be, not so much " to
hear the lesson," as to instruct the pupil. According to
Herbart, the formal steps should be :
1. The preparation, which consists in connecting the
preceding lesson with the one in hand.
2. The making clear the new material to the compre-
hension of the pupil.
3. The apperception or assimilation of new ideas with
old ideas by association, to make sure the whole lesson is
understood.
Credits and Checks. — Waste as little time as possible
in keeping a daily account of recitation credits. No
teacher can do his best at instructing when his attention
is diverted by jotting down credits. The strong tendency
in graded schools to run into excessive dependence upon
questions and text-book answers springs largely from the
undue importance attached to credits and rank. Many
sensitive pupils are kept in a constant worry on account
of "checks" in recitations. A "check" is not quite so
brutal as a blow ; but the depressing effect of its endless
dropping is often quite as bad upon the disposition. Be-
sides, if all the half hour of recitation is spent in putting
188
RECITATIONS AND ART OF USING TEXT-BOOKS 189
a question to each pupil in order to " mark " him, there
is little time left for teaching. The most vital work done
in a class cannot be reduced to percentage. Recitation rec-
ords may be kept ; but it is by no means desirable that
every recitation should be recorded. Frequently the
recitation of an assigned lesson should be brief, the prin-
cipal part of the time being devoted to explanations and
illustrations by the teacher.
The Oral Method. — P upils at tend school, not merely
to recite ^ut also to be ins tructed_and_ai ded by th e living
j^ach en Do not stop short with hearing a lesson ; add
something to it ; discuss it ; show its connection with pre-
ceding-lessons and its relation to the next advance lesson,
and thus excite some interest on the part of pupils. In
doing this, there is no need of going to the extreme of
not requiring pupils to recite set lessons in set terms, pro-
vided that you are satisfied that ideas are associated with
the words repeated. '' The older pedagogic method of
learning things by rote," says Dr. William James, ** and
reciting them parrot-like in the schoolroom, rested on the
truth that a thing merely read or heard, and never ver-
bally reproduced, contracts the weakest possible adhesion
in the mind. Verbal recitation or reproduction is thus a
highly important kind of reactive behavior on our impres-
sions, and it is to be feared that in the reaction against the
old parrot recitations as the beginning and end of instruc-
tion, the extreme value of verbal recitation as an element
of complete training may be nowadays too much for-
gotten."
Text-books. — In the primitive common school the
chief duty of the pupil was to memorize text-book les-
sons, and the main office of the teacher was to ask the
text-book questions without note, comment, or explana-
90
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
tion. While this custom has been materially modified by
modern methods, undue dependence upon the text-book
is still a marked characteristic of the schools in our
country.
In an official report on the public-school system of the
United States by a distinguished German educator, Dr.
E. Schlee, who attended in an official capacity the World's
Fair at Chicago and the Congress of Education, there is
found the following paragraph on " Methods and Text-
Books " : 1
" The American method of instruction, having taken the French and
English mechanical memorizing for its model, differs essentially from
the German. It aims, not at comprehending and mastering a subject
through understanding, but at the acquisition of a complete presenta-
tion through the memory-. Consequently, instruction is defined less by
the teacher than by the text-book ; which is learned almost by heart.
Most of the time is taken up by daily questions and answers, and
marks are given for the recitation. The book contains a number of
questions with answers attached for recitation. Examinations for
promotion in class, as well as teachers' examinations, consist, for the
most part, of a number of questions and answers, so that with diligent
application and a good memory even an inferior mind can easily pass
them. Be the books never so good, such instruction will hardly lead
to the development of the intellect and to a free mastery of the subject.
The stacks of pupils' work at the exposition in Chicago contained ex-
cellent work in geography and the natural sciences, especially physiol-
ogy ; the explanatory drawings were particularly good and appro-
priate, but the finished form and at times the almost identical word-
ing, betrayed that they were chapters from the text-book committed to
memory. American teachers are by no means ignorant of this defi-
ciency in their method. Many objections have been urged, but the
method is a natural growth of the whole school system. In cases
where schools or a few teachers have adopted the German method
they and their pupils appear at a disadvantage at inspections and ex-
aminations arranged according to the text-book system."
^ Report of Commissioner of Education, 1892-93.
RECITATIONS AND ART OF USING TEXT-BOOKS 191
Use of Text-Books. — One of the things which young
teachers must acquire by experience and practice is the
fine art of making a wise use of school text-books by fit-
ting the printed lessons to the minds of pupils by means
of inductive development exercises and explanations. For
the author of a school arithmetic, or grammar, or geog-
raphy, intended for use in grades other than the primary,
is subject to rigid limitations. His book must treat of
the conventional topics found in other books on the same
subjects, else it will be rejected by publishers and school
boards. It must be limited to a certain number of pages
in order to compete in price with similar books. There is
no room for inductive exercises, and the author reluc-
tantly falls back on the deductive or formal method of
definition, general statement, rule, exercises, and problems.^ /
The easy inductive steps must, of necessity, be sup plied) f
by the development lessons of the teacher.
Illustration in Arithmetic. — Before me lies a copy of
the Advanced Arithmetic (1887), officially adopted for
use in the common schools of the state of California. It
is edited, published, and sold by the state. In using this
text-book according to the average courses of study,
pupils go through " the four rules," and begin their first
lessons in written common fractions, in the fifth or
sixth grade. The subject is presented in a deductive
manner admirably adapted to a mathematician of the old
colonial type. It begins with a philosophical definition
as follows : *' A fraction is an indicated division. Thus,
the indicated division of the remainder in division is a
fraction." This is immediately followed by other defini-
tions, such as : numerator, denominator, integer, mixed
number, and improper fraction. Next, these definitions
are applied in twenty-one *' Exercises " in which the frac-
192
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
tions given are to be classified in columns on the slate ac-
cording to the preceding definitions. The following are
typical - exercises " : " (6) iM^ iH ; " - (13) m^ M^ fM-"
Now human ingenuity could hardly devise a more un-
psychological beginning. It is evident that teachers must
precede this deductive treatment by a series of inductive
questions, explanations, and genetic exercises, which shall
prepare the minds of pupils to assimilate this crude mass
of fractions with what little knowledge of real business
fractions they have managed to pick up outside of school
and then substitute in place of the *' exercises," exam-
ples that will be in accord with both common-sense and
modern psychology.
In a few lessons after this formidable introduction to
fractions, in due ''logical order," pupils reach a topic
headed " inverting the divisor." An example is given in
division of fractions, with an analytical or algebraical ex-
planation of the reason for inverting the divisor. This
brings to mind my own experience as a teacher half a
century ago in a district school in New England. At the
close of the winter term the examining committee made
their appearance — one of them being the master of the
town high school, who examined my arithmetic class of
three boys by asking only one question, to wit : " Give an
explanation of the reason for inverting the divisor."
This lesson on " inverting the divisor " is immediately
succeeded by an appalling exercise on " complex frac-
tions," piled up in pyramids of confusion. Is it not the
imperative duty of the young teacher to cut loose from
this dry, pedantic, mathematical formalism and take up
the subject in some natural method of development?
Finally, the pupils reach " decimal fractions," in-
troduced by a ** diagram" and thirty-two "exercises,"
RECITATIONS AND ART OF USING TEXT-BOOKS
193
to be read and written. The following are fair samples
of these exercises : "(5)7.007; (6) .13147 ; (19) 171.4112;
(29) 293.0293." What possible use can teachers, possessed
of plain common sense, make of a text-book lesson like
this for a class of beginners ?
How one class encountered this formidable deductive lesson, I know
from observation. On entering an evening school in San Francisco, I
found an anxious-looking young lady in charge of a sixth grade class
of boys. She said to me, with a weary air : " We are taking our first
lessons in decimals this evening, and the boys don't seem to understand
it." " What is the lesson ? " I asked. She showed me the book open
at the " diagram and 32 exercises " mentioned above. Taking charge
of the class, I sent half the boys to the board, let the others take paper
and pencil, and dictated a column of dollars and cents to be added.
The work was well done because the question was a business one and
these were business boys. Then I asked them such questions as the
following : How many cents in a dollar ? What part of a dollar is one
cent ? ; 25 cents ? ; 75 cents } etc. Next they read, from the columns
on the board, each item as dollars and hundredths of a dollar ; then,
they erased the sign of dollars, and read each item as a whole number
and hundredths. Finally, with $1.12^ cents written on the board,
and a few inductive questions, the class understood the reading and
writing of decimals to thousandths, and there the lesson ended.
Take still another illustration. After a year devoted
to common fractions, the growing boy at last reaches on
page 105 of his book, a half page on *' Dollars and Cents
Written Decimally," containing '' 16 exercises to be read,"
such as ''$25.50," etc. Now it was believed in colonial
times that in " logical " sequence decimal fractions could
not be learned until all the complications of common
fractions had been mastered. Consequently, in all parts
of this book previous to page 105, $25.50 is expressed as
"$25^;" $2.35 as "$2^;" $1.75 as " $i|," etc. This
form of expression is awkward, but it was assumed as a
" logical necessity." Immediately after this half page of
AM. PUB. SCH. 13
194 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
dollars and cents, the pupil is confronted by a half page
on '' circulating decimals." What is the evident duty of
the teacher? Because Nicholas Pike, a century ago,
placed his two pages on " Federal Currency " in a certain
place in his arithmetic, must that " logical order " remain
forever unchanged ? When the children in all the schools
of France learn decimals and whole numbers from the
beginning, and carry both along together naturally and
easily, shall American boys and girls, who use the Metric
System as far as currency is conc-erned, postpone the
writing of dollars and cents until long past the middle of
their school course ?
Turn to Grammar. — In teaching etymology, in what-
ever grade the subject is begun, teachers should connect,
by means of inductive exercises, whatever knowledge
children have acquired in the use of their mother tongue
with the new terms which are presented in the text-book
lesson. For instance, before assigning a lesson on
" tense," the teacher should call the attention of pupils
to the fact that they have been using correctly for years,
most of the verb forms to express present, past, and
future time. By suitable questions, without using tech-
nical terms, pupils should be led to make up sentences to
show these distinctions of time. They may then regard
the assigned lesson with some little degree of interest. If
pains were taken to explain the real purpose of learning
the conjugation of a verb, and pupils were asked to make
use of each verb-form in a full sentence for the purpose
of expressing a thought, the possible use of studying
" conjugation " from the book might begin to dawn upon
them. In a modern text-book on my table, a lesson on
" conjugation " begins with a definition of the term, fol-
lowed by definitions of regular and irregular verbs, and of
RECITATIONS AND ART OF USING TEXT-BOOKS
95
the term "principal parts." Without further waste of
words, the author proceeds at once to present " a conjuga-
tion of the verb to be auxiliary of the passive voice, and
of the progressive form." This is immediately followed
by a "paradigm of the regular verb : To loveT
What course shall teachers pursue to lighten up this
lesson full of terms new to pupils, and apparently entirely
destitute of interest to them because of their utter in-
ability to comprehend its use? A little preparatory
thought may enable many teachers to discover some way
of interesting the class. Some modern book on language
lessons and grammar to which teachers can turn will pre-
sent inductive approaches to this topic. Almost any way
is better than the mere memorizing of the " paradigm "
without perceiving its application to the use of language.
The Development Method. — " The developing plan of
teaching," says McMurry, " is one radically different from
the lecture and the text-book methods. The teacher /
who employs it lectures or tells comparatively little to
her class, although it is important to remember that she
"Soes tell some things outright ; neither does she allo\y__
the facts that are to be learned to be first prese nted :
through a text-book ; she prefers to develop them by con-
versation with the^pupils. . . . Conversation for the sake
of developing facts should be prominent in ail school in-
struction, and since text-books, if used to introduce the "
topics, would often deprive this conversation of its point'
their perusal should in such cases follow rather than pre-
cede the discussion itself. One trouble with many people
is that they began text-books so early in school and fol-
lowed them so closely that they have never learned to
distinguish their own thoughts and opinions from those
of the books ; in fact, they are scarcely aware that they
196 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
have opinions of their own. The present common use of
text-books in school results too often in slavery to books
or loss of independence in thought, rather than in a mas-
tery of books and ability to use them properly."
But it is possible to carry the development method to
extremes, and teachers must endeavor to keep an even
balance of judgment. Pupils-must not..be left. to find out
everything for themselves because much effort might be
wasted.
Interest and Attention. — Most of us retain pleasant
memories of some gifted teacher who had the power of
interesting us in our work and thus stimulating us to do
our best. This power of interesting pupils in their school
work is partly a gift of nature, and partly the result of
skill acquired by practice in accord with the principles of
educational psychology. Few teachers now rely mainly
on the compulsory memorizing of text-book lessons
learned without interest on the part of pupils and im-
perfectly comprehended, or not understood at all. The
chief aim of modern teachers, whether in primary grade •
or grammar grade, high school or college class, is to in-
terest pupils in the subject-matter, and so lead them to
the self-development of their own powers.
As to detailed ways of interesting pupils, there are
many good modern treatises on applied psychology and
pedagogics to which teachers can turn for suggestions.
From one of the leaders in educational psychology, Pro-
fessor William James, I quote one paragraph, with the
hope that teachers will seek for more from the same
source : * '' Any object not interesting in itself may be-_^
xome interesting through becoming associated with_an_.
^ Atlantic Monthly, April, 1889. " Talks to Teachers on Psychol-
ogy."
RECITATIONS AND ART OF USING TEXT-BOOKS
[97
objecMn3^hiGluan.4nterest already exists. The two asso-
ciated objects grow, as it were, together; the interesting
portion sheds its quality over the whole ; and thus, things
not interesting in their own right borrow an interest
which becomes as real and as strong as that of any na-
tively interesting thing. . . . From all these facts there
emerges a very simple abstract program for the teacher
to follow in keeping the attention of the child : Begin
with the line of his native interests^ and offer him objects
that have some immediate connection with these''
General Principles. — In the general management of
the recitation the difference between the skilled teacher
and the untrained teacher is constantly made apparent.
The unskilled teacher assumes that children are educated
mainly by what they are told, or by what they commit to
memory from books. His fetich is the school text-book,
and he makes his pupils bow down before it. To him the
child has but one intellectual faculty, and that is memory.
Mill says, that if there is a first principle in education,
it is this : '' That the discipline which does good to the
mind, is that in which the mind is active, not passive ; the
secret of developing the faculties is to give them much to
dfoT^^ct much inducement to do it." Tyndall says, "The
exercise of the mind, like that of the body, depends for
its value upon the spirit in which it is accomplished."
Spencer says, *' The child should be told as little as pos^
sible and induced to discover as much as possible."
All modern educators agree that in every branch of
study the mind should be conducted from the simple
to the complex ; the concrete to the abstract ; the indef-
inite to the definite ; the empirical to the rational or scien-
tific. But the unpsychological teacher violates all these
first principles. In arithmetic, he begins with definitions
1 98 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
and mechanical rules, and ends in puzzling problems. In
grammar, he omits the actual use of language in express-
ing thought, and devotes his attention to the technicalities
of parsing, analysis, and diagrams. In geography, he is
content to have his pupils memorize names, regardless of
associated ideas. In history, he strings dates, like wooden
beads, upon the thread of memory. In reading, he trains
pupils to call words without reference to thought. In
botany, he takes books before plants, and in physics, omits
experiments. In fact, he neither awakens curiosity, nor
excites inquiry.
While the art of conducting the recitation must be ac-
quired, in part, by actual practice in teaching, it is a great
gain for young teachers to begin with high ideal aims,
presented by masters in this art. A careful study of " The
Method of the Recitation" (1897), by the two brothers,
Charles A. and Frank M. McMurry, cannot fail to lead
any teacher, young or old, experienced or inexperienced,
into new lines of thought, which will result in higher ideals
of instruction. This book is the clearest and most prac-
tical presentation of the subject that has been made, as
yet, in this country. The authors make in their preface
the following statements :
" The Method of the Recitation is based upon the principles of
teaching which were expounded and illustrated in the works of Herbart,
Rein, and Ziller. At the same time, the authors hope to have shown
in the body of the work that we have to do here with principles rec-
ognized by teachers in every land, and that there is no thoughtless
imitation of foreign methods and devices. While our debt to German
thinkers for an organization of fundamental ideas is great, the entire
discussion, as here presented, springs out of American conditions ; its
illustrative materials are drawn exclusively from lessons commonly
taught in our schools. In fact, the whole book, while strongly influ-
enced by Herbart 's principles, is the outgrowth of several years' con-
tinuous work with classes of children in all the grades of the common
school."
CHAPTER IV
PROFESSIONAL READING AND STUDY
Before teaching can take rank as a profession, teachers
must command respect for their scholarship. Most teach-
ers can make their culture liberal if they rightly use the
leisure time which their occupation gives them ; and those
who get out of the sphere of irriitation into that of inven-
tion and discovery, will find ample scope for their powers.
Teaching as an Art. — Though the desirability of pro-
fessional training in the art of teaching is now generally
conceded, the grea test waste of time and money in our
school system comes from the employment of untrained
teachers, who, in time, learn how to teach, but who do so
at the expense of their pupils. This waste will continue
until there is a general recognition of the need of profes-
sionally trained teachers. There are, it is true, many men
and women who make teaching their life-work ; but they
have little or no legal recognition as professional teachers.
No state law, as yet, requires any professional training
whatever as a prerequisite for teaching, the only require-
ment being an examination in certain conventional
branches. The legal status of the teacher is strictly in
accordance with the popular fallacy that anybody who can
get a certificate is fit to " keep school." Why should not
a state normal school diploma be taken as prima facie
evidence of fitness to teach ? Why should not the life
diploma of one state be legally recognized in other states ?
Is there any good and sufficient reason why each state,
199
200 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
or county, or city, should be hemmed in by an ancient
Chinese wall of educational exclusiveness ? Must all
teachers, when they change their residence, be compelled
to halt at every state line, or city limit, or town boundary,
and submit to an examination, in order to prove that they
are not educational tramps ?
President Andrew S. Draper, of the State University of Illinois,
tersely sums up this question as follows : ^ " Teaching in the common
schools of the country cannot be advanced to the standing of a pro-
fessional employment, so as to justify its classification with the learned
professions until the conditions which obtain in many of our states are
materially modified. It is absurd to think of reaching that consumma-
tion so long as competency is placed in ruinous and destructive com-
petition with incompetency, so long as the best qualifications are scarce-
ly able to earn a living or maintain independent self-respect, while
boys and girls not yet mature, physically or mentally, and older persons
who are unable to succeed in other vocations are permitted to secure
better pay for alleged teaching in the schools than they can obtain in
any other way. . . . Without a scholarship which is at home in any
intellectual center, without special training which can readily prove its
utility, and force the necessity of its recognition, without public dis-
crimination between professionals and amateurs, without an entire
cessation of indiscriminate licensing, without putting the school doors
in the charge of professionals, without an entire elimination of favorit-
ism — there can be no teaching profession. If I were to withhold an-
other word you would draw an inference which I should regret. As
exacting as these conditions are, it is by no means impossible to
comply with them. The signs of the times are auspicious. There is
a manifest educational awakening throughout the country. If we sur-
vive twenty years we shall witness advances in learning more marked
and far-reaching than the country has ever known before."
Pedagogical Reading. — Aside from some general
course of literary or scientific reading, all progressive teach-
ers will read something relating to modern educational
1 Address before the Massachusetts State Teachers' Association,
1890.
PROFESSIONAL READING AND STUDY 201
psychology and practical pedagogics. They will sub-
scribe for and read at least one weekly journal of educa-
tion, and one educational monthly. They will read the
reports of the United States Commissioner of Education,
whenever they can find them in the public libraries, and
other school reports whenever they can get them.
Special Studies. — The student teacher who wishes to
learn something about apperception, interest, character
training, the oral method, and other Herbartian doctrines
of the young leaders in the valley of the Mississippi, will
do well to read McMurry's General Method, De Garmo's
Essentials of Method, De Garmo's Herbart and the Her-
bartians, and The Method of the Recitation, by Charles
A. and Frank M. McMurry.
Student teachers who wish to make special studies in
school management and organization will read Dr. Joseph
Baldwin's School Management and School Methods
(1897); Dr. Emerson E. White's School Management;
School Management, by Arnold Tompkins (1895) ; or any
other good book of similar scope.
On applied pedagogy they will read Colonel Parker's
Talks on Pedagogics, Compayre's Lectures on Teaching
(Payne), and Hinsdale's Teaching the Language Arts.
For advanced thoughts on education in general, they will
read Educational Reform (1898), by Charles W. Eliot,
President of Harvard University. This book is made up
of papers read by the author from time to time, at various
kinds of educational gatherings. President Eliot has been
an educational reformer for more than thirty years, and
while his chief work has been done in connection with
Harvard University, he has been a leader in all matters
relating to elective courses of study in all kinds of schools,
from primary grade to university. His book ranks as one
202 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
of the most interesting and most instructive contribu-
tions to modern educational literature. It is of special
value to public school teachers, as well as to educational
leaders.
On the subject of psychology there are many books.
The young student may begin with one of the clearest
and most comprehensible, Halleck's Psychology and
Psychic Culture (1898), and follow up the subject by
reading Talks to Teachers on Psychology, by Dr. William
James (1899), succeeded by other books whenever they
appear.
Here perhaps a thought from Professor James will prove of value to
student teachers : " The art of teaching grew up in the schoolroom,
out of inventiveness and sympathetic concrete observation. Even
where, as in the case of Herbart, the advancer of the art was also a
psychologist, the pedagogics and the psychology ran side by side, and
the former was not derived in any sense from the latter. The two
were congruent, but not subordinate. And so everywhere, the teach-
ing must agree with the psychology, but need not necessarily be the
only kind of teaching that would so agree, for many diverse methods
of teaching may equally follow psychological laws. To know psychol-
ogy, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we should be good
teachers. To advance to that result we must have an additional en-
dowment altogether, a happy tact and ingenuity to tell us what definite
things to say or do. That ingenuity in meeting and pursuing the pupil,
that tact for the concrete situation, though the alpha and omega of the
teacher's art, are things to which psychology cannot help us in the
least. . . . Divination and perception, not psychological pedagogics
or strategy are the only helpers here. . . . But if the use of psycho-
logical principles be negative rather than positive, it does not follow
that it may not be a great use, all the same. ^
Within the past ten years attention has been directed
to a study of the child rather than to the study of meta-
physics. The teacher interested in this special direction
^ " Talks to Teachers on Psychology," by William James (1899).
PROFESSIONAL READING AND STUDY
203
will do well to read the various monographs of G. Stanley-
Hall, President of Clark University ; the Year Books of
the National Herbart Society ; the leading educational
journals in the United States; and The Study of the
Child (1898), by A. R. Taylor, or any one of several
other books on this subject.
For special studies in the history of education in our
own country, students may begin with Martin's Evolution
of the Public School System of Massachusetts ; followed
by Boone's History of Education in the United States,
and Dr. A. D. Mayo's historical sketches of early educa-
tion in the United States found in the reports of the
Commissioner of Education, from 1894 to 1898.
Teachers should make a study, in detail, of the early
educational history of the town, city, or state in which they
are teaching school. Town histories and state histories are
now available to some extent in most large libraries. These
local records are of great interest and of priceless value.
After many years of absence from New England, I re-
cently took a trip across the continent in search of early
educational records not to be found in California. There
in the town records and town histories, I read accounts
of early settlements, primitive schools, and warfare with
savages. There were the rolls of honor of volunteer
soldiers in a long series of wars — King William's War,
Queen Anne's War, King George's War, and the French
and Indian War — with pathetic tales of the slaughter of
women and children, and woful stories of captivity in
Canada. There in state libraries were the Army Rolls of
the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican
War, and the great Civil War, most terrible of all. Every-
where the fervent patriotism of the people was made
evident in statues, monuments, and inscriptions in honor
/
204 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
of heroes, soldiers, and statesmen. In every burial ground
over the whole country, even in the remotest rural dis-
tricts," memorial flags " blossomed over the graves of men
who had served their country in battle.
In the town histories, too, were recorded the humble
beginnings of the common schools, and the names of the
early teachers in common school and academy.
Returning to my western home through the great met-
ropolitan cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and
Chicago, I realized that the seat of wealth, power, and
empire had indeed moved westward. But I hold in living
remembrance and renewed respect the sturdy pioneers of
the East, who made their way against " heathen savages,"
established a democracy of the common people, helped
to win Independence from the British, and while doing
all these things, wrested an economical living from a stub-
born soil, and yet found time to establish and organize
a public school system that has stamped its impress on
every township of American soil from the Atlantic to the
Pacific.
^vK Applied Pedagogics. — In the succeeding chapters of
this book, the modern course of study in the primary and
" grammar grades, will be considered somewhat in detail,
and generally by grades. The course, as presented, will
not be an ideal one, possible only in small classes under,
the most favorable conditions as to numbers and condi-
tions, but one which shall represent the average American
school under average conditions. An attempt will be
made to present condensed pedagogical directions, hints,
and suggestions in accord with modern pedagogics and the
principles of educational psychology, and adapted in a
measure to the schools as they now exist. In accordance
with this plan, the outlines of work and method will be
PROFESSIONAL READING AND STUDY
205
composite, representing the schools of no particular part
of our country, but like a composite photograph, presenting
the general American type. Moreover, liberal quotations \
will be drawn from the latest writing of American teach-
ers, educators, and pedagogical leaders, thus presenting
something of the drift of educational thought in the
United States.
CHAPTER V
PEDAGOGICS APPLIED TO READING, WRITING, SPELLING, AND
DRAWING, IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS
I. READING AND WRITING.
First Grade or Year.
The variety and excellence of the Reading Charts and
First Readers now in use, render unnecessary any specific
consideration of methods of teaching beginners how to
read. Most teachers begin with the word-method and,
after teaching a limited number of common words in easy
sentences, proceed to introduce gradually the spelling of
words by letters, aided, more or less, by the phonic method.
After a short preparatory training, it is a good plan for
teachers to write on the blackboards short sentences, such
as children use in conversation, and let pupils copy them
on blackboards, paper, or slates. In this way a lively in-
terest may be awakened.
Writing. — Writing should be carried along hand in
hand with reading. Children may begin by copying on
slates or paper, words or short sentences written on the
blackboard by the teacher, or by copying script lessons
from the First Reader. If possible, children should be
allowed first to write on blackboards, and then to repeat
the lessons on slates or paper. Writing with a pencil on
paper is better than slate-writing, and after the first half
year, the pen is better than the pencil. Encourage the
crudest attempts. Show pupils how to hold pens and
206
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS 207
pencils, and encourage them to write easily and freely.
The best development lessons are : First, practice on
blackboards. Second, practice on paper or slates, with
the pencil. Third, practice on paper with the pen.
Spelling. — The first work in spelling should be com-
bined with writing, by having pupils copy, first from the
board and afterwards from memory, words written by the
teacher. A little oral spelling may be taken at times to
gain the help of the ear as well as the eye.
" All educators are now agreed," says Compayre, " that
the child ought to be drilled in writing from the moment
he enters school, and that he should not wait for this until
he has learned to read fluently. More and more, the
truth of this pedagogical maxim will be recognized, that
drawing, writing, and reading, need one another and are
mutually helpful."
Aim. — The aim during the first year should be to
change the child's oral vocabulary into the corresponding
forms of the written and printed page. When children
enter school at five or six years of age, they have been
learning a spoken language from the time they began to
lisp the "wordspapa and mamma, under the painstaking tui-
tion of mothers and other members of the family. Their
colloquial vocabulary is by no means a limited one. They
have already learned to speak their native tongue with
some degree of " propriety," though they have never
heard of grammar. They have probably learned by heart
many Mother Goose rhymes, and have listened to folk-
lore stories handed down from primitive times. Their
active young minds have been developed by the method
of nature. The thoughtful teacher will take all this into
account when she begins to teach these children to read
and write the language they already know how to speak.
2o8 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
Stories. — As a continuation of the home method, the
teacher will tell or read to the children many stories of
which the* following are types: The Three Bears, Cinder-
ella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Bean Stalk,
The Lion and the Mouse, The Ugly Duckling, and the
Pea Blossom.
Dr. Herman T. Lukens, of Clark University, makes the following
suggestions about teaching children to read : " Most children learn to
read either as a matter of course, or else, if they think of it at all, the
only reason they can find is because other boys are learning to read.
... A child who does not want to learn will take from five to ten
times as long to learn to read as one who is eager. To start with this
live interest and eager desire is of a hundred times more importance
than it is whether you use the word method or the alphabet method.
The teacher ought to read a good deal of wholesome and interesting
material to the pupils in the kindergarten and the primary school, and
she ought to take pains to read well, with expression and appreciation.
Then, in beginning, let her take some story with the substance of
which the pupils are already familiar (say a fairy tale or a rhyme from
Mother Goose) and use it for the first reading lesson. If this is done,
the children realize what reading is, viz.: That it wUl enable them to
get for themselves from books that sort of material. . . . When in
this and other ways a good head of interest has been turned on, the
second stage will be rich and abundant in eager attempts to imitate
that which has aroused the activity. This is the great opportunity for
suggestion and for indirect teaching, which is the best of all teaching.
Helps for Teachers. — Teachers seeking practical illustrations of the
possibility of combining the teaching of reading, writing, and drawing
in this grade will find them in recent publications, such as, Crosby's
Our Little Book for Little Folks ; The Finch Primer ; Baldwin's School
Reading by Grades — First Year ; Lane's Stories for Children. Book
L of the Heart of Oak Series contains a delightful collection of Mother
Goose rhymes.
Second Grade or Year.
Supplementary Reading. — After the first school year
it should be the aim of teachers to secure the very best
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS
209
kind of supplementary reading matter suited to the wants
and needs of young children. Instead of repeated reviews
of old lessons, children should have new books 'that will
awaken fresh interest. As soon as they begin to read a
story because of its interest, their rapid progress is assured,
and if suitable books are placed in their hands they will
read a great deal out of school. Teachers need not fear
to let them read stories that contain some hard words, pro-
vided the stories are interesting. The Herbartian princi-
ple of interest applies in full force in teaching children to
read during their first three years of school life. It will
be well for the teacher to make an experiment by select-
ing, occasionally, an exceedingly interesting story, making
a beginning of it in class, and then putting the books into
the hands of the children and asking them to finish the
story at their desks or at home. It is always a mistake
to keep children long at work on short, easy sentences
expressing only commonplace thoughts that excite no
interest.
An illustration may serve to give point to this state-
ment. I know of one little fellow who learned to read at
home before he was six years old. He was not a preco-
cious boy. His grandmother taught him his letters from
nursery picture books. In some way or other, probably
coached by his grandmother, he learned to read nursery
rhymes. At length, in looking at the pictures in a copy
of the St, Nicholas, he became interested in a story about
the " London Cats' Meat Man." He stuck to that story
for three weeks. It was full of long and hard words. He
gave his grandmother, his mother, his father, and his elder
sister no peace until he had read that four page story
through. After he had mastered it, he read many other
stories without help from any one. When six years old
AM. PUB. scH. — 14
210 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
he went to school and was put into the primer class. At
this degradation he protested so vigorously that the
thoughtful young teacher tried him successively in reading
from a second reader, a third reader, and a fourth reader,
and then wisely excused him from the primer class.
The following are types of a large class of supplementary books
suitable for the second school year : Easy Steps for Little Feet ; Heart
of Oak Series, Book I ; The Hiawatha Primer ; Baldwin's Fairy
Stories and Fables ; Baldwin's Reading by Grades, Second Year ;
Baldwin's Fifty Stories Retold. A small set of each of these, or of
similar books, varying in number, according to the size of the class,
should belong to the school library. From time to time lend these
books to children to read at home. If there is no school library,
teachers should secure a copy of each of these books for their desks.
Spelling. — While the greater part of spelling is learned
by reading and writing, oral spelling should not be entirely
neglected. An occasional oral spelling exercise is a good
thing to stir up a class that has become weary of writing.
Give occasional exercises, both oral and written, in spell-
ing the names of things that are good to eat ; of articles
of home or school use ; of household words, etc. In
written spelling, train pupils to write short sentences
from dictation, and to copy sentences from the reading
lessons.
Pupils should not be required to spell from memory all
the hard words of their reading lessons, because their
ability to read words runs far ahead of their memory to
spell them. The words which children are most interested
in spelling are the names of common objects at home or
at school ; names of things they eat, the names of ani-
mals, etc.
For Reference. — Teachers who may wish to get a glimpse of what
is possible within the range of story-telling in first and second grades
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS 21 1
are referred to Rice's Course of Study in History and Literature, and
to McMurry's Course of Study for the Eight Grades.
Third and Fourth Grades.
For the third school year, the basis of reading should
be some Second or Third Reader, to which should be
added selections from suitable supplementary readers or
other books of which the following are good types :
Scudder's Fables and Folk Stories, Andrews' Seven Little
Sisters, Heart of Oak Books, Book II., Baldwin's Reading
by Grades, Baldwin's Old Stories of the East.
During the fourth school year, in addition to the regular
Fourth Reader, supplementary reading may be extended,
using books like the following: Hans Andersen's Stories,
Robinson Crusoe, Bass's Nature Stories, Eggleston's
True Stories of American Life and Adventure, Bald-
win's Reading by Grades.
Fifth and Sixth Grades,
The school readers officially adopted for these grades
ought to contain choice selections of good literature.
For supplementary books suitable for reading at home or
in school, teachers are referred to a typical list at the end
of this course. In addition to school reading, strive to
direct home reading. If pupils have access to a public
library, suggest interesting books for them to read. If
there is no library, give them the names of at least two
good books that they ought to read ; possibly their
parents may buy them.
Seventh Grade,
In the seventh grade, begin to call the attention of pupils
to the structure of sentences in their reading lessons.
212 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
Require them to point out the subjects and the predicates
in sentences selected from reading lessons. The sooner
children learn to apply what they have learned about the
structure of the sentence to sentences as they occur in
literature, the better it will be for them. Avoid compli-
cated forms of sentence analysis, and eschew diagrams.
Among the books selected for supplementary reading in
school or at home, there should be at least one containing
stories of American history.
Eighth or Ninth Grade,
In the highest grammar grade, take up Gray's Elegy,
or some other suitable poem for special study of grammar
as applied to literature. Begin the study of figures of
speech, particularly simile, metaphor, and personification.
Lead pupils to think about the real meaning of poetic
forms of speech, and show them how *' parsing " becomes
an aid in ascertaining the meaning of long and involved
sentences. The chief use of sentence analysis and parsing
is to enable pupils better to comprehend the full meaning
and force of literature.
Home Reading. — In the crowded program of most
schools, it will not be possible to find time for enough
oral reading in class to make good readers; therefore,
teachers should encourage pupils to practice reading aloud
at home. The standard of good reading should be : — The
ability to read at sight both prose and poetry without
mispronouncing common words, without stumbling or
hesitation, or the repetition of words. Stage elocution is
not expected.
BOOKS.
Every school library ought to contain several sets of
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS 213
supplementary readers or leaflets of good literature for
use in connection with the standard readers. For valuable
hints in selection, teachers are referred to Rice's Course
of Study in History and Literature, and to McMurry's
Special Method for Reading..
Commissioner Harris says : " One great object of the school in our
time is to teach the pupil how to use books — how to get out for him-
self what there is for him in the printed page. The man who cannot
use books in our day has not learned the lesson of self-help, and the
wisdom of the race is not likely to become his. He will not find, in
this busy age, the people who can afford to stop and tell him by oral
instruction what he ought to be able to find out for himself by the use
of the library that may be within his reach. . . . The most important in-
vestigation that man ever learns to conduct is the habit of learning by
industrious reading what his fellow-men have seen and thought."
Ideals. — The aim in the common schools should be to /
make known to pupils the proper use of books as sources /
"of knowledge, and at the same time to inspire a love for ^
literature which shall prove a life-long means of inteW
lectual enjoyment and education. *' Our ideal should be,"\
says John Dewey, "that the child should have a personal
interest in what is read, a personal hunger for it, and a
personal power of satisfying this appetite."
" From the total training during childhood, " ^ says President Eliot,
of Harvard, " there should result in the child a taste for interesting and
improving reading, which should direct and inspire its subsequent in-
tellectual life. That schooling which results in this taste for good
reading, however unsystematic or eccentric the schooling may have
been, has achieved a main end of elementary education ; and that
schooling which does not result in implanting this permanent taste has
failed. Guided and animated by this impulse to acquire knowledge
and exercise his imagination through reading, the individual will con-
tinue to educate himself through life. Without that deep-rooted im-
pulsion he will soon cease to draw on the accumulated wisdom of the
1 " Educational Reform " (1898). .
214 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
past and the new resources of the present, and, as he grows older, he
will live in a mental atmosphere which is always growing thinner and
emptier."
Caution. — It is possible in the higher grades to crowd
too much of even the best Hterature upon the immature
minds of pupils. In the lower grades it is quite probable
that some enthusiastic teachers carry reading to the ex-
tremes which have so long characterized the endless drill
on arithmetic in these grades. The work should be kept
within the limits of enlightened common sense. The
danger line has certainly been reached in the mass of
Greek and Roman and Pagan mythology which has
recently been forced into the lower grades.
On this point Professor John Dewey in his trenchant paper on
"The Primary Education Fetich "^ says: "We have to take into
account not simply the results produced by forcing language-work
unduly, but also the defects in development due to the crowding out
of other subjects. Every respectable authority insists that the period
of childhood, lying between the years of four and eight or nine, is the
plastic period in sense and emotional life. What are we doing to
shape these capacities ? What are we doing to feed this hunger } If
one compares the powers and needs of the child in these directions
with what is actually supplied in the regimen of the three R's, the
contrast is pitiful, tragic. This epoch is also the budding-time for the
formation of efficient and orderly habits on the motor side ; it is pre-
eminently the time when the child wishes to do things, and when his
interest in doing can be turned to educative account. No one can
clearly set before himself the vivacity and persistency of the child's
motor instincts at this period^ and then call to mind the continued
grind of reading and writing, without feeling that the justification of
our present curriculum is psychologically impc^ssible. It is simply a
superstition ; it is a remnant of an outgrown period of history. All
this might be true, and yet there might be no subject-matter suf-
ficiently organized for introduction into the school curriculum, since
^ The Forum^ May, 1 898.
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS 215
this demands, above all things, a certain definiteness of presentation
and of development. But we are not in this unfortunate plight.
There are subjects which are as well fitted to meet the child's domi-
nant needs as they are to prepare him for the civilization in which he
has to play his part. There is art in a variety of modes — music,
drawing, painting, modeling, etc. These 7nedia not only afford a
regulated outlet in which the child may project his inner impulses
and feelings in outward form, and come to consciousness of himself,
but are necessities in existing social life."
Books for Supplementary Reading. — The following books are sug-
gested for supplementary reading, but this list is subject to amendment
to-morrow if better ones appear :
(From Fourth to Seventh Grade.) —Hawthorne's Wonder Book;
Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales ; Swiss Family Robinson ; Robinson
Crusoe ; Elliott's Six Stories from Arabian Nights ; Baldwin's Story
of the Golden Age ; De Garmo's Tales of Troy ; Jane Andrews' Ten
Boys on the Road ; Longfellow's Children's Hour ; Holmes' Grand-
mother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle ; Eggleston's Stories of Great
Americans for Little Americans; Baldwin's School Reading by
Grades.
Eighth and Ninth Grades. — Longfellow's Evangeline ; Dickens*
Christmas Carol ; Julius Caesar ; Vicar of Wakefield ; Merchant of
Venice ; Baldwin's Reading by Grades — Eighth Year ; etc.
HINTS ON CLASS MANAGEMENT IN READING.
While the leading idea throughout the whole course in
teaching the art of reading should be the thought side, or
the quality of the reading matter, the " mechanical-mental "
side of the art must always remain an important secondary-
consideration. The extent of " drill work " in this direc-
tion must be determined by the skill of the teacher and
the ever-varying needs of different grades. It is evident
that some attention must be given to vocal training, to
correct pronunciation, to emphasis, and to inflection.
Standard in Oral Reading. — Pupils should be trained
2i6 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
to avoid a high-pitched, thin, sharp, unnatural, school
tone, as well as the other extreme of feebleness and in-
distinctness. It is a good standard to require each pupil,
except those in the first and second grades, to read so
clearly and distinctly that all the class can hear every
word. The teacher should sometimes listen with her own
book closed. In the lowest grades it is often a waste of
effort to try to make timid children with feeble voices
read loud enough to be heard by the class.
Vocal Drill. — By short and suitable concert exercises,
pupils should be trained to the proper use of the lips,
tongue, and teeth in distinct articulation. Occasional
breathing exercises are of great value as an aid in securing
an erect attitude and the free use of the vocal organs.
Occasionally give a drill exercise on words containing
vowel sounds, giving special attention to those sounds
which children in some parts of our country are apt to
give incorrectly ; such as a in half, calf, laugh, etc. ; inter-
mediate a, as in ask, last, past, after, etc. ; u after r, as in
truth, rude, fruit, etc. The school is the proper place for
correcting provincialisms in pronunciation. Explain the
essential diacritical marks of the school dictionary in order
that pupils may be able to find out for themselves the
correct pronunciation of words. Train pupils to refer to
the dictionary for definitions as well as pronunciation.
Oral Expression. — In the highest grammar grade, some
special attention should be given to manner of expression.
At this stage of progress the motive of the pupil should
be, not merely to pronounce words correctly, not merely
to comprehend the thought in what is read, but to make
others clearly comprehend the thought, feeling, or emotion
in what is read. Good oral reading does not necessarily
involve much training in elocution. Indeed, what is
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS 217
termed " stage elocution " should be avoided in school
reading.
Choice Extracts. — In each grade throughout the entire
course, pupils should be required t'o memorize a few short
extracts of prose or poetry suited to their successive stages
of development. The recital of such extracts should
occasionally take the place of a lesson in oral reading.
Correlation. — In the higher grammar grades the read-
ing lesson will become a correlated study of reading, lan-
guage, literature, composition, and grammar, in varying
degrees according to the skill of the instructor in teaching
the language-arts, and according to the quality of the
reading matter in use.
Thought. — On the thought side of reading, it is evident
that for the first three or four years in school the teacher
must take great pains in showing children how to get at
the thought in their reading lessons, and how to study a
lesson at home or in school. In the higher grades it is
usually a difficult matter to lead pupils to study a read-
ing lesson in the careful manner with which they study
a lesson in arithmetic or geography. In most school
readers there are some selections that may be read with
little or no study ; there are others that the teacher may
study with the class ; and, occasionally, there are some
which pupils should study by themselves. It is here that
the good judgment of the teacher must be her own guide,
independent of hints or suggestions. It is useless, how-
ever, for any teacher to expect that all pupils can be made
to comprehend, in full, everything in all the literary ex-
tracts which are read ; some children will assimilate much,
others but little. It wi ll be well for e very teacher to call
to mind whatever she can recollect of her own school e x-
periences when she was of the same age as her pupils.
2 1 8 APPLIED PEDA G O GICS
II. MODERN WAYS OF TEACHING PENMANSHIP.
In the Beginning. — At some time during the first
school year, write on the board easy words and short
sentences and let pupils copy them on slate or black-
board. Little children like blackboard writing in large
hand because the teacher and the class can see their work.
Follow these lessons by slate-work in large, easy, run-
ning hand. Do not trouble beginners with elements,
principles, or analysis, but put them at once to writing
words and short sentences. In fact, as said before, read-
ing and writing ought to be carried along together. The
capital letters are no harder to make than are some of the
small letters. In blackboard lessons, see that your pupils
form the habit of holding a crayon properly. In slate writ-
ing, train pupils to hold their pencils as a pen is held. Oc-
casionally give a drill exercise in making ovals, running
m*s, etc., in order to secure freedom of arm-movements
and an easy way of holding the pencil. Of course their
first attempts, like those in drawing, will be rough, crude,
and irregular, as naturally they should be. Above all, no
attempt should be made to force children during the
first two or three years of school life into premature accu-
racy and finish of handwriting.
Give special attention to the manner of placing slates or
paper upon the desk, and to the position of the pupil in
writing. Under favorable conditions children should
occasionally be allowed to use pen and paper after the
first six months in school, writing in a large, free, and easy
hand.
If the school desks are not too high, train children to
use the forearm movement in writing with pencils. The
difficulty is that many desks are so high that no arm
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS 219
movement is possible, and therefore children are limited
to finger movements, which are slow and labored. If you
are allowed liberty to experiment, try the vertical writing
now coming into extensive use. Do not sit down in a
chair behind your table, as some teachers do, but go
about among your pupils, place their slates or books prop-
erly, take hold of their rigid fingers, and show them how
to hold a pen easily. Do not expect to secure exact uni-
formity in holding the pen, but make allowance for the
natural tendency of the child.
Free Hand. — Train pupils from the beginning to write
with a free and ready movement, instead of the slow,
constrained, rigid, snail-like tracing that so often prevails
in school. Do not attempt to make the older pupils
write a uniform " copy-book hand," but let them form
their own characteristic style. The main object is to
make them write legibly, easily, and rapidly.
Standard, — The standard should be to write a legible
hand fast enough for the ordinary purposes of life. There
should be no attempt to teach a delicately shaded, orna-
mental handwriting like that of a special teacher of
penmanship.
Copy Books. — The conventional method of learning to
write, which prevailed until recently, involved the use of
a series of graded copy books, consisting of from six to
ten successive numbers. Children were required to fill
out, slowly and painfully, each half year, one of these
copy books, striving to imitate the elaborate, delicately-
shaded and hair-line penmanship of the copy. This
kind of writing was painfully slow in execution. A great
deal of time was wasted in vainly trying to make all
pupils learn to write a fancy style of penmanship. The
introduction into the school course of written exercises in
220 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
the various school studies has already compelled, not only
a reduction in the number of copy books but also a change
to a simpler style of penmanship, bearing some resem-
blance to the business handwriting of practical life.
In many city schools engraved copy books are but
little used during the first three and in the last two years
of the course, thus limiting drill in copy-book lessons to
the third, fourth, and fifth grades or years. In such
schools, indeed, writing is mainly taught incidentally in
connection with written exercises in the various school
studies. The result is a saving of about one half of the
conventional time generally allotted to writing.
Illustration. — As superintendent of schools in a large
city, I had an opportunity of observing the result of an
experiment in teaching writing in a large grammar school
which included primary grades. The principal was author-
ized to dispense with copy books or to use them as she
pleased, and to teach vertical or slant handwriting as she
selected.
At the end of eight months, I visited a first grade class
engaged in writing short sentences from dictation. The
children were writing with lead pencils on rough, unruled
paper, in an easy, flowing, legible, vertical hand. In the
fifth grade, the penmanship was good enough for all
practical purposes in life, and very few special lessons in
penmanship were required in grades higher than this. In
the whole school the transition from slant writing to
vertical had been made, to the delight of the children.
There had been no striving after fancy penmanship, but
in good writing the school as a whole ranked among the
best in the city.
Under the method pursued, there had been a great
saving of time, and this extra time had been given to free-
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS 221^
hand drawing from objects such as leaves, plants, vines,
flowers, and figure drawing. Some of the middle grade
classes were skillful in the use of water colors, and all were
delighted with their work. In the higher grammar grades,
the written exercises in the various school studies were
dispatched in half the time required in most other schools.
Psychological Principles. — In the Second Year Book
of the National Herbart Society (1896), there is an ex-
haustive paper by Dr. H. T. Lukens, on race and indi-
vidual development, illustrated by reading, writing, and
drawing. In relation to writing he says :
" But a candid observation of facts would lead one to agree with
Rousseau, Compe, Graser, Scripture, and a host of other German and
American teachers who, regarding only the child's normal develop-
ment and noting the increasing nervousness, injury to the eyes, and
poor writing combined, proclaim with emphasis that the normal nas-
cent period for learning penmanship is from nine to thirteen, and
not earlier. Certainly this is the period when the handwriting is
acquiring its individuality and the writing habits are getting their set.
Hence practice and drill on regularity of slant, uniformity of height
and shading, and gracefulness of outline will now be most effective
and lasting. . . . To potter along with sixty minutes a week spread
out through eight or nine years is to dissipate all interest and all
lasting results in motor training. The Committee of Fifteen very
wisely drops it out of the curriculum after the sixth grade, but for
reasons stated above, very unwisely assign the drill period in penman-
ship to the first and second school years, instead of the fifth and
sixth."
Professor John Dewey, of the department of philosophy and peda-
gogics in the University of Chicago, in a recent article on " The
Primary Education Fetich,"^ speaks of primary school writing as
follows : •' There is an order in which sensory and motor centers
develop, — an order expressed, in a general way, by saying that the
line of progress is from the larger, coarser adjustments having to do
with the bodily system as a whole (those nearest the trunk of the
1 The Forum, May, 1898.
222 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
body) to the finer and accurate adjustments having to do with the
periphery and extremities of the organism. To violate this law means
undue nervous strain ; it means putting the greatest nervous tension
upon the centers least able to do the work. The act of writing —
especially in the barbarous fashion, long current in the school, of
compelling the child to write on ruled lines in a small hand and with
the utmost attainable degree of accuracy — involves a nicety and com-
plexity of adjustments of muscular activity which can be definitely
appreciated only by the specialist. Forcing children at a premature
age to devote their entire attention to these refined and cramped
adjustments has left behind it a sad record of injured nervous sys-
tems and of muscular disorders and distortions."
Summary. — Combining the imperative conditions in
large public schools with the results of modern psycho-
logical investigations, it seems safe to say that, during the
first three or four years in school, children should learn to
write an easy hand with comparatively little drill in exact
uniformity of style ; that the next two years should be
the period of drill in slant and proportion to fix the hand-
writing ; and that thereafter the training in penmanship
should be incidental in connection with written school ex-
ercises. It seems safe to say, further, that in the future
when pupils shall be trained, in accordance with psycho-
logical principles, to learn reading, writing, and drawing
carried along together, better results will be obtained with
less waste of time, in each of the three branches.
III. MODERN WAYS OF TRAINING IN ORTHOGRAPHY.
The Spelling Book. — In the district school of a century
ago, spelling was studied from the columns of a spelling
book and recited orally in class, with little or no attention
to the meaning or use of words. Written spelling was
unknown. For nearly three quarters of a century, Web-
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS 223
ster's Spelling Book (1783), held almost undisputed sway
in American schools. It was undoubtedly a great aid in
securing correct pronunciation in schools at a time when
a dictionary was a rare possession ; but its method, not-
withstanding, was formal, logical, mechanical, and un-
psychological. Yet it is not wise to underrate the edu-
cational usetulness of this famous schoolbook during the
long period which elapsed before it was superseded by
something better. It at least secured a regular and rigid
drill, and enlarged to some extent the vocabuTa^bf the
several generations that toiled over it.
When graded reading books made their appearance and
teachers began to require various written exercises in
school studies, the spelling book fell into disrepute ; and
in many schools it was dropped out altogether. But the
experiment of dispensing entirely with formal lessons in
spelling proved unsatisfactory, and a modified spelling
book was restored in the form of numerous Word Primers
and Word Books, the type of which was largely deter-
mined by Swinton's Word Book Series (1873).
How Spelling is Learned. — Spelling is mainly learned
in reading, in writing compositions, and by other written
school exercises ; but the great majority of teachers find
it desirable to supplement this indirect and incidental
training by the study of a modern word book which in-
cludes elementary defining and more or less of word an-
alysis, or a study of prefixes, suffixes, and definitions.
Oral Spelling. — Make some use of oral spelling to train
the ear as well as the eye, and to secure careful pronun-
ciation. Written spelling, if used exclusively, becomes
wearisome to pupils. Allow the class, occasionally, to
" choose sides " and have a spelling match, thus appealing
to good-natured emulation. In oral spelling, require
224 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
pupils to pause in spelling after each syllable to show the
division into syllables ; but do not require each syllable to
be pronounced separately.
Text-Book. — If a word book or a spelling book is re-
quired by the official course of study, make the best pos-
sible use of it. Swinton's Word Primer and Word Book
may prove helpful for supplementary purposes.
Correcting Papers. — After a lesson in written spelling
let pupils exchange papers and correct the spelling in one
another's papers. This exercise in criticism is one of the
most profitable of spelling lessons.
Word Study. — The teaching of spelling should be so
conducted as to unfold something of the meaning of
words, and something of the formation of derivative from
primitive words and roots. The exercise then becomes
a part of good intellectual training, instead of a blind
effort of memory.
Defining. — It is not wise to require pupils to give for-
mal definitions of words when the meaning is already well
enough known. Pupils should be trained at an early age
to the habit of referring to the school dictionary for defi-
nitions. Mark any difficult words in the advance reading '
lesson, and require pupils to find out the dictionary defi-
nitions. Give out, once or twice a week, a list of five
words to be defined at the next lesson. Exact and full
definitions should be required, in general, only from ad-
vanced pupils, when they have gained the knowledge
necessary to frame definitions. A simple explanation of
the ?^^^ of a word is often better than a formal dictionary
definition. Beware of defining a word by means of a
synonym equally incomprehensible.
Waste. — Learning to spell the English language is a
long-continued and laborious task, and there is little reason
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS
225
to expect that the irregular orthography of our mother
tongue will ever be so reformed that spelling will be made
easy. The chief waste of time in school consists in re-
quiring children to attempt to learn to spell words which
are entirely outside of their possible vocabulary.
IV. MODERN THOUGHT ON ELEMENTARY DRAWING.
Practical Value of Drawing. — The general introduc-
tion of drawing into both country schools and city schools
marks one of the most notable means of enriching the
course of study. Drawing has become a special aid in
nature study. It is a source of unfailing pleasure and in-
terest to children ; it lies at the foundation of manual
training ; it is an important aid in the study of geography
and history. Finally, it affords an aesthetic training that
will make life pleasanter and happier.
Hindrances. — The limitations to which most teachers
are subjected I fully understand, having been subject to
them myself during many years of teaching. Wherever
'* a system of drawing " has been ofificially adopted by
boards of education or school trustees, teachers must
master the directions and require pupils to fill out each
successive number of the drawing books, whether the
system be good or bad. Unfortunately, the general intro-
duction into elementary schools — some twenty years
ago — of formal systems of industrial, or geometrical, or
mechanical, or design drawing, proved unsatisfactory in
results. Even the employment of large numbers of special
teachers failed to awaken any vital interest in drawing.
The system pursued in technical art schools for older
pupils or adults cannot profitably be applied to the lower
grades in public schools.
AM. PUB. scH. — 15.
226 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
But whatever may be the limitations of the adopted
course of study, it is possible for teachers to supplement
the required work with various exercises in drawing
adapted in some measure to the successive culture epochs
of young children.
Practical Hints and Suggestions. — Drawing, as a
means of expression, should begin with the first lessons
in reading and writing and should be carried along hand
in hand with both. Drawing, indeed, is a primitive mode
of expression which preceded the invention of letters.
It is in accordance with psychological method that .the
first efforts of children should be directed to rude drawing
rather than to writing.
The primary children may be sent to the blackboard to
copy something drawn by the teacher, or to indulge their
fancy by drawing whatever they choose. Children do not
hesitate to attempt houses, trees, hills, dogs, and the
human figure. They prefer blackboard drawing with
crayons to exercises on slates or paper, because their draw-
ings are on a larger scale. Besides, teachers and pupils
can see the pictures. Direct their feeble efforts, but leave
full play to individuality. One child may take to flowers,
another to boats and ships, a third to houses, and a fourth
to horses.
Allow pupils from the beginning to attempt drawing '
from real objects instead of from pictures on the flat.
Drawing a leaf from the flat copy is only a makeshift com-
pared with sketching the outline of a real leaf placed on
the desk right before the eyes of the child. Drawing a
house from the flat copy may secure a slow and painful
accuracy and finish, but the process is dead drudgery com-
pared with the attempt to make a crude outline of a real
house.
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS
227
The most attractive and most profitable exercises in
drawing will be those made in connection with oral lessons
in elementary natural science, or with geography, or with
history. Here drawing supplements writing.
Dr. Lukens presents the subject psychologically as follows : " In
the course in drawing, (as in writing) the same three stages should no
doubt be provided for. In kindergarten and primary schools abun-
dance of pictures and models should be on hand and should be made
use of in every subject. Then comes the second transitional play stage
of imitation and suggestibility before the skill of hand and the right
attitude of mind for artistic production are developed. During this
time drawing seems properly merely a -language for expressing ideas,
and should be so used in connection with all the other subjects of
study. Diagrams, illustrated stories, and pictures of everything the
children are interested in, will be the natural and pedagogical course
as opposed to the systematic course, now so universal, and yet so
out of place in the lower grades. At about ten years of age, Barnes
thinks, (and all the others who have made special studies of the sub-
ject seem to agree with him) the child may with profit take up the
technique of drawing, or its grammar and rhetoric, as he calls it." ^
At ten or twelve years of age, then, pupils having had
this preliminary training may begin to learn the technique
of drawing. At the right time, geometrical, mechanical,
and instrumental, and design drawing may be made both
interesting and useful.
As my ideal of natural free-hand drawing in an ele-
mentary school, I have in mind a grammar school for
girls, which also included primary grades, in San Fran-
cisco. For the purpose of experiment, this school was
excepted from the conventional " system " required in
other schools, and the principal and teachers were given
full liberty to teach drawing according to psychological
principles. In the first and second grades, the children
began by drawing from real objects placed on their desks,
^ The Second Year Book of the National Herbart Society (1896).
228 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
such as a leaf, a fern, or a spray of ivy, or a flower, or a
specimen of fruit. Their work was free and easy, but it
was followed up with the keenest interest. In the third
grade their work showed artistic taste. In the fourth
grade they were painting flowers in water colors. In the
next two grades the girls could look out of the windows
and sketch a city street in perspective, or make a good out-
line of Telegraph Hill. In the two higher grades, they
could make in fifteen minutes a good sketch of a human
figure drawn from a little girl perched on the teacher's
desk. An atmosphere of artistic taste pervaded the
whole school. Drawing was a perennial source of de-
light. The teachers as well as the pupils were enthusi-
astic.
V. VOCAL MUSIC AS A MEANS OF CULTURE.
Fifty years ago, in country schools, singing was the
exception, not the rule, and in city schools the instruc-
tion in music was meager and unsatisfactory. Now, in
most large cities a special teacher is employed to super-
vise and direct the teaching of music. It is the exception
to find a rural school in which singing is not a daily exer-
cise.
The kindergarten schools afford a good illustration of
the extent to which rote singing can be carried with
young children before they learn to read. The number
of songs which these little children memorize and sing is
a marvelous proof of the retentive memory of early child-
hood. In the kindergarten, the songs are selected with
special reference to melody ; and the children act them
out by movement and gesture while singing them by
words. The songs best adapted for children in the first
PEDAGOGICS IN MODERN GRADED SCHOOLS
229
two years in the primary school will be found in the vari-
ous publications of kindergarten songs.
The extent to which formal instruction in music and
singing by note can be carried in small rural schools must
be determined according to conditions. But singing by
rote or by note is an essential school exercise.
Apart from its great value as a means of aesthetic cul-
ture, singing is one important means of cultivating
the voice for expression in speech and in oral reading.
In the recital of poetry, there is always a touch of the
rhythm, melody, and harmony of song. The power-
ful effect of school singing in stimulating the emotions
is universally recognized. It is impossible to over-esti-
mate the stimulus to patriotism resulting from the long-
continued singing during the whole school course of
such songs as " America," the " Battle Hymn of the Re-
public," " Rally Round the Flag, Boys," and other na-
tional songs and hymns. How much dearer has home
been made to us all by the singing of '' Home, Sweet
Home ! " How many friendships have been made stronger
by the singing of " Auld Lang Syne ! "
CHAPTER VI
THE ART OF TEACHING LANGUAGE LESSONS AND GRAMMAR
Grammar. — Within the last twenty years the use of
a formal text-book on grammar has come to be limited in
the best schools to the last two years of the grammar-
school course. The general introduction of written exer-
cises and written examinations, the written work in ele-
mentary science, in history, in geography, and in letter-
writing — all lend their aid in training children to acquire
the habit of using language with some degree of " correct-
ness and propriety," without the study of grammar. This
is the natural method of development. In the lower
grammar grades, the formal text-book on grammar has
been superseded by " Language Lessons," in which the
simpler parts of grammar are taken in connection with
written sentence work and composition.
^ The variety of good reading matter now available for
/^school children is undoubtedly an important factor in
/ training them to speak and write their mother tongue.
/ But most teachers will admit that somewhere in the
Y school course there must be some formal study of gram-
\ mar. Colonel Parker, who cannot be classed as a conserv-
ative, remarks in his Talks on Pedagogics : " Whenever
and wherever, throughout the course, a part of speech, a
fact of etymology, a definition, an explanation, a rule, or
general direction, a lesson in parsing or analysis, will di-
rectly assist pupils in comprehending or adequately ex-
230
LANGUAGE LESSONS AND GRAMMAR
231
pressing thought, any and every detail of grammar should
be freely presented and freely used."
There is little difference of opinion about the high
value of a careful study of grammar in secondary schools.
Sentence analysis is a logical study of the forms of
thought. The study of English syntax increases the
power of interpreting thought in literature. It affords
the student a standard of self-criticism in a careful revi-
sion of his own writing. It opens the mind to the great
lines of thought in logic, rhetoric, and philosophy.
A kno wledge of grammar is essential to a full appreciar_
tion of the masterpieces of literature. With advanced
pupils, the right study of grammar is a means of mental
discipline fully equal to that of mathematics. '' I hold,"
says Tyndall, " that the proper study of language is an
intellectual discipline of the highest kind. The piercing
through the involved and inverted sentences of * Paradise
Lost ' ; the linking of the verb to its often distant nom-
inative, of the relative to its distant antecedent, of the
agent to the object of the transitive verb, of the preposi-
tion to the noun or pronoun which it governed ; the study
of variations in mood and tense ; the transformations often
necessary to bring out the true grammatical structure
of a sentence — all this was to my young mind a discipline
of the highest value, and, indeed, a source of unflagging
delight."
But the unsettled point in dispute is the extent to which
the teat king of g 7 ammar' can profitably be carried in iJie
elementary course of study in the common schools. There
has been a general revolt against the '' Murray type " of
text-books ; against Latinized parsing, and against the
hair-splitting refinements of sentence analysis. As a nat-
ural result, many teachers have been led to the opposite
232
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
extreme of advocating no instruction whatever in techni-
cal grammar below the high school grades. On the other
hand, there are many schools in which the Murray type
of grammar still reigns supreme. Teachers who were
themselves trained under the old regime cling to the
forms of parsing and sentence analysis with which they
have grown familiar. They greatly overestimate the value
of text-book grammar to the great majority of common
school pupils, who leave school at fifteen or sixteen years
of age. In consequence of educational bias, they under-
estimate the worth of composition work and language
training. Having become grammatical experts by drill
in teaching parsing and analysis for many years, they
unconsciously assume that this kind of training is of ines-
timable value to their pupils.
Language Teaching. — The general method in language
teaching pursued in a majority of graded schools at the
present time may be briefly stated as follows :
1. During the first three years of school life, reading,
story-telling, and easy exercises in sentence-making and
composition-writing.
2. For the next three years, the beginning of literature
in supplementary reading ; the writing of compositions in
connection with nature study, history lessons, literature,
and geography ; and the use of some text-book on
language lessons.
3. During the last two years of the course, the study
of some formal text-book on grammar ; reading of a dis-
tinctly literary character ; composition-writing on topics
correlated with school work.
Hints and Suggestions on Methods of Teaching —
Language Lessons. — In the lower grades, language les-
sons and composition work constitute the best means of
LANGUAGE LESSONS AND GRAMMAR
233
acquiring a ready and correct use of language, which
usage, in its turn, becomes a sound basis for the study of
formal grammar. As children learn to speak good Eng-
lish by hearing it spoken in school or at home, so they
learn to write good English only by continued practice in
writing under the direction and criticism of teachers. As
a guide to first lessons in this work Swinton's Talking
With the Pencil (1898) will be of value.
Stories. — It is one of the best of exercises to let chil-
dren reproduce from memory, in their own words, stories
told them by the teacher, or which they themselves have
read. In this way writing becomes a pleasure instead of
a task. Originality in thought ought not to be expected
of children.
Letter- Writing. — One of the most practical of all ex-
ercises is letter-writing. As soon as children can write at
all, they ought to be trained to write a short letter. In
every grade during the whole course, repeated exercises
in letter-writing should be given, so that on leaving
school every child should be able to write a letter neatly
and correctly,
In the best of modern schools the work in composition
is mainly done in connection with nature studies, oral
lessons in history, and lessons in geography. In this way
writing becomes a pleasure. The work in composition is
in accord with the pupils' mental equipment. In order to
learn the art of expression, children must have definite
thoughts to express. There is a general consensus of
opinion among modern teachers that writing the English
language is an art which must be learned by actual,p.rac-
tice in written composition, rather than by the study of a
text-book on grammar.
Formal Grammar. — In the grammar grade next to
234
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
the highest, that is, in the seventh or eighth school year,
if a formal text-book on grammar is taken up, teachers
should first give their attention to the essential parts of
etymology, assuming that pupils have previously learned
something about the sentence. Special attention should
be given to personal pronouns, to verb-forms and the
tenses, to irregular verbs, to participles and infinitives.
The forms for parsing should be brief and simple,
limited, in the main, to the construction that is, the use
of the word in the sentence. For example, in the sen-
tence, " America has furnished to the world the character
of Washington," it is quite enough to say: ^^ America is
a proper noun, subject of the verb has furnished ; has
furnished is a verb in the present perfect tense, agreeing
with the subject America ; world is a common noun, ob-
ject of the preposition to,'' etc.
Sentence analysis, free from technicalities and diagrams,
may profitably be correlated with parsing. It is sheer
waste of time to parse every word in a sentence. Select
from a reading lesson only the words that are most im-
portant in the structure of a sentence, or that are placed
out of their regula rorder ; e. g. in the sentence, " Their
furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke," — parse glebe ;
" Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight," —
parse landscape.
The ancient Latinized models involve too great waste
of time for modern school use. Such endless repetitions
of definitions and grammatical terminology result neither
in " logical training " nor in readiness of expression.
Sentence analysis, — limited, is useful, but, when carried
to extremes, it becomes a dead formalism, quite as unat-
tractive to pupils as was the old-time parsing. The ex-
tent to which teachers carry parsing and sentence analysis
LANGUAGE LESSONS AND GRAMMAR 235
must be modified by their school environment, or their
school text-books, or the examinations to which their
pupils are subjected. Comparatively few teachers are
free agents to determine their course of instruction for
themselves.
Syntax. — In the highest grammar grade, the subject
of syntax may be taken up, limiting the work mainly to
the half dozen rules that have the closest practical rela-
tion to the writing of English. In this grade literary
study should be combined with grammatical study. Sup-
pose, for instance, the class were to take up Gray's
Elegy, one of the most elaborate of Short poems in the
English language. This study would involve a wide
range of thought. The poem is full of figurative expres-
sions ; of historical allusions ; of long sentences that some-
times include two or three stanzas. In some instances
owing to the transposed structure of a sentence, it is not
easy to determine which word is the subject and which
the object of the verb. But the teacher with a little fore-
thought can make the study one of lively interest. After
such a course with a large normal class, many of the
students came to me and said that they had never before
perceived any practical use of grammar as applied to the
study of literature. In the city of San Francisco, this
poem, selected from the adopted school reader, was as-
signed for special study in the highest grammar-grade
class. Near the end of the year, I had the pleasure of
examining, orally, more than thirty classes, most of which
far exceeded my most sanguine expectations of success.
Take another illustration of the possible use of a stanza
from Byron's Apostrophe to the Ocean, found in most
of the school readers.
236 • APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
" The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake
And monarchs tremble in their capitals ;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war —
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar."
Put the following questions to a class, and note the
results :
(a) What kind of sentence is this stanza ?
{d) What is meant by " armaments " ?
{c) Parse 7iations.
(d) Parse tremble.
(<?) Meaning of " oak leviathans ? "
(/) Who is "their clay creator?"
{g) " Lord of thee " — Lord of whom ?
(^) Explain the allusion "Armada's pride."
(/) How did the yeast of waves mar the " spoils of Trafalgar ? "
^ Difficulties. — Grammar is one of the most diflficult of
/ the common-school studies. To teach it successfully
/[ requires the highest degree of skill in the fine art of
^Jteaching. " It is more difificult than arithmetic," says
Bain, " and is probably on a par with the beginnings of
algebra and geometry." Therefore teachers should be
very patient with pupils that make slow progress in the
study of grammatical technicalities.
The text-book study of grammar presented according
to the scholastic logic of the Middle Ages, is now limited,
in the main, to the two higher grades of the common
school. As it has taken a century to lop off orthography
and prosody from this subject, and to introduce language
work in the lower grades, it may require a long siege to
LANGUAGE LESSONS AND GRAMMAR
237
force the last intrenchments of Latinized English gram-
mar in the eighth and ninth grades. There are many-
thousands of suffering teachers who are expectantly wait-
ing for some modern text-book adapted to these two
grades. Such a book should treat lightly on etymology,
briefly on practical syntax, and largely on plain composi-
tion-writing. The conventional Murray type is already
obsolete, except in remote rural and pioneer schools, and
in the schools of a few cities which have been stricken
with arrested development in consequence of political
misrule. The metaphysical refinement of interminable
sentence analysis with long-drawn-out diagrams is fast
disappearing, because the time is needed for better things.
Rightly understood, properly taught, and kept within
reasonable bounds, the study of English grammar in the
highest grade in the common schools may prove of in-
terest and practical value to the great mass of pupils.
Formal Composition. — In the highest grades of the
common school, whether in city or country, it ought to be
possible for most teachers to take up, in addition to the
composition-work done in connection with other school
studies, a short specified course in special composition
exercises. Of the four types of prose writing, pupils
ought to take up the narrative and the descriptive, leaving
exposition and argumentation for the high school or col-
lege. For such work no text-book will be needed by
pupils if the teachers have a practical knowledge of the
subject.
The beginning should be made easy and interesting.
Teachers will direct the selection of suitable subjects,
making sure that they are in keeping with the pupils*
stock of ideas. Sometimes half a dozen subjects may be
named, allowing each pupil to select the topic that suits
238 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
him best. Occasionally, throw the responsibility of find-
ing a subject upon the pupil, as an encouragement to
originality. But in general avoid all abstract topics, and
most subjects that require the free use of an encyclopedia.
Occasionally, the outline of an essay may be given to
pupils to fill out. Special attention should be given to
the division of a composition into paragraphs. A compo-
sition of any kind should have a suitable beginning and
a fitting end ; must be capitalized and punctuated ; must
be free from gross blunders in syntax. But reasonable
teachers will not expect pupils to become finished writers,
and will be very tolerant of crude efforts.
Need of a Standard. — At present there seems to be no
generally recognized stan dard of attainment for common-
school pupils in giainmar and composition. There are
many rural schools, and city schools not a few, in which
composition writing is an unknown art, and in which
grammar is limited to the dry husks of text-book tech-
nicalities. The process of emancipation from custom,
tradition, and educational bias is painfully slow. The ex-
isting condition is fairly set forth by Professor B. A.
Hinsdale in Teaching the Language-Arts, (1897), as
follows :
" In no department of study have the schools recently seen more
dissatisfaction, more unrest, and more experiment than in this one.
Everything is in a flux ; authors, superintendents, and teachers seem
to appreciate that something bearing the name of EngUsh must con-
stitute a marked feature of the schools ; but they do not, as classes at
least, see clearly what it should be, or how it should be taught. As a
whole, the schools are feeling their way ; as a body, teachers are wast-
ing a great deal of their own and their pupils' time and energy in efforts
more or less aimless and misdirected ; and there is little probability of
the return of that unity and satisfaction which so strongly marked the
Lindley Murray rSgzme. Two things are clear : One is that the old
LANGUAGE LESSONS AND GRAMMAR
239
regime cannot be brought back ; the second is that to teach English
successfully requires a combination of cultivation, taste, judgment, and
practical skill which is not found in the common teacher of the
subject."
Modern Text-Books. — A helpful book for teachers as
well as pupils is found in Charles De Garmo's Language
Lessons (1897). Book L of this series is designed for use
of the pupil during the third and fourth years of the graded
school ; Book IL for the two succeeding years.
In his preface the author states important principles, which are now
generally accepted by progressive educators : " There are two leading
ideas in these Language Books. They are (i) Progressive Exercises
in Composition, and (2) an Inductive Approach to Grammar. The
work is consequently divided into two classes of lessons, Sentence Ex-
ercises and Composition Exercises. It is a pre-eminent characteristic
of both classes of exercises that they provide for the pupil a language
experience, instead of presupposing one that he does not have. This
conduces both to interest and comprehension."
Another recent book of great value is Elementary English by E.
Oram Lyte, Principal of the First Pennsylvania Normal School, Millers-
ville (1898). The author's preface says: "This is a first book on
formal language study. The subject as here presented is divided into
three parts, each part representing a year's work in this branch. The
method of development is inductive. What children are interested in,
and what they may easily be led to be interested in, determined the
nature of most of the lessons here presented." Lyte's Elements of
Grammar and Composition, (1898), is the second book of this lan-
guage series, designed for a two or three years' course in the grammar
grades, is admirably adapted to its purpose. There is not too much
of it, in which fact consists its great merit. Conservatives wedded to
the formalism of the past may not like it, but it will be given a hearty
welcome by thoughtful teachers who have long been waiting for just
such a natural way of presenting the subject of grammar to the aver-
age grammar school pupil. The third book of Lyte's Language
Series, Advanced Grammar and Composition^ is for use in high
schools and normal schools.
CHAPTER VII
PEDAGOGICAL PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO ARITHMETIC
Most official courses of study, however definitely laid
down and marked out, admit of some discretion on the
part of teachers. It is desirable, therefore, for all teachers
to hold clearly in mind the chief aims to be considered in
teaching arithmetic. The suggestions made in the follow-
ing rough outlines are intended as hints in the direction
of modern tendencies among progressive teachers. They
are derived from an extended examination of courses and
text-books, from some experience in teaching, from a
wide field of observation as a school-examiner and school
superintendent, and from recent addresses and discussions
on the subject of reform in teaching arithmetic.
FIRST GRADE OR YEAR.
T he wise t^;^rhpr of a class of beginners will first take
an account of th e stock of arithmet ical knowledge which
Tn^ ^Y glasses .^ h^ ^^^U] find ir>nr|y ^hilHrpn f^vp^^rfc in
co unting, in reckoning the smal l coins of United Stat es
cu rrency, and in making change. The knowledge of such
children is empirical, it is true, but the teacher can utilize
it to advantage. It would be refined cru-elty to hold such
pupils to the strict limitations of the Grube system or to
the number lo, or 20, or 100. Perhaps some section of
her class may need slow and patient drill with " count-
ers ; '* if so, give it to them, but begin the drill with ab-
240
PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO ARITHMETIC
241
stract numbers as soon as possible. No harm will come
to the children if they learn to count to 100 by I's; by
2's; by lo's. Take addition and subtraction of small
numbers first ; in due time take multiplication and divi-
sion. It is not wise to crowd four rules on the helpless
children all at once. The Grube method with its endless
" grind " on all possible combinations may be philosophical
and logical, but it is not psychological, and it is often
carried to absurd extremes. Children in this grade are
keenly alive to arithmetic of the kind suited to them, but
the making of endless tables of figures with plus and
minus signs is neither rational nor attractive work. For
various kinds of natural ways and means the teacher must
fall back on her enlightened common sense. It may be
advisable to let the children learn that " 12 inches make
I foot," by actually, themselves, measuring off twelve
inches on the blackboards. Most of them knew before
they came to school that there are 5 cents in a nickel, 10
cents in a dime, 10 dimes in a dollar, 2 quarters in a
half dollar, and 2 half dollars in a dollar. The time given
to continuous class drill in number work should not ex-
ceed 10 or 15 minutes in any one lesson. The teacher
who feels the need of a text-book of detailed lessons will
find Baird's Graded Work in Arithmetic, First Year, a
very helpful book of well-arranged exercises of all kinds.
Another modern book is Bailey's American Elementary
Arithmetic for the First Five Grades (1898). But teach-
ers should avoid all forcing processes and rest content
with beginnings.
SECOND GRADE OR YEAR.
The average limitations of number work in this grade
run in most schools as follows : exercises in the four rules
AM. PUB. SCH. — 16
242 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
limited, in general, to hundreds of thousands ; the multi-
plication table through 5*s or 6's ; counting by 2's, 5's,
and lo's to icxd; addition of two-place numbers, no sum
of units or tens to exceed 10; — e. g. 43 and 24, etc. ; sub-
traction of two-place numbers, without '' borrowing ; "
multiplication of two-place numbers by 2 and 3, no pro-
duct to exceed 10: — e. g. 23 by 3, etc. ; division of two-
place numbers, — e. g. 64 -^ 2, etc. ; easy problems such
as are found in most primary arithmetics ; inches, feet,
and yards, by actual measurement by pupils themselves ;
pint, quart, gallon, by actual measurement ; cent, nickel,
dime, dollar, by actual inspection of the coins, and by
simple business questions in making change. As an ex-
periment the above limitations may be supplemented by
exercises in finding ^, ^, i^, \, and ^ of small numbers
evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10 ; and by taking up
the reading and writing of dollars and cents, — e. g.
$1.25, $1.50, $5.00, etc.
Fractions. — There seems to be no psychological rea-
son why the beginning of a limited practical use of both
common and decimal fractions should not be made in the
second school year, and continued, under due limitations,
in easy inductive lessons in the third and fourth grades,
as a fitting preparation for formal text-book treatment in
the fifth grade. But as it took me many years of teach-
ing and experiment to reach this conclusion, I have no
doubt that many teachers will dissent from it.
The general postponement of any written work with
fractions until the fifth school year or grade seems to
have been the result of the arrangement of the old-fash-
ioned one-book arithmetics under which it was impos-
sible for pupils to reach fractions until about that period.
These books began with definitions and rules but omitted
PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO ARITHMETIC
243
inductive elementary exercises altogether. When pupils
finally reached common fractions at ten or eleven years of
age, they were required to go over many dreary pages of
unprofitable work on factors, prime factors, greatest com-
mon divisor, least common multiple, common denomi-
nator, and least common denominator, before they could
reach the practical operation of adding ^ and %. More-
over, the subject of common fractions was exhaustively
treated and applied to complex and difficult problems
before pupils were taught the simplest operations in
decimals or in the decimal currency of the United States.
Teachers who were trained when pupils under the
formal, logical, deductive order of text-book presentation
of arithmetic do not always take kindly to the natural
method of easy inductive lessons which ought always to
prepare the way for a final formal treatment of the sub-
ject.
The fact is that when children enter school at six years
of age, most of them are familiar with *' halves " and
" quarters " though they may not be able to express them
in arithmetical form. They will tell you that one-half of
half an apple is a quarter of an apple, though they know
nothing about *' multiplication of fractions." They begin
school with some practical knowledge of the decimal cur-
rency of the United States, though they know nothing of
" decimal fractions." Now by utilizing the knowledge
which they already have, the skillful teacher can make
their first lessons in fractions pleasant and profitable.
When superintendent of the schools in San Francisco,
I personally tested the elementary knowledge of more
than a hundred classes in the first and second grades in
which, according to the course of study, no instruction
whatever had been given in fractions. In every class in
244 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS .
the first grade some pupils knew how to write >^. One
little girl when asked how she learned to write it, an-
swered, ** I live at 2i2>^ Pacific St." They added halves
almost as readily as wholes.
In the second grades when the children were asked to
write y2 and ^, from ten to twenty per cent, of them did
it, much to the surprise of their teachers. When the
children were asked to add one-half an apple and one-
quarter of an apple, the oral question was correctly an-
swered, usually by from ten to twenty pupils in each class.
Then they went to the blackboard, wrote the fractions,
added them, and told how they got the answers. They
said nothing about reducing fractions to a common denom-
inator. They simply said, '* One half is two quarters,
and two quarters and one quarter are three quarters."
These same children were experts in " making change " and
some of them could write dollars and cents, though they
had been taught neither " decimal fractions " nor " United
States money " at school. My presumption that the
children had brains and had learned something outside
of school was correct.
Inductive lessons in arithmetic should begin with ques-
tions about something that pupils already know, and
should gradually lead up to something new to be found
out. In giving such development lessons, teachers should
explain to the class nothing that pupils can readily find
out for themselves, should tell nothing in advance, and
should lend a helping hand only when the class fails after
having had ample time to think. This process is slow
but very effective. In development lessons the fractions
should be strictly limited to such as are used in the or-
dinary business of life. As statistics show that nearly
one half of the pupils of the public schools leave school
PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO ARITHMETIC
245
before they reach the fifth grade, or year, it is a matter
of practical importance that such children should leave
•school with some business outfit of simple operations in
both common and decimal fractions.
Colonel Parker in his Talks on Pedagogics says : " The putting off
of the teaching of fractions to the fifth and sixth grades is simply put-
ting in abeyance an essential means of developing the mind. The
child, when he reaches the fifth grade may know all there is to be
known of fractions with the greatest ease, if fractions are really
taught, — not the mere notation and numeration of fractions. Frac-
tions should be taught from the first to last, and the same can be said
in regard to decimal fractions. Decimal fractions in notation have a
great advantage over common fractions. Decimal fractions are per-
fectly easy and should be taught when ten is taught, and the notation
of decimal fractions should always be learned and used when required
in the development of number." ..." We have great complaint that
children go out of school, after four or five years of study, without any
knowledge of arithmetic, and the cause for this is that these subjects
are out of their pedagogical relation. They have an artificial, illogical
place in the course. Tradition has taught us to put off these things
until a certain time comes, — a time when half of the children of the
United States are out of school. The genuine demands for a child's
growth always include the best for practical life at all times."
Superintendent J. M. Greenwood of Kansas City states in his dissent
from the " Report of the Committee of Fifteen : " " There is really no
valid argument why children in the second, third, and fourth years in
school should not master the fundamental operations in fractions.
Not 9nly this, they will put the more common fractions into the tech-
nique of percentage, and do this as well in the second and third grades
as at any other time in their future progress. ... In decimals, the
pupil is really confronted by a simpler form of fractions than the varied
forms of common fractions. . . . There should be a rearrangement of
the topics in arithmetic so that one subject naturally leads up to the
next."
In the Report of the Commissioner of Education (1893-94, Vol. I.,)
there are 60 pages of verbatim reports of recitations in arithmetic and
language in the schools of Kansas City, Missouri, furnished by Super-
intendent Greenwood, who had stenographic reports taken of lessons
246 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
given by teachers under his direction. These lessons show the possi-
bilities in the practical use of fractions in the first, second, third, fourth,
and fifth grades.
THIRD GRADE OR YEAR.
The conventional work includes, in general, drill on the
multiplication table to lo's or 12's ; addition by " carry-
ing," and subtraction by *' taking from higher order ; "
multiplication with " carrying " and with two-place num-
bers for a multiplier ; long division limited to small num-
bers. All of the work should be kept within reasonable
limitations. There is a general tendency, fostered by the
old-type arithmetics, to run the children at once into large
numbers, long operations, and difficult problems. It is
well to keep in mind a recent statement (1898), by Dr. E.
E. White : " The forcing of young children to do prema-
turely what they ought not to do until they are older,
results in what Dr. Harris calls, ' arrested development.*
The colt that is over-speeded and over-trained when two
j^ears old, breaks no record at six. There is such a thing
as too much training in primary grades ; an over-develop-
ment of the reason. A little child may be developed into
a dullard. More natural growth and less forced develop-
ment would be a blessing to thousands of young children."
What the children iij this grade really need is a great
variety of comparatively easy exercises, dealing with num-
bers kept within reasonable limits, and with exercises that
have some relation to their daily life. They need careful
drill in accuracy, not abnormal rapidity of operation.
They need drill on hundreds of short operations, not long-
continued drill on ledger columns of addition, or puzzling
problems that have no relation to human life or to busi-
ness.
Baird's Third Year's Work is full of reasonable and practical exer-
PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO ARITHMETIC
247
cises. The preface to this book contains the following statement
which should be kept in mind by teachers : " As many pupils are
unable to attend school beyond the grade for which this book is in-
tended, there are here included some of the applications of arithmetic,
a knowledge of which will give to the pupil power to solve many prob-
lems of every-day occurrence." Accordingly, there are given a great
many exercises which involve the use of dollars and cents in business
examples. A few business fractions are introduced in a natural way,
without note, or comment, or definition. For the use of any teacher
who may wish to experiment still further in this direction, a few forms
of inductive exercises are here introduced, which any teacher can
supplement to any extent with similar models of her own.
Models for Inductive Exercises. — Proceed at once,
without any talk about numerator or denominator, to give
a great many drill exercises in writing and adding after
the type of exercises given below. As children are ac-
customed to write whole numbers in vertical columns for
adding, it is the more natural way for them to write frac-
tions in the same manner.
Send the class to the blackboards, dictate the examples,
give pupils ample time to think, and ascertain how many
can do the work without any assistance. If put upon the
right track, many pupils will find out for themselves a
method for working an exercise in arithmetic. When
necessary, help out pupils by a hint in the right direction.
ADDITION
OF COMMON FRACTIONS.—
-SLATE MODEL.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
Yz
%
i
^
6%
2f
2/8
%
%
i
^
2K
2f
3f
%
%
i
^
S%
5^
1/8
%
%
i
tV
A%
6X
1%
248 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
ADDITION OF DOLLARS AND CENTS AND DECIMALS.
One good way of teaching decimals to beginners is by
means of exercises in writing and adding dollars and cents,
the change from reading and writing dollars and cents to
reading and writing whole numbers and hundredths is easily
made, because most children know there are 100 cents in a
dollar.
FIRST STEPS IN ADDING DOLLARS AND CENTS.
(a)
(b)
(c) (d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
I1.50
I-50
I2.10 2.10
I4.05
4.05
I1.12K
I1.25
1-25
$2.15 2.15
I2.05
2.05
I1.12K
MODEL
FOR SLATE WORK IN ADDITION.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
^%
%^%
$1-50
IX
|o.2S
.25
3^
%^%
I1.25
IK
I0.50
•75
MODEL FOR SLATE WORK
IN MULTIPLICATION
(a)
(b)
(c) (d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
4K
5X
6^ 6.3
U)i
I4.25
4-25
X2
X3
X3 X3
X3
X3
X3
PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO ARITHMETIC
249
DIVISION.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Kof 4
4 -^- 2 =
>^ of $4.20
J5 4.20 -^ 2 = ?
Kof 1
i^2 = :
Xof|i6.8o
I16.80 -=- 4 =^ ?
KofT«^
A ^ 2 = :
)4oi$ 1. 00
1 I.OO -T- 2 = ?
%oi .6
6^2 =
i of $10.25
I10.25 -4- 5 = .?
FOURTH GRADE OR YEAR.
This course, in general, includes addition and subtrac-
tion, numbers not to exceed thousands ; multiplication,
the product not to exceed five or six places ; division,
divisors not to exceed two places. Tables learned and
applied in actual measurements ; — square measure — inch,
foot, yard; cubic measure, inch, foot, yard. To this out-
line there might be added by the teacher willing to make
experiments, the following : addition and subtraction of
dollars and cents ; of decimals not exceeding hundredths ;
easy business examples involving the multiplication of
dollars and cents by multipliers not exceeding ten, etc.
If two books are used, as is the case in many schools,
teachers should take special pains to correlate the mental
or oral arithmetic with the work found in the text-book
on written arithmetic. Teachers who may wish to give
supplementary work in common and decimal fractions,
and dollars and cents, will find Baird's Graded Work in
Arithmetic — Fourth Year — a helpful hand book ; also
Bailey's Arithmetic and any one of several other modern
text-bdoks.
250 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
FIFTH GRADE OR YEAR.
Whatever may be the arrangement of the school text-
book used by pupils, the teacher should modify its ar-
rangement so that attention should be concentrated on
accuracy in the four rules by means of practical business
problems involving comparatively small numbers ; on
common and decimal fractions, taught inductively as far
as practicable ; on the common business tables of weights
and measures and their practical application in life. Un-
fortunately many of the arithmetics in use contain a great
deal of traditional padding, and vast numbers of examples
and problems that have little or no relation to the busi-
ness life of to-day. An excellent series of inductive ex-
ercises in common and decimal fractions will be found in
Baird's Parts IV. and V. ; in Bailey's Elementary, and
in other modern text books.
SIXTH GRADE OR YEAR.
The chief work in this year, according to the average
course, will be common and decimal fractions taken up in
formal text-book style, and the practical application of
tables to the ordinary business pursuits of life. The ob-
jective points are to make pupils accurate, and to enable
them to see through reasonable problems and apply prin-
ciples for themselves. They should be trained to test and
prove their own work. They should also be taught how
to make out a bill and reckon it accurately, how to write
a promissory note, and how to write a receipt. It is de-
sirable, further, that pupils should be taught the elements
of percentage, and a business method of reckoning interest
on small sums of money for one year and fractional parts
of a year. This should be done for the benefit of large
PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO ARITHMETIC
251
numbers of pupils that will drop out of school at the end
of the year. Omit the greatest common divisor, as a
separate topic, and take only so much of the least com-
mon multiple as is required in the addition or subtraction
of business fractions. Omit reduction and most of the
operations formerly required under the head of compound
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Take
only the parts that are actually used in ordinary business
pursuits and in farm life. Bailey's Comprehensive Arith-
metic will be useful to teachers.
SEVENTH GRADE OR YEAR.
The main work of this year should be percentage and
its applications to the business method of commission and
to simple interest. The incidental work should consist
of geometrical exercises and measurements. A great deal
of the work found under the preceding heads in many
text-books may profitably be omitted. The concentration
of effort should be to lead pupils, by means of simple in-
ductive lessons, to a clear conception of principles. Chil-
dren should be made to realize that all operations on
business problems should be as accurately performed as
if they were actual business transactions. The work in
interest should be strictly limited to reckoning interest,
omitting altogether the work found in many text-books
under the head of " Problems in Interest " ; e. g., to find
the time, when the principal, interest, and rate are given,
etc. Special attention should be given to drill in writing
promissory notes, and the making out of bills.
Colonel Parker, in his Talks on Pedagogics, makes the following
trenchant criticism on text-book work in " interest " : " Of all subjects,
within a few years, the subject of interest has been made the most
mysterious, complex, and most confusing; still, the subject of interest
252 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
in itself is perfectly simple and easy. Bookmakers have crowded
their terms of rate per cent, base, etc., upon us ; and when the pupils
come to it they suppose that they are coming to a brand-new subject,
when the fact is, if the subject of number has been developed, there
is nothing essentially new to learn in interest."
EIGHTH GRADE OR YEAR.
The work should include simple interest ; profit and
loss ; commercial and bank discount, omitting " true dis-
count," which is not used in common business affairs ;
simple proportion and square root. Cube root with ana-
lytical explanation should be omitted, except as limited
to such simple exercises as may be done by inspection ;
e. g., cube root of 27 ; of 1728, etc. Exchange, stocks, and
some other topics, still retained in many text-books, really
belong to a commercial course. If the grade work is kept
within reasonable limits, there will remain time to make a
beginning of algebra, or of concrete geometry, or of both
together.
A thoughtful and practical monograph on Geometry in the Gram-
mar School by Professor Hanus, of Harvard University, will be of
great value to teachers as a guide in the right direction. A few
quotations will show the trend of his suggestions : "In the grammar
school the knowledge value of a subject should never be subordinate
to the disciplinary value. . . . Grammar school instruction in geom-
etry should give preference to those topics which have a practical
application in the ordinary affairs of life. In so doing special attention
must be given to those propositions which can be established chiefly
through observation, empirically ; gradually the pupil must be led to
undertake the easier deductive proofs. ... In the presentation of the
subject, the best results will be obtained only when the pupil has no
text-book which contains the definitions and propositions. When
geometry is not taught as it should be, not only shall we fail to achieve
the results at which we aim, but we may even produce results the
reverse of those desired." This book contains a detailed outline of
PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO ARITHMETIC
253
work for the work in geometry for the last three years of the grammar
school.
BOOKKEEPING IN GRAMMAR GRADES.
By state law in some cases, and by city ordinances in
others, bookkeeping is made a required study in connec-
tion with arithmetic as was '' the casting of accounts " in
times past. To a limited extent this is well enough, but
there has grown up a tendency to convert the highest
grammar grade into a commercial school. This plan is
not the part of educational wisdom. Other and more im-
portant things ought not to be excluded by attempting to
make boys and girls expert accountants.
President Eliot emphasizes this matter as follows : " I believe it to
be the most useless subject in the entire program, for the reason
that the bookkeeping taught is a kind never found in any real business
establishment. . . . What a boy or girl can learn at school which will
be useful in after-life in keeping books or accounts for any real busi-
ness is a good handwriting, and accuracy in adding, subtracting, mul-
tiplying, and dividing small numbers. As trades and industries have
been differentiated in the modem world, bookkeeping has been differ-
entiated also, and it is, of course, impossible to teach in school the
infinite diversities of practice." ^
RELATIVE VALUE OF ARITHMETIC.
During the greater part of this century, arithmetic was
made the major study of the common schools, incident-
ally to learn how to " reckon," but mainly for the philo-
sophical reason that it was supposed to give a better
" mental discipline " than any other study. In a majority
of the schools of to-day it is allowed more time than any
other school study. But there is a general tendency
towards accuracy rather than rapidity, quality rather than
1 "Educational Reform " (1898).
254
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
quantity, simplicity rather than complexity, business exer-
cises rather than schoolmaster's problems, and clearness of
ideas rather than endless drudgery over wearisome exer-
cises, problems in compound numbers, complex fractions,
compound interest, compound proportion, and cube root.
There is no shadow of doubt that this tendency will end
in a general recasting of the order of presentation as found
in the older school arithmetics, and in a still greater re-
duction of the time now devoted to the study which our
forefathers made the most important pursuit of school
life.
In many city courses of study, not only has the time
given to arithmetical work been reduced from nine years
to seven, but there has also been a great reduction in the
quantity of arithmetic. Some of the time-honored topics
formerly included in text-books have been eliminated, and
others, though still retained in the books, have been
dropped in practice. The latest type of the improved
modern text-book is found in Baird's Graded Work in
Arithmetic (1898), consisting of five small books, ar-
ranged in specific *' Parts," one for each grade or year.
Bailey's American Elementary Arithmetic for the first
five grades is an excellent text-book, as is also the
American Comprehensive Arithmetic, which follows it.
There are several other new series of text-books, on a
similar plan, all in the direction of educational reform.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS ABOUT ARITHMETIC.
Essentials. — The essential parts of arithmetic which
pupils should understand are the four rules, common and
decimal fractions, the tables of. xaaneyjL weights and meas-
ures with their practical application, percentage, and in-
PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO ARITHMETIC
255
teres t. A great deal that passes in text-books under the
name of arithmetic consists largely of conventional exer-
cises, of no practical and of little disciplinary value.
Accuracy. — Pupils in the higher grades should be re-
quired to state not only what they do, but why they do
it. They should test the truth and accuracy of their pro-
cesses by proof, the only test they will have to rely upon
'in real business transactions. All grades should be
trained to special accuracy in addition. One good exer-
cise is to dictate a column of units to the class, the amount
not to exceed 50 or 100 ; give ample time for every pupil
to add the column upward and then downward ; when
every pupil gets the correct answer, the class is trained to
accurate work.
Analysis. — Do not try to force upon young pupils
demonstrations and analyses which are suitable only for
older pupils. It is a marked defect in some school arith-
metics that they are filled up with explanations and dem-
onstrations. The explanations, if given at all, should be
given orally by the teacher ; they do not belong to a
pupil's book, unless it is assumed that the teacher knows
nothing whatever about the subject. Another marked
defect, arising from limited space, is the too sudden tran-
sition from very simple questions to complex ones. The
teacher should remedy, in some degree, this defect by
substituting development exercises. Difficult problems,
requiring sustained processes of reasoning, or complicated
forms of analytical explanations, if used at all, should be
given only to advanced pupils. In fact, what are termed
" hard problems " do not come within the province of the
common school at all, if, indeed, of any school.
Time. — The time devoted to arithmetic should not ex-
ceed four hours a week, and in primary grades it may be
256 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
reduced to two hours, or less. Most of the arithmetical
work should be done in school.
Educational Reform. — Arithmetic when rightly taught
is a means of promoting sustained attention ; of render-
ing the memory more tenacious by retaining the condi-
tions of a question in mind during the solution ; and of
cultivating, to some extent, the reasoning powers. To
a certain extent, arithmetic is a business necessity. There
are many teachers, however, and their number is rapidly
increasing, who no longer rank arithmetic as the most
important subject in the common-school course of study.
These reformers recognize the practical need of knowing
how to cipher, but they believe that the " mentaj disci-
pline " acquired by a long-continued study of arithmetic
is greatly over-estimated by the majority of school boards
and school teachers. They insist that arithmetic should
no longer be made the major study in school as it was in
the days of our forefathers. They demand that a part of
the time now given to this study should be devoted to
better things.
Other Reforms. — This cutting down of time given to
arithmetic is only one of several reforms now pressing
upon us. The plain truth is that the grammar grades,
including the last four years of the elementary school
course, seem at present to form the most inflexible and
non-progressive part of the entire public system, so far as
the course of study is concerned. A flexible or an elect-
ive course exists in all state universities and technical
colleges and in many of the higher institutions outside of
the public school system. The high schools have in gen-
eral at least two courses, a classical course and an English
course, and some of them have a broader course of elect-
ives. The work in primary grades has been brought into
PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO ARITHMETIC 257
harmony with advanced methods and with modern psy-
chological principles. But the grammar school stands
alone as a monument of the past. In a few enlightened
educational centers some slight modifications have been
made, and that is about all.
One great barrier standing in the way of possible reform is the
crowding of from 45 to 55 pupils into one room to be taught by one
teacher. Here is what President Eliot says in his paper on the
Grammar School of the Future, and every word of it is true : " It is
obvious that the young woman with fifty or sixty pupils before her is
attempting what no mortal can perform. ... I suppose it is practi-
cable for one young woman to hear the lessons out of one book of all
the fifty children before her during the hours of the grammar school
session. . . . But the new teaching is of quite a different character.
To double the number of teachers would not be too much ; for
twenty-five or thirty pupils are enough for one teacher to grapple
with. The individual requires teaching in these days, and no teaching
is good which does not pay attention to the individual. We are
coming to accept the doctrine that no 4;eaching is good which does
not awaken interest in the pupil. . . . But the American grammar
school of the future will make that the rule which is now the excep-
tion — every child without special favor to get at the right jubject at
the right age and to pursue it as fast as he is able to travel."
Need of Some Common Standard. — All teachers are
agreed that practical arithmetic should be taught in the
elementary schools to the extent required by the demands
of modern life. The unsettled point in question is the
extent to which it shall be carried as a means of mental
discipline. This point cannot be decided by discussion.
It must be determined by careful examination and experi-
ment carried on in a spirit of scientific investigation. It
cannot be said, at present, that there is any fixed standard
of attainment which is generally agreed upon by teachers,
by school superintendents, or by other school of^cials.
However, the reform is well under way, and the methods
AM. PUB. SCH. 17
258 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
of old-time schoolmasters together with the " sums" and
** rules " of old-time text-books will become more and more
uncouth, and finally disappear altogether. It certainly is
educational barbarism to require pupils in rural schools or
in city grammar schools to cram a course in arithmetic
far in excess of the standard for admission into colleges
and universities.
CHAPTER VIII
PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES IN TEACHING ELEMENTARY
HISTORY
The valiicof history as a school study depends on the
manner in which^j^ is taught, and on what the term
"" history " is made to include. Not many years ago, when
learning history meant the memorizing and reciting of the
pages of a text-book, it is not to be wondered at that pupils
found the subject uninteresting, and that teachers regarded
history as of little educational value. But history is now
made to include stories, tradition, myths, biography, and
poetry in addition to formal text-book study. Instruction
begins with stories and oral lessons, and is made an im-
portant part of regular grade work throughout the whole
course. The Herbartians present history as a means of
promoting patriotism, of fitting for intelligent citizenship,
and above all, of moral training ; in other words, as the
chief means of forming character.
Oral Lessons in History. — Whatever instruction in
history is given in the second, third, fourth, fifth, and
sixth grades must, of necessity, be mainly by oral lessons.
Perhaps the majority of teachers are unaccustomed to
giving such lessons. This, however, is no reason why
they should not fit themselves for the work by thoughtful
practice. The training departments of state and city
normal schools are now sending out annually large num-
bers of graduates well trained in this line of work, and
many untrained teachers have the opportunity of visiting
259
26o APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
their classes and learning their methods by actual obser-
vation. The school journals are full of lessons and sug-
gestions in this direction. Moreover, there are several
books recently published which outline in detail the history
work that has been done by special teachers in the train-
ing classes connected with large normal schools. One of
these is the Special Method in History and Literature
by Charles A. McMurry, a book that is replete with com-
mon sense, and is imbued with a spirit of enthusiasm that
can hardly fail to convince the most doubtful teacher of
the value of oral lessons and the possibility of learning
how to give them.
Moreover, to meet the needs of the new method of
history teaching, there have been published within the
last few years a large number of history stories for young
children in the lower grades. Most of these inexpensive
little books have been written by teachers experienced in
teaching primary grades in public schools, and familiar
with the wants and needs of children. These history
sketches are fully in accord with the spirit of modern
educational thought. They are psychological in method
and interesting in style and illustration. Teachers can
safely study them as models for their own oral lessons, or
make use of them as supplementary reading matter in
jSchool.
/ The following outlines are suggestive only of begin-
inings, but their meagerness and simplicity can be supple-
mented by reference to the elaborate courses for the train-
ing classes connected with normal schools.
SECOND AND THIRD GRADES OR YEARS.
It may be well for a teacher inexperienced in giving
PRINICPLES IN TEACHING HISTORY 261
oral lessons to begin with a series of short talks in familiar
homelike language about Columbus and his discovery of
America ; about Washington, his boyhood, his life as a
surveyor, and his early experience in Indian warfare ; and
about Abraham Lincoln, as a study of the poverty and
hardships of pioneer life in the valley of the Mississippi.
" The oral treatment of such stories," says McMurry,
" when the personal interest, energy, and skill of the teacher
give the facts and scenes an almost real and tangible
form — this oral treatment is the thing and the only thing
to give a child the best start in historical study."
As an aid in this direction, teachers will do well to
secure such inexpensive leaflets of biography as are found
in The Young Folks' Library, consisting of short
sketches of Columbus, Washington, and Lincoln ; or in
those in the Werner Biographical Booklets, such as the
stories of Washington, Lincoln, Clay, Franklin, and
Webster, written by Dr. James Baldwin. Teachers who
think they cannot learn to tell such stories as these can at
least make them lifelike by reading them to their pupils.
My own faith in the awakening power of oral lessons is made strong
from my personal experience as a boy, as well as by my later experi-
ence as a teacher. My own interest in history began, when I was
six or seven years old, with stories about the Revolutionary War
told by my grandfather around the fireside on winter evenings. I
well remember my boyish admiration for him as he told me how he
ran away from home when he was only sixteen, to enlist in the
Revolutionary Army. And right there, over the fireplace, was the
old flint-lock gun that he brought back from the war. I also heard
many stories of famous Indian fights, handed down by tradition, for
my ancestors were New England pioneers. My oral lessons were
learned outside of school, but in the true psychological method.
When a little older, my interest in history was intensified by a book
of Stories About Indians, which my father gave me. That book I
read and re-read until I knew most of the stories by heart. This
262 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
method, also, was psychologically correct, but it was not then the
school method. So lively was the interest thus excited that I asked
the teacher to let me join a class of older boys who were studying
history of the United States. It was the recollection of my unsatis-
fied longing at this time for more books to read, which led me, a
quarter of a century afterwards, when State Superintendent of Public
Instruction in California, to secure by the most strenuous efforts, after
repeated failures, a state law which reserves a small percentage of
the school moneys apportioned to each school district to be expended
by the trustees and teacher in buying library books. Into these
school libraries there are now going, annually, thousands of volumes
of history stories, nature stories, and good literature for pupils and
also books of reference for the use of teachers.
FOURTH GRADE OR YEAR.
After giving an oral lesson, question the children on
the succeeding day to find out how much they remember
about it. It may be well in this grade to let pupils begin
to make notes of a very few important points. In country
schools taught by only one teacher, when there are only
two or three pupils in a grade, it will be advisable to put
several grades together. It will be well, also, w^hen the
teacher is crowded for time, to let pupils take home some
suitable history stories from the school library, if the
school is provided with a library. In graded city schools,
which are now quite generally provided with sets of his-
tory stories for supplementary reading, such books can be
read in school to supplement talks by the teacher.
TOPICS FOR ORAL LESSONS.
Stories of the settlement at Plymouth by the Pilgrims, and at
Boston by the Puritans.
Stories of the settlement of Virginia at Jamestown.
Stories of the settlement of Pennsylvania.
PRINCIPLES IN TEACHING HISTORY 263
Stories about the settlement of the pupils' own state, city, or
town.
Connect history with geography by locating on the map the places
named in histor>^ lessons.
BOOKS FOR THE TEACHER'S DESK OR THE SCHOOL LIBRARY.
Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans.
Brookes' Stories of the Old Bay State.
Mowry's First Steps in the History^ of Our Country.
Clarke's Story of Caesar.
Mara Pratt's American History Stories, Vol. I.
Guerber's Story of the Greeks.
McMurr>''s Pioneer History Stories. (This book is especially de-
signed for schools in the Valley of the Mississippi.)
Wagner's Pacific Coast History Stories, Vol. I. (This book is
specially designed for schools in the Pacific Coast States.)
Hittell's Brief History of California, Vol. I. Discovery and Early
Voyages. (California Classes.)
FIFTH GRADE OR YEAR.
In this grade pupils may be required not only to put
into their notebooks a few main points of topics pre-
sented, but also, occasionally, to write out a report of all
they can remember in the form of connected narrative.
Topics for Talks. — The Settlement of New York. Stories about
Washington, ending with an account of Braddock's Defeat. Stories
about Benjamin Franklin. Story of Sir Walter Raleigh and his
attempts at settlement. Settlement of the French in Canada. Settle-
ment of the Spaniards in America. Conquest of Mexico by Cortez.
The Indians of America. Stories of Indian Wars in connection with
accounts of pioneer life.
Books for Teachers or for School Libraries. — The following books
will be useful to teachers either as models of oral lessons, or as sources
from which to make selections to be read to the class, and they will be
useful in the school library for home reading by pupils : Swinton's
First Lessons in our Country's History. Eggleston's Stories of Amer-
264 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
ican Life and Adventure. Guerber's Story of the Thirteen Colonies.
Wright's Children's Stories of American History. McMurry's Pioneer
Histor)' Stories. Montgomery's Beginner's American History. Johon-
not's Stories of Our Country. Dodge's American History Stories.
Mowry's First Steps in the History of Our Country.
SIXTH GRADE OR YEAR.
In schools provided with sets of suitable history stories,
oral lessons may be varied by selections to be read in class,
or at home, and talked about in succeeding oral exercises.
TOPICS FOR LESSONS.
1. A more extended treatment of the four great centers of settlement
in our country, namely: Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, and
Pennsylvania.
2. Further accounts of the settlement of the children's own state.
3. Stories of the French and Indian War.
4. Stories of pioneer life in log cabins.
5. Common schools in colonial times.
Books for Teachers and School Libraries. — Eggleston's First Book
in American Histor)'. Pratt's American History Stories, Vols. II and
III. McMurr)''s Pioneer History Stories. Mowry's First Steps in the
History of Our Country.
SEVENTH GRADE OR YEAR.
In many graded city schools, pupils in this grade begin
to use some primary history of the United States, such as
Swinton's, or Eggleston's, or Montgomery's, or Mowry's,
either as a supplementary reader or as a text-book for
the formal and regular study of the subject. In ungraded
country schools, also, it is desirable, if practicable, that
some primary book should be read or studied by pupils.
But the use of a book should not be allowed to super-
sede altogetherthe oral lessons by the teacher. However,
PRINCIPLES IN TEACHING HISTORY 265
the use of a book will mainly determine the order of
topics. Teachers should now call in the aid of literature
to reinforce history lessons by reading, for example,
*' Paul Revere's Ride," " Grandmother's Story of Bunker
Hill Battle," " Lodge's Story of the Battles of Concord,
and Lexington, and Bunker Hill." The life of Washington
may be made the thread on which to string the events of
the War of the Revolution. Short biographical accounts
should be given of Franklin, John Adams, Jefferson,
Putnam, Greene, Morgan, Sumter, and other American
patriots.
Books for Teachers or for School Libraries. — Scudder's Life of
Washington ; Lodge's Story of the Revolution ; Mowry's First Steps
in the History of Our Country.
EIGHTH GRADE OR YEAR.
In the eighth grade, or in the eighth and ninth grades
where the school course includes nine years or grades, the
history of our country will be completed up to the pres-
ent time. The manner of using the adopted text-book,
whatever it is, must be determined by the judgment and
skill of the teacher. John Fiske's History of the United
States will prove useful, partly on account of its excel-
lence as a schoolbook, and partly on account of the great
value of the work of Dr. Hill in the way of topical anal-
ysis, suggestive questions and directions for teachers.
As additional books of reference, use John Bach Mc-
Master's School History of the United States (1897);
also McMaster's History of the People of the United
States, for reference.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS ON TEACHING HISTORY.
History and geography are correlative studies, and
266 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
skillful teachers will make each supplement the other.
In this study, more than in most other elementary school
branches, the teacher, by his skill, tact, and stores of in-
formation, can make the subject one of living interest.
Assignment of Lessons. — When an advance lesson is
assigned, call attention to the leading points, and let
pupils note them with pencil marks. A considerable part
of the history is intended, not to be memorized, but only
to be carefully read. If there are any reference books in
the school library, or if pupils have any at home, suggest
to the class some particular topic or topics about which
they may find fuller information.
Selection. — Of the early discoveries treated of so fully
in most text-books, single out three or four to be studied
with care, and let the remainder be read at home or in
the class. In the period of settlements, select the four
great centers, namely : Virginia, Massachusetts, New York,
and Pennsylvania. So in the Revolutionary War, single
out a very few marked events and have them learned so
that they cannot be forgotten. Dwell at length on events
that happened in the pupil's own state.
Literature. — If the battle of Bunker Hill is the subject
of a history lesson, read to your class the vivid picture of
it in " Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle " by
Oliver Wendell Holmes. If the battles of Lexington and
Concord are included in the lesson, read " Paul Revere's
Ride," and the story of these battles found in Lodge's
" Story of the Revolution." When the battle of Gettys-
burg is reached, read Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address and Bret Harte's " John Brown of Gettysburg."
Main Points. — Fix in the memory the causes and the
results of the War of the Revolution, the War of i8t2, the
War with Mexico, the Civil War, and the War with Spain ;
PRINCIPLES IN TEACHING HISTORY 267
but do not attempt to make pupils remember the dates of
many battles.
Chronology. — Do_not__attach much importance to
chronological tables, except for reference. Fix in the
minds of the pupils the dates of a few great events, and
fasten them there by frequent reviews. A multitude of
minor dates may be temporarily learned for to-day's les-
son, only to be crowded into oblivion by to-morrow's
recitation. " By means of history," says Montaigne,
'' the pupil enjoys intercourse with the great men of the
best periods ; but he must learn, not so much the year
and the day of the destruction of a city, as noble traits of
character ; not so much occurrences, as to form a correct
judgment upon them." A comprehension of the great
events of history, of their causes, results, and relations, is
more important than the verbatim memorizing of pages
of text-books.
Method. — Questions for written examinations should
be confined strictly to leading events and should include
veiy'"few dates. In part, assign lessons by topics, and
allow pupils to recite in their own language. Close the
text-book yourself, and you will be better satisfied with
the answers of pupils. Supplement the dry, condensed
statements of the text-book by anecdotes, incidents,
stories, and biographical sketches of noted men, drawn
from your own memory or from books.
In his Essentials of Method, De Garmo sums up the serious
defects in the teaching of history as follows : " History, like geography,
records a wilderness of facts. If our analysis of right methods is
correct, these facts should be grouped, not only so that they may be
remembered, but so that the lessons they should teach may appear in
the consciousness of the learner. This is true, not alone of the ethical
lessons with which history always abounds, but also of the immediate
ends for which men struggle. When the objective point for which a
268 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
war, a campaign, or a battle is conducted is once understood, it be-
comes a beacon-light by which the meaning of every movement may
be examined. Historical facts are then vitally related and easily re-
membered. But to require an unthinking memorizing of facts, to im-
part a knowledge of whose rational connection and significance de-
pends upon accident, and whose application never appears, is to pursue
a method as unpedagogical as it is easy."
Outlines of the World's History. — There seems to be
no good reason why pupils in the grammar school should
not learn something about the history of the world. By
means of ^ral lessons many thoughtful teachers are giving
their pupils general outlines of the great events of the^
past. There are many more who would give such lessons
were they authorized to do so by the course of study.
There are many educators who would welcome the ap-
pearance of a small handbook of general history suited
to the needs, not of high-school pupils, but of boys and
girls in the highest grade of the common schools.
CHAPTER IX
NATURAL METHODS IN TEACHING GEOGRAPHY
The following rough outlines of a course by grades
consists chiefly of practical hints and suggestions about
modern methods now generally pursued in teaching this
subject.
SECOND AND THIRD GRADES OR YEARS.
Oral Lessons. — As no text-books are used by pupils
in these grades, oral instruction must be given by the
teacher. In accordance with psychological method, a
beginning should be made by a study of that small part
of the earth which children see daily at school or at home.
Pupils should be taken to some good points of view near
the schoolhouse and their attention directed to such
natural divisions of land and water as they can there
see. In this way pupils may be made familiar with hill,
mountain, valley, plain, brook, river, etc. They can make
a real study that will fill their minds with pictures which
may afterwards be used in forming conceptions of things
that are represented by pictures, or described in words.
The attention of pupils should be called to the phe-
nomena of day and night, sunrise and sunset, the sun,
moon, and stars, clouds, wind, dew, rain, frost, snow, and
ice. This will set them to thinking about the causes of
what they observe. They should begin to collect speci-
mens of plants, and to learn the names of trees that grow
in the neighborhood of the school. If there is a mill, or
269
2/0 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
factory or blacksmith's shop in the vicinity, the class should
be taken on a visit to it. In rural schools, pupils should
make out lists of all the food products grown on the farms
of the neighborhood, lists of the birds in the vicinity, of
the occupations by which the people earn their living, etc.
The importance of this kind of introductory teaching is emphasized
by M. Elisee Reclus as follows : ** Certainly we must always take as a
starting-point what the child sees ; but does he see nothing more than
the school and the village ? That is the tip of his abode ; he also sees
the infinite heavens, the sun, stars, and moon. He sees the storms,
the clouds, the rain, the distant horizon, the mountains, the hills, the
downs or simple undulations, and the trees and shrubs. Let him
attentively notice all these things, and let them be described to him.
This is real geography, and to learn the child has not to go beyond
the things which surround him, and which are exhibited to him in
their infinite variety."
Further than this, a few lessons may be given in connection with
the school globe, showing the shape of the earth, the rotation of the
earth, the continents and the oceans.
Helps for Teachers. — Among numerous good books for use by
teachers there is one that reaches the high-water mark of modem
elementary instruction in geography — Redway and Hinman's Na-
tural Elementary Geography. Suggestive exercises for beginners
will be found in Geographical Nature Studies by Frank Owen Payne,
and in McMurry's Special Course in Geography.
FOURTH GRADE OR YEAR.
In this grade a Primary Geography is usually placed in
the hands of pupils, though in some schools, the use of
a text-book is postponed until the fifth year. The intro-
ductory pages of local geography will naturally be suc-
ceeded by special oral lessons on town, city, and state
geography, and by an extension of the nature study
begun in previous grades. Pupils should now begin to
study maps and to draw rough outlines. The wall-maps
NATURAL METHOD IN TEACHING GEOGRAPHY 27 1
most needed for school use will be a county map, a state
map, the United States, North America, and the hemi-
spheres. A little modeling with clay or sand is desirable
if conditions and surroundings are favorable.
The inductive lessons on home and state geography
must soon be followed by a general view of the earth as a
whole, its great natural divisions of land and water, its im-
aginary divisions, and some of its political divisions. The
psychological or inductive method must be carried along
with the logical or formal method. Pupils must now
begin to pass from the home-world of direct perception
to a broader world, pictured in imagination after a study
of maps, descriptions, and pictorial representation.
Teachers should take great pains in training pupils how
to study text-book lessons. No intelligent teacher will
follow the old method of requiring pupils to memorize in
detached lessons, the entire text-book. There are some
things in the text-book that should be memorized, but
much of the text is only to be read, or to be used for ref-
erence. The skill of the teacher will be shown by a wise
grouping of important things. The work to be done must
necessarily be determined, in part, by the kind of a text-
book in use.
Out-of-door Studies.— I^f^_ £ossible, pupils should^ be
taken on excursions to pointsoi m terestin th e neighbor-
-fKFSH, or the surroundmg country? 1 hey must be shown
how to study the plants ajid animals which they see with
leTr own UVt^s : to observe the farms, gardens, shops,
factories, and the industrial pursuits of the people among
whom they live. De Garmo says : '' Geographical instruc-
tion must, above all, stimulate the creation of vivid
mental pictures which shall come close to the reality. To
awaken and to form pictures of the imagination must be
272 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
considered the great purpose of geography, however dif-
ficult the task may be."
Helps for Teachers — Redway and Hinman's Natural
Elementary Geography.
FIFTH GRADE OR YEAR.
The study of local state geography should be a con-
tinuation and extension of the work of the preceding
grade. In accordance with the arrangement of most text-
books, it will be advisable for the class to take up the
study of North America as a whole, and of the United
States as a whole, and by sections.
Map Drawing. — Special attention should be given to
the proper study of maps, and to map-drawing. In gen-
eral, black board map-drawing in the ro u.gh_is be tter than
labored drawings with pen or pencil. Map-drawing
should not be made a hobby ; kept within due limits, the
exercise is good, but it often runs into a waste of time
and labor. Let pupils draw upon the blackboard, from
the open book, on a large scale, an outline map of their
own state, and, if possible, of their own country. Then
them let outline the grand divisions. Finally require them
to outline off-hand, from memory. The school globe
should be used to enable pupils to form a correct idea of
the relative position on the earth of the continents and
oceans represented on maps. Clay modeling if practicable.
What to Omit. — As school geographies are designed
for use in all parts of our country, they are necessarily
crowded with details to meet the wants of each state or
locality. The sensible teacher will omit all that belongs
to the local or special geography of states other than that
in which the pupils reside. Do not expect children to
NATURAL METHOD IN TEACHING GEOGRAPHY 273
know more of a lesson than you remember without re-
ferring to the text-book. If you forget details, it is a sure
sign that your pupils will forget them, and therefore it is
best not to require such details to be learned at all.
If oral lessons in history are given to pupils, or if some
book of history stories is used for supplementary reading,
it is hardly necessary to suggest that all places of early
settlement in our country, or other places marked by im-
portant events should be located on the map.
In addition to North America and the United States,
it is desirable that there should be some study of Europe,
on account of our commercial relations with European
countries. Special attention should be given to the Brit-
ish Isles. If the Primary Geography is to be completed
in this grade, a few general lessons will be required on
South America, Asia, and Africa. For reference and
reading. Carpenter's Geographical Reader — North
America.
SIXTH GRADE OR YEAR.
In this grade pupils generally begin the use of the
larger or complete text-book. Some attention must be
given to the introductory lessons and to the outlines of
mathematical and physical geography. The United
States should be taken up by groups or sections.
Main Points. — Pupils are not expected to learn the
boundaries of all the states nor even to name all the capitals.
But they should be able at the end of the year to name
the leading products of each group of states ; to locate
from two to five of the chief cities in each group, and to
locate the chief rivers of commercial importance. Also
to name the chief mountain ranges and the most impor-
AM. PUB. SCH. — 18
274 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
tant rivers of the United States as a whole, and to name
the leading industries of each group of states.
Special Topics. — The major topic of the class should
be the geography of Europe. The following are a few
among many special topics to be studied by pupils :
(a) London, as the center of the world's commerce.
{b) Glasgow, for building iron ships,
(r) Manchester, as a typical manufacturing center.
{d) Paris, the city of arts.
(<?) The scenery of Switzerland.
(/) The scenery of the Rhine.
(^) Rome and its architecture.
{h) The Mediterranean Sea, its commercial and historical impor-
tance, etc.
SEVENTH GRADE OR YEAR.
The work in this grade should include a general study
of Asia, Africa, South America, Australia, and the island
groups of the Pacific. The main topics for Asia will be
British India, China, and Japan ; of Africa, the gold and
diamond mines of South Africa, Egypt, the Nile, the
pyramids, and ruined temples; of South America, the
Andes, the Amazon, Brazil, Chili, Peru, and the Argen-
tine Republic ; of Australia, its peculiar animals and
plants, its gold mines, and stock farms.
EIGHTH AND NINTH YEARS.
Some time should be given to a detailed study of the
political geography of the United States. The main work
should include a special study of physical geography, and
of the commercial relations of different countries. Teach-
ers will find The Natural Advanced Geography, by
Red way and Hinman (1898), a desirable guide in teaching
NATURAL METHOD IN TEACHING GEOGRAPHY 275
geography in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, sup-
plemented by any other modern text-books at hand.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS ON METHODS.
Value. — Geography is a treatment- of maa's material
relations to the earth on which he dwells. It is an intro-
duction to the political, industrial, commercial, and social
relations of mankind. It is a medium through which
pupils can be led into elementary science work. It is an
important aid in the study of history. William T.
Harris says, in the report of the Committee of Fifteen
(1895) : "About one fourth of the material relates strictly
to the geography ; about one half to the inhabitants,
their manners, customs, institutions, industries, produc-
tions ; and the remaining fourth to mineralogy, meteor-
ology, botany, zoology, and astronomy.'*
Method. — During the past ten years there has been a
marked advance in the general method of teaching ele-
mentary geography. In the latest school text-books the
subject is introduced in a psychological rnanner, that is,
by directing the attention of children to the phenomena
of earth, air, and water, about which they already know
something. Topography has been simplified, and more
space is given to the industrial and commercial relations
of mankind, and to the fauna and flora of the earth.
In criticising the common method of teaching geography, De Garmo
says in Essentials of Method : " But perhaps the most serious fault
of the current methods of teaching geography is, that the child is not
taught to look within and beyond the individual fact he learns. The
subject remains in its individual stage. There is no passing from in-
dividual to general notions, no application of geographical principles
to new particulars. For this reason, no geographical fact appears to
have more than a momentary and accidental relation to any other.
2/6 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
Facts are learned only to be forgotten, or to lie in the soul isolated
and devoid of significance."
Essentials. — It fs essen tial that teachers sho uld keep
clearly in view the main things whicli ought t'o^Be learned
"so well that they will be retained for life. These should
be welded into a chain of relations and associations. For
instance, it is important for pupils to connect history
with geography by learning the geographical situation of
places marked by events of great historical importance.
It is evident that pupils should know the location of cities
and countries most frequently mentioned in newspapers
as they report the daily history of the world. It is evi-
dent that the geography of Europe is vastly more im-
portant than the geography of Africa, South America, or
Asia. It is important to know something about the great
trade centers of our country, such as New York, Chicago,
Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, etc. ; it is unimpor-
tant to know the exact location of Timbuktu, Haidar-
abad, Ujiji, or Chingtu.
Natural Science. — As about one fourth of the matter
in school text-books on geography relates to botany,
zoology, mineralogy, meteorology, and astronomy, it is
evident that lessons in geography are closely connected
with lessons in natural science. The disconnected facts
as they appear in the description of the plants and
minerals of different countries must be gathered into con-
nected groups in the lessons on nature study. The cor-
relation of geography and history is self-evident and needs
only to be mentioned.
Examinations. — In schools where promotions from
one grade to another are made by means of written ex-
aminations, the questions given by principals or superin-
tendents will of necessity mainly determine the kind of
NATURAL METHOD IN TEACHING GEOGRAPHY
277
instruction which will be given by teachers. If the
questions are chiefly on unimportant details, the teaching
wnr run in that direction, and all hope of reform will be
vain.
The Modem View. — In a recent paper read before a meeting of the
Chicago school principals (1898), Colonel Parker said: " The most
essential truth in modern psychology is the doctrine of ajJ Berception.
which is that ever}^ image consists of an expansion and concentration'
of images already in the mind ; that fundamental images are gained
through the senses ; and the function of the text-book is the union of
such images into wholes. The best schoolhouse on earth is out of
doors. Descriptions of things cannot take the place of actual contact
with the reality. The line of progress in the future must have its root
in out-door work. Field excursions have a stimulating influence.
Children must see the animal in its habitat, the tree with its surround-
ings, must feel the earth under their feet. The history of the earth is
written in its surface — erosion of river valleys, the making and mix-
ing of soils, the washing of the surface, and countless other interest-
ing and profitable problems are ours to study. A child must go
through the same process eventually in arriving at truth as scientists
do, though he may be so guided that his line of resistance is shorter,
but human development has forever the same laws, and at the base of
these laws is the great one of self-activity."
•' It is extraordinary," says President Eliot, " what interest and train-
ing power are imparted to geography simply by the addition of one
means, namely, photographs of scenery. There is no point in refer-
ence to the formation of plains and plateaus, of mountains and valleys,
of lakes and rivers, which cannot be beautifully illustrated by photo-
graphs. I say, therefore, that the grammar school of the future will
have within its walls a large assortment of models, charts, maps,
globes, and photographs for the teaching of geography."
CHAPTER X
THE NATURAL METHOD IN NATURE STUDIES
Nature study was begun in the schools of this country
in the form of " object lessons," introduced from the
schools of England. These lessons partook largely of
English formalism. As indicated by the early text-books,
the leading aim was to crowd great masses of *' facts "
upon children. In the Oswego normal school the method
was made successful by Mr. Sheldon, and in the city of
New York, by Mr. Calkins. But in the hands of unskilled
teachers object lessons often became a dead formalism.
Still they led up to nature study which, during the past
ten years, has been so generally pressed upon the atten-
tion of teachers.
The desirability, not to say the necessity, of beginning
in the earliest years of school life some course of instruc-
tion in nature study is now generally recognized and
acted upon. It is impracticable to mark out definitely
any course adapted to the diverse conditions of differ-
ent schools.
One teacher will make a special study of plant life ; an-
other, of animal life; a third may choose metals and
minerals ; a fourth, physics. Whatever line of work is
taken will prove profitable, if it is patiently carried out
in a spirit of scientific observation and investigation.
The elaborate courses that are successfully carried out in
the small classes of normal training schools will fail in the
crowded classes of city primary schools. The needs of a
278
THE NATURAL METHOD IN NATURE STUDIES
279
small country school having all grades of pupils and only
one teacher are widely different from the wants of city
classes. All that I purpose to do, therefore, is to offer
a few hints, and make a few rough outlines which may
possibly be of some use to teachers that attempt to lead
their pupils in the paths of nature study.
FIRST AND SECOND GRADES OR YEARS.
From some suitable book on nature study select a few
lessons and read them to the children, or better still, learn
the lessons and tell the story in your own words. In
season, plant in flower-pots a few sweet-peas, beans, and
grains of wheat, etc., and let the children watch their
growth. Give, occasionally, an object lesson on fruits and
flowers. If you take the Primary School Journal, select
from it such exercises as you find available. Start con-
versation lessons about frogs and fishes. If possible, take
the children where they can see live frogs and fishes in
their native element.
Within the last few years, there have been published
large numbers of nature stories and nature studies, de-
signed to meet the needs of children in primary grades.
They have been written, in general, by teachers engaged
for years in instructing young children. They are charm-
ing in style and in illustration. They are also psycho-
logical in general method. Secure some of these inex-
pensive books and study them as models for your own
oral lessons. If you have little or no time for preparing
oral lessons, begin your work by reading short extracts
from some one of these books. In time you will become
interested in your work, and will make up your own ex-
ercises.
280 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
THIRD AND FOURTH GRADES.
Plant Life. — Ask the children to plant at home, in
flower-pots, boxes, or garden beds, peas, beans, wheat, and
corn. Ask them to make a memorandum of the date of
planting, and of the date when they come up, and re-
port in writing to the teacher. Then ask them to make,
once a week, a rough drawing of the appearance of each
plant, and hand it in to the teacher. It will add to the
interest of this lesson if the teacher will plant a few of the
same kinds of seeds, dig up one, from time to time, and
show pupils the progress of germination. Take into
school specimens of plants, leaves, and flowers, distribute
them to pupils, and show them how to make a study of
them. Let pupils begin to make rough outline sketches
of leaves, plants, and flowers from objects. The teacher's
desk should be supplied with an inexpensive magnifying
glass, to be used by pupils, or children should be en-
couraged to buy glasses for themselves. Set the pupils
to observing forms of plant life in the gardens and fields.
Ask them to bring in lists of all kinds of trees they can
find, etc.
The teacher will do well to use as a handbook, Bailey's First Les-
sons with Plants. In this little volume, Professor L. H. Bailey, of
Cornell University has fully sustained his reputation as the author of
numerous books on horticulture and agriculture, and of the school
bulletins on plant life that have been so widely distributed among the
common schools in the state of New York. In his preface to this
book the author remarks that the lessons are designed to awaken an
interest in plants and in nature rather than to teach botany. When
the teacher thinks chiefly of his subject, he teaches a science ; when
he thinks chiefly of the pupil, he teaches nature study. Mr. Bailey
sets forth four chief requisites in nature study if the pupil is to catch
inspiration from it :
" ( I ) . The subject itself must interest the pupil. This means that the
THE NATURAL METHOD IN NATURE STUDIES 28 1
instruction begins witli the commonest things, with those which are
actually a part of the pupil's life.
" (2). The pupil must feel that the work is his, and that he is the in-
vestigator.
'• (3) . Little should be attempted at a time. One thought or one sug-
gestion may be enough for one day. The suggestion that insects
have six legs is sufficient for one lesson. We obscure the importance
of common things by cramming the mind with facts. When the pupil
is taught to take systematic notes upon what the teacher says, it is
doubtful if the lesson is worth the while, as nature study.
" (4). The less rigid the system of teaching and the fewer the set
tasks, the more spontaneous and, therefore, the better, is the result. A
codified system of examinations will choke the life out of nature
study."
Animal Life. — Observation studies on bees, or ants,
or butterflies, first, at home, or in field or garden ; after-
wards, in school. In season, secure a few cocoons and let
the children watch the transformation of the chrysalis into
a butterfly. In tadpole season, ask the boys to catch a
few polliwogs and bring them to school in a glass jar
filled with water. Then set the whole class on the watch
to see the wonderful transformation of the tadpole into
a frog.
Miscellaneous. — Take incidental lessons on various
kinds of fruits, in season ; on the thermometer and the
weather changes of heat and cold, rain and snow, winds
and clouds, etc. On the moon and its phases; on iron,
gold, and coal, etc. Rough outline drawings of suitable
objects under investigation. Read to pupils nature stories
from selected books, and afterwards lend the books to the
children. If possible, take your class out into city parks
or country'' fields and woods to study nature at first hand.
FIFTH AND SIXTH GRADES.
Plant Life. — Special study of a few common wild flow-
282 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
ers, such as : the violet, buttercup, and wild rose ; of the
blossoms of fruit trees, such as : the apple, peach, pear,
and plum ; the growth of plants, etc. As a handbook
use Bailey's First Lessons with Plants.
Animal Life. — Typical specimens of radiates and mol-
lusks, such as : the star-fish, the clam, or the oyster ; in-
sect life, such as bees or ants ; bird life, as shown by the
birds of the neighborhood.
Metals and Minerals. — Short lessons on common rocks
such as granite, sandstone, marble, slate, etc. ; metals such
as iron, copper, lead, etc. Encourage pupils to begin the
collection of a school cabinet. Observation lessons in
connection with geography.
Physiology and Hygiene. — Rules of health in respect
to wholesome food, pure air, and personal cleanliness.
Effects of narcotic and alcoholic stimulants.
SEVENTH TO NINTH GRADES.
Plant Life. — As a guide to pupils who are to be put
to a real study of nature, the teacher will do well to use
Bailey's Lessons with Nature, which is the larger book
of which the First Lessons is an abridgment. For use
in rural schools and as a library book this volume is un-
equaled. The preface is in itself a good manual of sug-
gestions.
In connection with geography, the teacher can take up
occasional lessons on the distribution of plant and animal
life on the globe. The wise teacher will be in no haste
to begin technical botany by classifying plants. First in
order of study comes empirical knowledge ; afterwards
scientific knowledge and nomenclature. Beginners store
up facts by items, often in an indirect and desultory
THE NATURAL METHOD IN NATURE STUDIES
283
manner. Mere text-book study of natural science, with-
out observation and experiment by the pupils, is not
knowledge. The real guide to true knowledge is a habit
of observing. Agassiz says, " The difficult art of thinking,
of comparing, of discriminating, can be more readily ac-
quired by examining natural objects for ourselves than in
any other way."
Physics. — The extent to which elementary lessons
in physics can be carried depends upon conditions, but
something can be done in any school. Experiments can
be made with the simplest kind of improvised apparatus.
Encourage pupils to make simple experiments at home or
by themselves.
Physical Geography. — Climatic zones and their effect
on the distribution of animal and vegetable life. The
sea and its inhabitants. Ocean currents and their effect
on climate.
Real Work. — By well-put questions, set pupils to ob-
serving the habits of animals and birds, of ants, bees,
wasps, flies, and butterflies. Persuade them to buy a
magnifying glass or a cheap microscope, and begin ex-
amining things for themselves. If you wish to succeed,
you must do the actual work of the naturalist, and must
make your pupils do it. You must fit yourself to do this
work by taking an interest in it. It is not at all necessary
that you should be a specialist in botany, zoology, or
natural philosophy ; but it is essential that you should
know something about the true methods of the specialist.
Taken up in the right spirit, instruction in the natural
sciences can be made one of the most effective means of
education.
" The first teaching a child wants," says Huxley, " is an object-
lesson of one sort or another ; and as soon as it is fit for systematic
284 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
instruction, it is fit for a modicum of science. If not snubbed and
stunted by being told not to ask foolish questions, there is no limit to
the intellectual craving of a young child, nor any bounds to the slow
but solid accretion of knowledge, and the development of the think-
ing faculty in this way."
Charles W. Eliot says in the Unity of Educational Reform : " Into
the curricula of schools and colleges alike, certain new matters have
of late years been introduced, for teaching which the older methods
of instruction — namely, the lecture and the recitation — proved to be
inadequate, or even totally inapplicable. These new matters are
chiefly object-lessons in color and form, drawing and modeling,
natural sciences like botany, zoology, chemistry, physics, min-
eralogy, and geology, and various kinds of manual training. In
school and college alike the real effective teaching in all these sub-
jects is that which is addressed to each individual pupil. The old-
fashioned method of teaching science by means of illustrated books
and demonstrative lectures has been superseded, from the kinder-
garten to the university by the laboratory method, in which each
pupil, no matter whether he be three years old or twenty-three, works
with his own hands and is taught to use his own senses."
Nature Study for Grammar Grades (1899), by Wilbur S. Jackman
of the Department of Natural Science, Chicago Normal School, is an in-
valuable book for teachers that desire to undertake substantial prac-
tical work. The author in his preface sets forth general principles
worth keeping clearly in mind. " That pupils need some rational
and definite directions in nature study, all are generally agreed. But
to prepare the outlines and suggestive directions necessary, and to
place these within the reach of each pupil, is more than the ordinary
teacher has time to do, even granting that she is fully prepared for such
work. With a manual of directions in hand, each pupil may be made
responsible for a certain amount of work, either in the field or in the
laboratory. The author would suggest that the teacher assign a
certain topic and then give appropriate opportunity for the pupils to
study it, either in the field or in the laboratory, along the lines sug-
gested in the book. After such study, the pupils will be prepared to
meet in general class discussion, and the subsequent steps, drawing,
painting, modeling, writing, etc., may follow in proper order."
Helpful Books for Beginners. — Burt's Little Nature Stories for Little
People ; Morley's Seed Babies ; Deane's Little Talks About Plants ;
THE NATURAL METHOD IN NATURE STUDIES 285
Burt's Nature Stories — Plant Life and Animal Life ; Bailey's First
Lessons With Plants ; Herrick's Chapters on Plant Life ; Kirby's
Stories About Birds ; Miller's Little Brothers of the Air ; Andersen's
Stories Mother Nature told her Children ; Strong's All the Year
Round, Four Parts — Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ; Johonnot's
Feathers and Fur, and Claws and Hoofs ; Kelly's Short Stories of
our Shy Neighbors.
Helpful Books for Grammar Grades. — Bailey's Lessons with Plants
(1898); Herrick's Chapters on Plant Life ; Needham's Outdoor Studies ;
Burt's Birds and Bees (from John Burroughs) ; Newell's Reader in
Botany, Vols. I and H ; Scudder's Life of a Butterfly; Seaside and
Wayside Series, Vol. Ill (for 4th and 5th Grades) ; Vol. IV
(For 5th to 9th Grades) ; Dana's Plants and their Children (7th to 9th
Grades).
Reference Books for Teachers in Graded Schools. Mrs. L. L. Wilson's
Nature Study in Elementary Schools ; Boydon's Nature Study
by Months (1898) ; Jackman's Nature Study in Grammar Grades
(1889); John Muir's Mountains of California; E. S. Thompson's
Wild Animals that I have Known.
CHAPTER XI
MODERN VIEWS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE
One of the most hopeful features of modern education
is the growing recognition of the importance of physical
training. It may be true that the leading purpose of the
public school is intellectual training. It must be admitted
that the physical condition of children depends, in part,
upon home surroundings and inherited constitution. But
though teachers have no direct control over pupils in
respect to diet, clothing, exercise, rest, sleep, work, or
play, they must not, on that account shirk their appro-
priate share of responsibility in relation to the health and
physical development of school children.
Negative Duties. — There are certain negative duties
which are self-evident. Teachers should at least protect
their pupils against impure air, too long confrn cmcn t , -
overwork, and the deadening effects of mental worry,
caused by severe competitive written examinations. A
great deal more than this ought to be done ; but in many
schools not even this is attempted. Nevertheless it is
the duty of teachers, whether in the primary, grammar,
or high school, whether in city or country, to impress
upon pupils, by emphatic iteration, the laws of health in
relation to food, air, cleanliness, sleep, rest, exercise, play,
work, and personal habits in general. President G. Stanley
Hall, of Clark University, says in a pkper on child study : '
1 The Forum, Dec, 1893.
286
MODERN VIEWS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE 287
" The juvenile world now goes to school and has its brain titil-
lated and tattooed, and we have entirely forgotten that men have been
not only good citizens but great, who were in Idyllic ignorance of
even the belauded invention of Cadmus. Now, j^ this tremendous
school engine, in which everybody believes now with a catholic con-
sensus of belief perhaps never before attained, is in the least de gree
tending to deteriorate rnnnVinH^j2hyt;i.;';^|ly, jt jg \y^c\ Knowledge
bougHTat the expense of health, which is wholeness or holiness it-
self in its higher aspect, is not worth what it costs. Health condi-
tions all the highest joys of life, means full maturity, national pros-
perity. May we not reverently ask. What shall it profit a child if he
gain the whole world of knowledge and lose his health, or what shall
he give in exchange for his health ? That this is coming to be felt
is seen in the rapidly growing systems of school excursions, school
baths, school gardens, school lunches, provisions for gymnastics of
the various schools, medical inspection, school polyclinics, all of
which have been lately repeatedly prescribed and officially normalized.
Not all, but many of these, are quite new. The assumption is that
all must be judged from the standpoint of health, and that an edu-
cational system must make children better, and not worse, in health."
Systematic Drill. — It is sometimes said that systematic
drill soon becomes irksome to children ; that boys dislike
the gymnasium, and that girls find calisthenics wearisome ;
that it is not natural for children to use wands and dumb-
bells ; and that boys and girls should be left to follow
their own inclinations and impulses about exercises and
amusement. Now school drill is designed not to super-
sede, but to supplement, the natural games and plays of
children. In mental training, we recognize the principle
that intellectual development is attained only by repeated,
long-continued, and systematic exercises. Mental school
gymnastics are rigidly enforced for many years. The
same law holds true in physical development. Would not
the physique of a class of boys under gymnastic training
for ten years be superior to that of a class left to run wild ?
And would not their accumulated stock of trained mus-
288 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
cular power be quite as serviceable to them through life
as a great deal of what is called mental discipline ? All
the world's best workers know that success depends
largely upon sound health and power of endurance.
Sinewy frames as well as trained minds are essential to
the sons of workingmen who have to make their own way
in the world. For them muscular power means food,
clothing, and a living. Their only capital in the struggle
for existence is an elementary education and a sound
body. *' Health is the first wealth," says Emerson.
Practical Suggestions. — In every school, whether in
city or country, there should be given a daily drill of five
or ten minutes in free gymnastics. Without apparatus
and without music, a skillful teacher can secure very good
results from what are termed, " free gymnastics," exe-
cuted by counting in time. To these there may be added
" breathing exercises," and concert exercises in vocal
culture or in singing. Both wands and dumb-bells can
be used in any schoolroom. If there is a piano in the
schoolroom, the light gymnastic drill can be made quite
varied and thorough with no other appliances.
Athletics. — The man who understands boys will either
join with them, or will encourage and direct them in
their games of baseball and football ; in boating, swim-
ming, skating, coasting, and snowballing ; and will take
an interest in their games of marbles, in kite-flying and
top-spinning. On pleasant Saturdays, or after school
in the long summer days, he will take his pupils on ex-
cursions in the fields, woods, or hills after collections for
the cabinet, or to see nature, or merely to have a good
time. The woman who understands little children will
invite them to pleasant walks with her for the same
purpose.
MODERN VIEWS ON PH
589
Games and Plays. — The games of the primar)^ children
must not be forgotten. By a little attention to the play-
ground, their sports may be regulated and made delight-
ful. Marbles, tops, kites, balls, and hoops are all a part
of educational apparatus. A visit to a kindergarten and
a careful study of some kindergarten manual will be very
suggestive in the direction of play and amusements.
Teachers must study variety, for monotonous repetition
soon becomes distasteful. Notice how marbles succeed
tops, and kites follow ball, as often as the moon changes.
The indirect lessons of the playground are often more
valuable and more lasting than the formal teachings of
the class-room. For it is in the hours of play, when off
duty, that the teacher can best win the confidence and
love of children.
" From a health point of view," says Francis H. Tabor, " There
can be no comparison between a good healthy game — in which
every muscle is suitably exercised, and brain and lungs join in the
complete happiness of the honest laugh and the careless shout — and
the " dead alive " military drill, or formal gymnastics, which, while
developing many muscles abnormally, leave the brain torpid and the
spirit depressed. But the game must be regulated, if its full benefits
are to be reaped. Unselfishness must be practised at every turn ; the
strong must help the weak ; and the weak must be aroused, that they
may not be a drag upon the strong. . . . The code of honor among
true sportsmen is so rigid that truth and fair dealing become as im-
portant as a well-balanced bat or sound ball. Manliness, energy,
courage, endurance, all follow, not because they are said to be good,
but because they seem to be good and dLxafelt to be absolutely essen-
tial to the attainment of an object that is all in all to the boy." 1
Manual Training as an Educational Factor. — The
recent introduction of manual training into city schools
marks a very important step in advance. The pioneer
1 The Forum, May, 1899.
AM. PUB. SCH. — 19.
290
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
schools of manual training were founded and endowed
by wealthy business men who desired to supplement
the elementary education of the public schools by af-
fording boys a technical training which would enable
them to earn a living. The success of these schools at-
tracted the attention of public school officials, and ex-
periments were made by organizing classes, first in high
schools and afterwards in the higher grades of grammar
schools.
Plan. — The plans, as carried out in Boston, Chicago,
New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and many other
cities, involve the introduction of woodwork, cooking, and
sewing in the higher grammar grades, two hours a week
being given to each subject. In 1896 manual training was
an essential feature in the public school course of ninety-
five cities. In the beginning, manual training was urged
mainly as a special preparation for some industrial pur-
suit, but now it is advocated as an important factor in a
general education. Training in the use of tools in the
shops leads to mental habits of careful attention. It leads
to interest in drawing and the practical application of
arithmetic and geometry. Indeed it seems to be doing
for the grammar and the high school what kindergarten
training does for the little children.
" The best education has come from contact with nature," says Earl
Barnes. " It is absurd to say that Abraham Lincoln was uneducated
because he did not have the advantages of the schools. He was
educated for the work of his life, even if most of his clay work was
done with a hoe, his wood work with an ax, his physics with a
crowbar. A face-to-face struggle with nature has given the best men
of the country to-day."
The Report of the Commissioner of Education (1896-
97) says : " Strong opposition was met among school-
MODERN VIEWS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE 291
men for a time, but manual training has steadily grown
in popularity, and, with its growth, it has constantly im-
proved in matter and method, and consequently in use-
fulness." In this Report the statistics and courses of in-
struction are given of 66 manual and industrial training
schools and 24 industrial schools for Indian children.
On the pedagogical value of manual training Professor
William James, of Harvard, writes in a recent article as
follows : 1
" The most colossal improvement which recent years have seen in
secondary education lies in the introduction of the manual training
schools ; not because they will give us a people more handy and
practical for domestic life and better skilled in trades, but because
they will give us citizens with an entirely different intellectual fiber.
Laboratory work and shop work engender a habit of observation, a
knowledge of the difference between accuracy and vagueness, and an
insight into nature's complexity and into the inadequacy of all abstract
verbal accounts of real phenomena, which once wrought into the mind
remain there as life-long possessions. They confer precision; be-
cause if you are doing a thing, you must do it definitely right or de-
finitely wrong. . . . They beget a habit of self-reliance ; they keep the
interest and attention always cheerfully engaged, and reduce the
teacher's disciplinary functions to a mininum."
^ Atlantic Monthly, March, 1899.
CHAPTER XII
MODERN TRAINING IN MORALS AND MANNERS
While intellectual training is made, in practice, the most
prominent object of the public school, the importance of
moral training is universally acknowledged. " The vital
part of human culture," says William Russell, ** is not
that which makes a man what he is intellectually ; but
that which makes him what he is in heart, life, and char-
acter."
Indirect Training. — Now there is no doubt that the
strict discipline of the public school is in itself a powerful
means of indirect moral training. Pupils are trained to
habits of order, silence, regularity, punctuality, industry,
truthfulness, obedience, and a regard for the rights of
others. The influence of school, continued for a series of
years, in these respects, is very powerful in the formation
of habit and character. But beyond these incidental and
indirect results, what is it possible for the schools to ac-
complish in the way of moral development ?
There are some who believe that there can be little or no
moral culture unless it is given in connection with author-
itative religious instruction in creed or catechism. But
at present in our public schools, by law or by custom,
purely secular instruction is the rule ; religious exercises,
other than the reading of the Bible, are the exception.
In so far, then, as moral training is connected with relig-
ious instruction, the matter must be left to the home, the
Sunday-school, and the church. What remains to be
292
MODERN TRAINING IN MORALS AND MANNERS
293
done in the public school, and how shall it best be ac-
complished ? While there are many who seem to think
that nothing whatever can be done, except indirectly,
there are others who believe that much may be accom-
plished by direct training and instruction.
Motive. — If moral training consisted merely in telling
children what is right or wrong, or in dealing out maxims
and proverbs ; if it would make children truthful and
honest to learn commandments by rote, — then the teach-
er's task would indeed be an easy one. But moral culture
concern s_j he feelings^ the emotions, jh L£.^adIly>4W-€oa^ .
s cience . Hence the successful teacher must be a trusted
friend and guide, not a mere bundle of philosophical
ethics. The moral nature must be called into daily exer-
cise until habits of right-thinking result in habits of right-
doing. And this process of development is slow and al-
most imperceptible.
*' Whatever moral benefit can be effected by education,"
says Herbert Spencer, "must be effected by an education
that is emotional rather than perceptive. If, in place of
making a child understand that this thing is right and the
other wrong, you make it feel that they are so ; if you
make virtue loved and vice loathed ; if you arouse a noble
desire and make torpid an inferior one ; if you bring into
life a previously dormant sentiment ; if you cause a sym-
pathetic impulse to get the better of one that is selfish ;
if, in short, you produce a state of mind to which proper
behavior is natural, spontaneous, instinctive — you do
some good."
Methods. — Methods of conducting moral lessons in
school must be gathered up by experience and observa-
tion. A warm heart, a genial nature, an even temper, a
beaming eye, a cheerful countenance, a sincere voice,
294 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
an earnest manner — these are the potential agencies by
which you can win, direct, and control young pupils.
Teachers should keep fresh in mind their own feelings,
passions, emotions, impulses, sympathies, and experiences
when they were children, and thus avoid the grievous
mistake of applying to school children the moral philos-
ophy suited only to adult metaphysicians. Children
should not only be taught what is right ; they must also
be made to do what is right. The school is a miniature
world ; in one way or another it affords opportunities for
the practice of most of the moral virtues. Strict discipline
trains pupils to habits of obedience and order, corrects
bad habits, and compels the lawless to respect the rights
of others ; but in addition to this it is possible for a
teacher to breathe into a school a spirit of honor, truth-
fulness, and honesty which will put down profanity,
vulgarity, slang, slander, tattling, lying, and meanness
generally.
Stories and Books. — One of the most effective ways
of giving moral lessons is by reading or telling to pupils
stories or anecdotes illustrating some virtue to which the
teacher desires to call attention ; such as honor, truthful-
ness, courage, or honesty. " Stories of great and noble
deeds," says Bain, " have fired more youthful hearts with
enthusiasm than sermons have." If there is a school
library, make good use of it by calling the special atten-
tion of pupils to the biographies and story books that
you think best fitted to become your assistants in moral
development. The high ideals presented in good books
will result in a rich harvest of noble sympathies and right
actions. Weems' Life of Washington was one of the few
books that fell into the hands of Abraham Lincoln when
he was a boy living in a log cabin ; who can estimate the
MODERN TRAINING IN MORALS AND MANNERS
295
high ideals which this patriotic book, in spite of its exag-
gerated rhetoric, suggested to this solitary boy, as he
pored over it by the light of the open fireplace ? Though
Lincoln owed little to school training, we cease to wonder
at his character-development when we know that he read
and re-read, at home, in early life, a select library consist-
ing chiefly of the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, Plutarch,
Washington, spelling book, reader, and arithmetic, and an
old volume of the statutes of Illinois.
Dr. George H. Martin, of Boston, in his unequaled ad-
dress on " The Unseen Force in Character Making," said : ^
" Our boys and girls, all unknown to us, often uncon-
sciously to themselves, are admiring the characters they
find in the books they read, and are fashioning themselves
into the same image. Through literature and history,
there is no limit to the possibilities within the reach of
every teacher. Character in history, character in liter-
ature, illuminated in the portrayal by the enthusiastic
admiration of the teacher, glows before the student and'
kindles within him a responsive emotion. As the long
line of men and women who have lived, and wrought, and
suffered moves before him, he feels nobler impulses stir-
ring within him, and sees himself living such a life, and
with the thoughts and impulses, the work of transforma-
tion begins."
One of the most valuable books for use by teachers of
the higher grammar grades, or by teachers of country
schools, is Thayer's Ethics of Success. It is the special
excellence of this book that the moral lessons are not
sermons or lectures, but inspiring anecdotes from the lives
of successful men and women.
1 Read at Columbus ; published in i\\t Jour ?ia I of Education, March
16, 1899.
296 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
History. — By the new school of Herbartians, great
stress is placed on history as a means of moral culture.
The general term history is made to include, not only the
formal text-book study of history, ancient and modern,
in the higher grades, but, also, fables, myths, stories, tra-
dition, biography, and poetry, for children in the lower
grades.
In McMurry's General Method, a book based on the principles of
Herbart, the use of history in moral training is set forth as follows :
" Although history has many uses, its best influence is in illustrating
and inculcating moral ideas. It will strike most teachers with sur-
prise to say that the chief use of history study is to form moral notions
in children. Some of the best historical materials (from biography,
tradition and fiction) should be absorbed by children in each grade
as an essential part of the substratum of moral ideas. . . . Examples
of moral action drawn from life are the only things that can give
meaning to moral precepts. Moral ideas always have a concrete basis
or origin. Some companion with whose feelings or actions you are
in close personal contact, or some character from history or fiction by
whose personality you have been strongly attracted, gives you your
keenest impressions of moral qualities. To begin with abstract moral
teaching, or to put faith in it, is to misunderstand children."
De Garmo, in Essentials of Method, emphasizes the uses of
history as follows : " For the reason, then, that we first grasp the
general through the particular, all ethical instruction should proceed
from individual cases of action involving a moral content. Hence it
does not suffice to preach in school, except from the text of an actual
event. Children can best get the first points of crystallization for
moral truths from stories involving a moral content. Here the emo-
tions are not unduly aroused, as they are likely to be where the action
is one that touches them personally, so that the irrational nature of
wrong action appeals to the understanding as well as to feeling.
History fulfills its noblest mission to the race on account of its ethical
content and of the individual nature of the presentation. Every deed
of heroism, of benevolence, of charity, of patriotism is a concrete em-
bodiment of a precious virtue ; while every mean, cowardly, dastardly
act is an individual protest against meanness, cowardice, or villainy.
MODERN TRAINING IN MORALS AND MANNERS 297
We can only continue the deposit about these starting-points until at
last the soul is strong in itself to stand against temptation."
Occasions. — Talks on morals should be given at the
proper time and in the right way. The events of a school
week will often furnish practical illustrations for a short
but effective talk to the pupils on manners or morals.
Omit no fitting occasion to impress a principle upon the
moral feelings.
Kindergarten Training. — It will be well for all
thoughtful teachers to consider what has been accom-
plished in kindergarten schools in the way of molding
the characters of little children, and of reforming the waifs
gathered in from neglected homes. The annual reports
of the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association written by
the late Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper, the philanthropist of San
Francisco, are filled with proofs of the possibilities of
moral training at a very early age. In one of her reports
(1891), she says :
" During the twelve years we have had nearly nine thousand chil-
dren under our care and training. The children who were with us in
the earliest years of our work are now from fifteen to eighteen years of
age. We have followed these children as closely as possible since they
left us, and after the most rigid investigation we do not find our kin-
dergarten children among the juvenile offenders. Their names are
not to be found upon the police records ; and this, too, in face of the
fact that our kindergartens are located in the districts where crimi-
nals are made. We have perused every avenue of information, only
to find one arrest for petty ofTenses among the 8,000 children that have
attended the kindergartens during the last eleven years — and as he
was a feeble-minded boy, with an inborn mania for setting fire to
things, we counted him out entirely. He was deemed iiresponsible,
and placed in confinement to keep him from mischief."
A Teacher^s Testimony. — The following letter was
written by Agnes M. Manning, who has been for many
298 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
years principal of one of the largest primary schools of
San Francisco, in answer to a letter of inquiry from my-
self when City Superintendent of Schools :
Dear Sir: I wish to tell you why I am so strongly m favor of kin-
dergartens. My school is in a crowded neighborhood. I have many
children from tenement-houses and from the narrow streets off Market
street. Before the days of the kindergarten these children as soon as
they could crawl, spent their waking lives on the sidewalks. From
the age of two to six years they pursued the education of the street.
The consequences were that at six they came to us with a fund of in-
formation of the worst description, and a vocabulary that might excite
the envy of the Barbary Coast. At the commencement of each new
year they tumbled over each other in their rude haste to take up the
unexplored life of a school. They were in tens, fifties, hundreds in
our yards. The novelty being past, the hard struggle commenced of
keeping them from joining the army of truants, and leading them into
habits of work and cleanliness. . . . The kindergartens have changed
all this. They have taken the babies that used to be consigned
to the curbstone, trained and guided them along a path of develop-
ment. They have wisely attempted no cramming of the infant^ brain
with premature scholarship. They have surrounded the young lives
with a fresh atmosphere. They have passed the hours in pleasant
games, taught a purer language, and led the little feet into a new civ-
ilization. The children of tenement-houses and narrow streets still
come in tens, fifties, and hundreds to begin life in a new school at the
beginning of each school year. The little ones are clean, self-respect-
ing, eager for knowledge. They have opinions of their own on many
things, and are quite anxious to express them. They neither know
how to read nor write. They have been taught to see, to observe, to
tell about what they see and hear. They have been taught to respect
older people, to be honest, to tell the truth. It is a rare thing now to
find a child that does not know it is wrong to steal. If you meet one
you may be sure he has never been in a kindergarten."
Character. — The exercise of good principles, con firmed
into habit, is the true means of forming a good character.
Children do not learn arithmetic and grammar merely by
MODERN TRAINING IN MORALS AND MANNERS
299
repeating rules and fornmulas ; neither will they apperceive
and assimilate the foundation principles of right and
wrong as rules of action merely by the process of repeat-
ing mottoes and maxims. The moral faculties are of
slow growth ; they need daily culture and exercise until
habits of right-thinking and right-doing are formed. There'
are evil tendencies in the child's nature to be repressed ;
there are germs of good qualities to be warmed into life
and quickened in their growth. Canon Farrar says :
" Plant a fleeting fancy and you reap a thought ; plant a
thought and you reap an action ; plant an action and you
reap a habit ; plant a habit and you reap character ; plant
a character and you reap a destiny ^
The practical teacher who has begun to make a direct
study of children at first hand will find occasion to make
use of the doctrine of interest and desire as set forth by
the Herbartian school of thinkers, as well as the creed of
duty and the will expounded by the Hegelian school of
philosophers. In the kindergarten and the primary grades
children will be won by sympathy, influenced by desire, and
stimulated by interest. In succeeding stages of develop-
ment, as good habits are strengthened, and higher ideals
are created, character begins to be formed, conscience is
developed, and duty becomes more and more a controlling
power.
" The development of the character," says Dr. Jordan, " is the for-
mation of the ego. It is in itself the co-ordination of the elements of
heredity, the bringing into union of warring tendencies and irrelev^ant
impulses left us by our ancestors. The child is a mixture of imper-
fectly related impulses and powers. It is a mosaic of ancestral hered-
ity. Its growth into personality is the process of bringing these ele-
ments into relation to each other.
" Doing right becomes a habit if it is pursued long enough. It be-
comes a second nature or a higher heredity. The formation of a
300
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
higher heredity of wisdom and virtue, of knowing right and doing right,
is the basis of character-building."
William T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education,
closed a paper, read before the California State Teachers' Association
(1896) with the following summary :
" In closing, let us call up the main conclusions and repeat them in
their briefest expression.
" I. Moral education is a training in habits, and not an inculcation of
mere theoretical views.
"2. Mechanical disciplines are indispensable as an elementary basis
of moral character.
" 3. The school holds the pupil to a constant sense of responsibility,
and thereby develops in him a keen sense of his transcendental free-
dom ; he comes to realize that he is not only the author of his deed,
but also accountable for his neglect to do the reasonable act.
" 4. Lax discipline in a school saps the moral character of the pupil.
It allows him to work merely as he pleases, and he will not reinforce
his feeble will by regularity, punctuality and systematic industry. . . .
" 5. Too strict discipline, on the other hand, undermines moral char-
acter by emphasizing too much the mechanical duties, and especially
the phase of obedience to authority, and it leaves the pupil in a state
of perennial minority. He does not assimilate the law of duty and
make it his own. The law is not written on his heart, but is written
on lips only. He fears it but does not love it.
6. The best help that one can give his fellows is that which enables
them to help themselves. The best school is that which makes the
pupils able to teach themselves. The best instruction in morality
makes the pupil a law unto himself. Hence, strictness, which is indis-
pensable, must be tempered by such an administration as causes the
pupils to love to obey the law for law's sake."
PRACTICAL SCHOOLROOM LESSONS.
(i) Beginnings in First, Second, and Third Grades. —
Talk to pupils about kindness to animals, particularly to
dogs, cats, birds, and horses. Read extracts from *' Black
Beauty." Read short stories that have a moral wrapped
up in them.
MODERN TRAINING IN MORALS AND MANNERS
301
For Use by — Heart Culture, by Emma E. Page will
prove a valuable assistant to teachers. The purpose of the author
cannot be better expressed than by the follow^ing quotations from her
preface : " The aim of this book is to teach kindness to animals by
quickening sympathy for them, arousing a sense of justice toward
them, and instilling the fundamental principles of right care of them.
How to care for domestic animals is dwelt upon with considerable
detail, because these things must be taught in school to get down into
the family life of all the people. Not to know is often as cruel as not
to care."
Fourth and Fifth Grades — Topics for Short Talks. — Put everything
in its right place. Why ? Have a regular time for home study.
Why } Be punctual at school. Why ? Why is it your duty to study
your lessons ? Kindness to children younger than yourself. Duties
to other pupils. Duty to home and parents. Kindness to animals.
Kindness to little children.
For Reference by Teachers. — Dewey's Ethics or Stories of Home
and School. Thayer's Ethics of Success, Book I.
Sixth and Seventh Grades — Topics for Short Talks. — Topics may
be brought before a class by reading some anecdote or story, or by
means of conversation lessons. Fighting and quarreling. Calling
nicknames. Truthfulness. Word of honor. Cheating. Promises.
Profanity. Slang. Cruelty to animals. Courage. Duties at home.
Duties in school. Duties to others.
For Reference. — Thayer's Ethics of Success, Book H.
Topics for Eighth and Ninth Grades. — Earning a living. The read-
ing of good books. Economy. Patriotism. Obedience to law.
Duties of American Citizens.
For Reference. — Thayer's Ethics of Success, Book H. Everett's
Ethics for Young People.
HINTS ON LESSONS IN POLITENESS.
" A beautiful behavior," says Emerson, *' is the finest
of the fine arts. Give a boy address and accomplishments
and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes
where he goes."
It is too often assumed that children learn manners at
302 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
home, or unconsciously acquire a polite behavior from
their teachers, schoolmates, or friends. But whatever they
may learn through unconscious tuition, it is very desirable
that they should receive ^jierrfir instruction in politenes s.
It is said that the winning manners of Henry Clay were
owing in no small degree to the careful training in man-
ners given him at an early age in a log schoolhouse in
Virginia.
Topics for Short Talks in Second and Third Grades. — Politeness to
schoolmates. Politeness to teachers. Manners at the table. Polite-
ness to parents. Politeness to brothers and sisters.
For Reference. — How to Teach Manners in the Schoolroom, by
Julia Dewey.
Topics for Short Talks in the Fourth Grade. — Manners at home ; at
school ; at places of amusement. Minor rules of politeness : (Adapted
from Miss Dewey's How to Teach Manners in School.)
1. When you pass directly in front of any one say " Excuse me."
2. Never fail to say " Thank you " (not " Thanks ") for the smallest
favors.
3. When a schoolmate is reading, or is answering a question, do not
raise your hand to correct a mistake until after he has finished.
4. Do not stare at visitors who enter the schoolroom.
5. When you stand to recite, stand erect like a well-bred gentleman
or lady.
6. In handing a pointer, pen, or pencil, hand the blunt end towards
the person to whom you wish to pass it.
7. It is impolite to chew gum or to eat in school.
Fifth Year or Grade — Topics for Short Talks. — When you do a
favor, do it cheerfully. A cheerful countenance is always welcome.
Give up your seat to older people. Apologize to any one you have
wronged. Do not bluntly contradict any one. Look persons in the
eye when you speak to them. Whispering in company is impolite.
Avoid the use of slang expressions.
For Reference. — Gow's Primer of Politeness.
Sixth to Eighth Grades — Topics for Short Talks. — Rules of polite-
ness in society. Politeness to strangers. Politeness in traveling.
How to write notes of invitation and acceptance of invitations. How
to introduce persons in a proper manner.
. .,_ CHAPTER XIII
COMMON-SENSE APPLIED TO RURAL SCHOOLS
It requires great tact ari^ jud^mg jit to manage suc-
cessfully, a rural school in which the whole work is done
by one teacher. In the graded schools of town and city
the course of instruction is definitely laid down in printed
manuals ; the work of each successive grade is directed
by principal and superintendent ; the results are tested
by written examinations ; and each class teacher is only
a cog in a complicated system of wheels. But in the
country school the teacher combines the function of as-
sistant, principal, examiner, and superintendent. He is
an autocrat, limited only by custom, prece dent, and text-
bn g] [ f s,
When we consider that about one half of the school
children in our country receive their elementary education
in rural schools, their importance as a part of our school
system is obvious. Many of these schools in the sparsely-
settled districts of some states are kept open only from
three to six months in the year, and even then the at-
tendance is irregular. The whole schooling of many
children, from the age of five to fifteen, hardly amounts
to five years of unbroken school attendance. For such
pupils, what instruction will best fit children for their life
duties ? What knowledge is of most worth to them ?
The subject under consideration is so important that it
seems to require special treatment by itself. As an axiom,
we may safely take this statement of John Stuart Mill :
303
304
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
" The aim of all intellectual training for the mass of the
people should be to cultivate common-sense."
It is of the first importance that pupils should be trained
to speak, read, and write the English language. At fif-
teen or sixteen years of age they should be able to read
readily, to keep their conversation free from provin-
cialisms in pronunciation, to write a letter in a neat and
legible hand ; and they should have a taste for reading
good literature.
In arithmetic they should be trained to work examples
in the " four rules " ; to perform business operations in
common and decimal fractions ; to reckon simple interest ;
and to make out a bill, a receipt, and a promissory note ;
and to keep simple accounts. Wise teachers will concen-
trate their drill upon what the pupils most need.
In geography they should acquire a general knowledge
of our own country and of the world as a whole ; but it
is not necessary that they should be compelled, term after
term, and year after year, to memorize text-books.
Present the subject in a natural way according to modern
methods. Begin with a study of local geography from
nature and proceed according to the methods presented
in a previous chapter on geography in graded scliools.
The text-book study of grammar should be preceded
by a course of elementary exercises in language les-
sons, such as are found in the best modern text-books.
Children cannot be trained to speak or write correctly by
parsing according to Latinized formulas. They will
never learn to construct a good sentence by analyzing
complex or compound sentences, or by memorizing and
repeating the rules of syntax, though this method be
followed until they grow gray. Require, then, at least,
one short composition exercise a week, upon subjects
COMMON-SENSE APPLIED TO RURAL SCHOOLS
305
about which the pupils have learned something. Let
them write about farming, about animals, birds, fishes,
flowers, trees. Read them short stories to be reproduced
in writing. Require pupils over eight years of age to
write at least one short letter a week, until they can write
it in due form, punctuate it, capitalize it, spell correctly
most of the words they use in it, fold it neatly, and direct
it properly. After this preliminary work is well done,
let the older pupils study grammar from a text-book, by
taking up a few essential points in etymology, by learn-
ing to apply a few important rules of syntax, by taking
a little parsing and a minimum of plain sentence analysis
without diagrams, and with as little as possible of the
scholastic forms of logic in which the subject is often
enveloped.
Pupils should acquire a general knowledge of the lead-
ing events in the history of our own country. Teachers
should present the subject by means of oral lessons,
which will include stories, anecdotes, incidents, and well-
selected extracts. Narrative and biography constitute
the life of history to the young. A text-book may be
used to supplement this work.
It will be one of the pleasantest of duties to awaken
country children to the beauties of nature by which they
are surrounded. It is here that teachers may do their
best work, by drawing out of pupils all they know of the
world around them, and by encouraging every effort to
increase their knowledge. Country boys and girls
generally have a considerable stock of crude knowledge
about animals, plants, and the phenomena of every-day
life. Draw out these fragmentary stores of facts, and
supplement them by the facts of science. Set the girls
to collecting and pressing plants and flowers. Let' the
AM. PUB. scH. — 20
3o6 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
boys bring in specimens of minerals, shells, woods, and
grains for a school cabinet. Open their eyes to the beauty
of the world in which they live.
In the Report of the Committee of Twelve on Rural Schools
(1897), Wilbur S. Jackman, of the Chicago Normal School, in a special
paper on a course of study for rural schools, makes the following sug-
gestions about nature study :
" In the earlier years, especially, great attention should be given to
the picturesqueness and natural beauty of the surroundings. Without
trained and careful effort in this direction, the intensely practical char-
acter of their contact with the various things about them will close the
eyes of the children to many beautiful things that should be a source
of joy and pleasure throughout life. Much out-door study should,
therefore, be encouraged. The children should be familiar with every
brook and waterfall ; with every cliff, wooded copse, and ravine."
From personal experience I deeply realize the force of
Mr. Jackman's suggestions. In my boyhood I attended
a village school in one of the mountain towns of New
Hampshire. From the schoolhouse door we could see,
not two miles distant, a granite mountain which rose to
the height of more than a thousand feet. Away in the
distant western horizon Mt. Kearsarge rose still higher.
At our feet, not a stone's-throw from the schoolhouse,
there flowed the winding Suncook River, an important
tributary of the Merrimac. But nature study was un-
heard of when we boys went to school. None of us ever
connected the mountains that we read about in the geog-
raphy with the real mountains right before our eyes.
We failed to assimilate the rivers traced in spider lines on
the atlas with the clear-running stream in which we went
a-swimming every day in the hot summer time. We
boys never once thought of climbing to the summit of
the mountain near by, though we could have reached it
by a two hours' walk. No one of our teachers ever
COMMON-SENSE APPLIED TO RURAL SCHOOLS 307
thought of suggesting to us that it would be a good geog-/
raphy lesson to find out what we could see from that!^
familiar mountain top. We were blind as bats to the
beautiful panorama of nature spread out everywhere
around us. No teacher ever once in all our lives called
our attention to the mountain, or the river, or the ponds,
or the farms, or the woods, or the beauty of the landscape.
It was only after an absence of many years in California,
that my eyes were opened to the wondrous summer beauty
of my native town, a landscape of hill and mountain, farm
and forest, unequaled by anything that I had seen in my
distant wanderings. Then I climbed to the top of Cata-
mount and looked out on the scenery that tourists travel
hundreds of miles to behold. I brought away with me,
as a special treasure, a piece of quartz delicately grooved
and polished by the great glacial ice-mass that once moved
over New England and sculptured the rough outlines of
the varied landscape spread out in all its wondrous summer
beauty.
In the appendix to the report of the Committee of Twelve there
is a paper on " The Farm as the Center of Interest," by Col. Francis
W. Parker, of the Chicago Normal School, which so graphically and
truthfully sets forth the field for nature study in the country school
that it cannot fail to prove an inspiration to all who read it. Among
other things he says : " Nowhere on earth has a child such advantages
for elementary- education as upon a good farm, where he is trained to
love work and to put his brains into work. The statement of what a
farm does for a boy in its general lines may easily be taken from the
experience of a farm boy in New England, for instance. It is possible
for me to give the story- of such a one from actual experience — what
he learned, what he studied, and what he acquired. As soon as he
found himself upon the farm, at eight years of age, he began to study
— to study in the best sense of that much-abused word. He began
the study of geography — real geography. He observed with ever-
increasing interest the hills, valleys, springs, swamps, and brooks upon
3o8 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
the old farm. The topography of the land was clear and distinct ; its
divisions into fields, pastures, and forests were to him the commonest
facts of experience. ... He studies botany. All the kinds of grasses
he knew — timothy, clover, red top, silver grass, pigeon grass ; how
they were sown, how they came up, grew, were cut, cured, and fed to
the cattle ; what kind of hay was best for sheep ; and what for oxen.
... He knew the trees, the maple w4th its sweet burden of spring,
the hemlock, and the straight pine which he used to climb for crows'
nests. He knew the wild animals, the squirrels, the rabbits, the wood-
chucks ; the insects, the grasshoppers, and ants ; bugs that scurried
away when he lifted a stone. With the birds he was intimately
acquainted.
" He obsen'ed, investigated, and drew inferences, perfectly uncon-
scious, to be sure, of what he was learning, or how he was learning ;
but still, he learned, and he studied, and the best lesson of all was his
personal reaction upon his environment. His plowing, hoeing, haying,
digging, chopping, lumbering, his mending of sleds, and making of
cider, sugar, lye, and soap were all so many practical lessons in life
which exercised his body, stimulated his mind, and strengthened and
developed his purpose in life. He lived to become a school teacher,
and taught school earnestly and bunglingly for twenty years before he
had even a suspicion of the value of his farm life and farm work."
It is not necessary that you should teach ethics as a
science. What pupils most need is that plain preceptive
morality which is diffused among the people as their daily
rule of action. Your work here must be an outgrowth of
your own life and character, observation and experience,
combined with the best thoughts you can glean from
books and society.
It is desirable that pupils should know something about
the laws of health in relation to diet, sleep, air, exercise,
work, play, and rest. Teach the plain truth that sickness
is the penalty of violated laws ; that bad habits are physical
sins ; that poor health, unless hereditary, is the result of
carelessness or ignorance. These things can be taught
either with or without a text-book.
COMMON-SENSE APPLIED TO RURAL SCHOOLS
309
Teach drawing in a natural way" by giving pupils a few
hints, and then setting them at work in trying to draw
from real objects, such as leaves, fruits, flowers, animals,
birds, ships, boats, houses, and easy landscapes. There
is a fine opportunity in the country school for allowing
pupils to follow their individual bent. Allow a reason-
able time for singing, recitals, dialogues, the reading of
compositions, and other incidental exercises.
The arrangement and length of recitations are matters
of judgment to be modified according to conditions.
When one class is reciting, set the others about some
specific piece of work at their desks. The few advanced
pupils ought not to monopolize your attention. Assign
older pupils lessons to be learned at home ; for children
who attend a school only a part of the year cannot easily
be overtaxed with brain work. Train them to depend
upon themselves, and to find out things by hard thinking.
In recitations, explanations and illustrations must be con-
densed, for time is limited.
If there is a school library, make good use of it by
recommending suitable books for pupils to read at home.
Many a dull boy, lazy and listless over his lessons, has
been made alive by books suited to his age and capacity.
If you have tact, good-nature, and firmness, and know
how to interest children in their work, you need not have
much trouble about order, discipline, or government.
Win the good will of the older pupils, and they will be-
come your assistants in school government.
On the morning of the first day, that crucial test of a
teacher, introduce yourself by a few cheerful remarks,
distribute slips of paper on which pupils are to write their
names, age, class or grade, and studies ; and, having col-
lected these, proceed at once to business by giving out a
310 APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
sheet of paper to all who can use a pen, and require them
to write a composition about their'^st vacation. This
will keep them at work an hour at least, during which
time you can attend to the little ones, and make out your
rough program. The art of the first day is to keep pupils
busy. You will avoid much mischief by getting every-
body hard at work in ten minutes after school opens. If
you know how to tell a good story, close school with one ;
if not, read one from some book.
The true economy of teaching in an ungraded school is
to make the fewest possible number of classes, and to
consider both age and capacity in making the classifica-
tion. If the school is a large one, do not attempt to hear
daily recitations in everything, but alternate the studies
of the more advanced pupils. Economize time and in-
struction by means of as many general exercises as possi-
ble, in which all except the youngest pupils can join; such
as drill exercises in the four rules of arithmetic, mental
arithmetic exercises, the spelling of common words, short
compositions, review questions on the leading facts of
geography and history. Take an hour, weekly, for select
readings, recitals, dialogues, and lessons on morals and
manners.
Occasionally give written examinations. In most city
schools, written examinations are carried to extremes;
but in most country schools there is not enough of writ-
ten work to give readiness and exactness in the written
expression of thought.
For a young teacher, whether man or woman, there is
no better school of practice than a country school. Nor
should the educational advantages of the rural school for
pupils be underrated. In the long race of life, boys edu-
cated in such schools often come out ahead of those
COMMON-SENSE APPLIED TO RURAL SCHOOLS 311
ground out by the graded machinery of city schools.
During a part of the year country boys work on the farm,
and get, not only muscular strength, but also a habit of
work. They go back to school with a keen relish for
study, and a habit of steady application. Hard work on
his father's farm, from sunrise to sunset, hoeing corn, or
haying, or digging potatoes, has made school-life seem a
play spell to many a boy, and has laid the foundation of
steady habits that have led to success in life. The
trouble with many city boys is that they have no work to
do out of school, and never learn what hard labor means
until school-life is over. Herein lies the great advantage
of the country school ; both boys and girls have a com-
bination of mental and manual' TraiiTing;^"' TTie~lnorn-
ing and evening ''chores" on the farm, and in the house-
hold, prevent undue mental application. Pupils are not
surfeited with school and books ; school, indeed, is a ;
relief from hard labor. Many a man has reason to be
thankful that he was trained to habits of farm work in his
boyhood, and was sent to a country school, where he was
not crammed to repletion, nor worried with credits, nor
made wretched with competitive written examinations.
In this connection, I cannot forbear quoting the following
extract from the concluding paragraph of Col. Parker's
paper in the appendix to the Report of the Committee
of Twelve : ^
*' No method, no system of schools, no enrichment of^
courses of study, not even the most successful of teachers,
can ever take the place in fundamental education of the
farm and the workshop. No matter how good the city
schools may be, or may be made ; no matter how good
the state of society may be, the vital reinforcements of
city life that lead to progress and prosperity, so far as we
312
APPLIED PEDAGOGICS
can see, must always come from the sturdy stock of the
farm. This fact, upon which most educators agree, puts
upon the country school an immense responsibility.
When skill, expertness, and insight control the methods
of country schools ; when excellent teachers remain in
the same schools year after year, the already powerful
influence of country life upon the destinies of the nation
will be mightily enhanced."
Finally, perhaps the greatest service I can render student-
teachers who are looking forward to a country school, is to
call special attention to the Report of the Committee of
Twelve on Rural Schools. This report of 227 pages is one
of the most notable educational documents ever published
in this country. In it the young student of pedagogics
will find a detailed course of study, a report on Instruc-
tion and Discipline ; a report on program ; an enrich-
ment of Rural School Courses ; a Course of Study for
Rural Schools, by Wilbur S. Jackman ; the Farm as a
Center of Interest, by Colonel Parker ; the Country
School Problem, by Dr. Emerson E. White.
INDEX.
Academies, Age of, 64 ; endowed academies, 65 ; Phillips-Andover
Academy, 'j'j ; Phillips-Exeter Academy, 64, j^j.
Agricultural Colleges, 85-90; Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, 55.
Alaska, Schools in, iii.
American Institute of Instruction, 78.
Animal Life, Study of, 281, 282.
Appleton's Readers, 140.
Arithmetic, Methods and text-books in, 141-146, 191-194, 240-258,
304; Colburn's Intellectual Arithmetic, 122.
Armstrong, S. C, and the Hampton Institute, 99.
Athletics, 288.
Bailey, L. H., quoted, 280.
Baldwin's Readers, 141, 208, 215.
Baltimore, Schools of, 59, 116.
Barnard, Henry, 71.
Barnes, Earl, 121, 184, 290.
Benton, Thomas H., 62.
Berkeley, Governor, of Virginia, 29.
Bible, The, 135, 292, 295.
Bookkeeping, 253.
Books for children, 160-163, 215, 261, 263, 284, 294,
Books for school libraries, 263, 264, 265, 285, 301, 309.
Books for teachers, 158-160, 170, 200-205, 263,270, 285, 312. See
Text-books.
Boston, Schools in, 8, 12, 47, 56, 74, 1 11, 130.
Branches of Instruction, 11 8-1 20.
Brown's (Gould) Grammars, 150.
Calhoun, J, C, 62,
California, Education in, loi-iio; high schools, 82.
Chicago, Schools in, 1 1 5.
314 INDEX H
Child Study, 183.
Children, Books for, 160-163, 215, 261, 263, 284, 294
Chinese Classics, 134 j
Civil War, The, 71 ; public schools after the, 93-117. j
Class-room management. Suggestions on, 179-187. \
Clay, Henry, 63. a
Clinton, George, 50. ^
Colburn's Arithmetic, 145. |
College of the City of New York, 52. I
College of William and Mary, 29, 58. \
Colleges, Colonial, 80. See ^/z/'t/<?/'j///Vj / agricultural colleges, 85-90; \
Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, 55. ■
Colonial Schools, 7, 36, 118, 141 ; colonial newspapers, 162; school •
laws, 22, 23, 26, 29. See Legislation,
Colored Schools, 97, 98, 99. \
Columbia University, 25, 83. ' j
Composition-writing, 'j'j, lyj. \
Connecticut, Early schools in, 49. 1
Conservatism and Progress, 127. \
Copy Books, 119, 218. See Writing. \
Cornell University, 83, 86. i
Correlation in Reading Lessons, 217. \
Country Schools, 303-312. See Rural Schools. 1
Courses of Study, in high schools, 76.
Credits and checks, 188. 1
Curry, J. L. M., quoted, 94, 96. i
Dame Schools, 20. j
Dedham, Mass., Early Schools in, 10. \
Defining, 224. \
De Garmo, Charles, quoted, 128, 239, 267, 271, 275, 296. I
Development Method, 195-198. 1
Dewey, John, quoted, 213, 214, 221. \
Discipline, 120, 175, 177. See Management in School Government 1
District Schools, 66, 122. See Rural Schools.
Dorchester, Mass., Early Schools in, 10. I
Drawing, Methods of Teaching, 119, 225-228, 309.
Dummer Academy, 65.
Dutch Colonial Schools, 24, 51.
INDEX 315
Dwight's Geography, 154.
Early American schools, 34-72, 118.
Eaton, John, quoted, 94.
Economy, True, in educational affairs, 168.
Elective Courses of Study, 58, 83, 127.
Eliot, Charles W., quoted, 84, 182, 186, 213, 257, 277, 284.
Emerson, George B., 74.
Endowed State Universities, 80.
"English Reader," Murray's, 139.
Enrollment in public schools of the United States, 164; in high
schools, 75 ; in normal schools, 79.
Examinations, 186, 276, 310.
Farm, The, as a center of interest, 307 ; education of farmer's chil-
dren, 66. *
Federal Aid for higher education, 89.
First day of school. The, 174, 309.
Fractions, Teaching, 191, 242, 247. ^t.^ Arithmetic.
Franklin, Benjamin, 28, 68.
Freedman's Bureau, The, 94.
Friends' schools, 28, 61.
Froebel, and the kindergarten, 125.
Games and plays, 289.
Geography, Early text-books in, 153-158; methods of teaching, 269-
277, 283, 304; Redway andHinman's geographies, 158, 271, 285.
Georgia, Early schools in, 60.
Girard College, 57.
Girls, Education of, 21, 60, 74; first academy for, 65.
Grammar schools. Early colonial, 8, 10.
Grammar, Text-books and methods in, 138, 146-153, 194-196, 304.
Grant, U. S., 72.
Greeley, Horace, d'j.
Grube Method in arithmetic, 240.
Guyot's Geography, 158.
Gymnastics, 287.
Hadley, Mass., Early schools in, 21.
Hall, G. Stanley, quoted, 178, 286.
3i6 INDEX ' \
Hall, Samuel R., 77. '-*
Hampton, Va., Normal Institute, 99. *
Hanus, Paul H.. quoted, 76, 123, 252. ]
Harris, W. T., quoted, 61, 70, 90, 112, 213, 300.
Harrison, William Henry, 40, 63. 1
Han-ard University, 8, 83. \
Herbart Society, The, and Herbartian methods, 115, 221, 227, 296. \
Higher Public Education, 73-92 ; in the South, 98-100. i
Historical Records of Common Schools, 18. '^
History, Text-books and methods 259-268; in rural schools, 304. ■
Home education, 66. J
Hornbook, The, 130, 131. ■
Imperfections in school system, 167. \
Improvements, Modem, in methods, of instruction, 124,, 166. ]
Industrial education, 85-90. \
Instruction, Branches and methods of, 118, 124. See Methods. \
Inventions, Early, and their influence on education, 35. \
JACKMAN, Wilbur S., quoted, 284, 306. j
Jackson, Andrew, 62.
James, William, quoted, 196, 291. \
Jefferson, Thomas, 30, 36, 58, 63. j
Johnson, Richard Malcolm, 60. A
Jordan, David Starr, quoted, 92, 299. ;
!
Kephart, Horace, quoted, 32, 53. !
Kindergartens, 125, 297. \
Kirkham's Grammar, 1 50. \
Lancastrian schools in colonial times, 52, 55, 59.
Land Grants, 85 ; Land Reservations for Schools, 37, 39, 80. .
Language lessons, 1 52, 232-236. See Grammar. '•■
Legislation. School, in the colonies, 22 ; in Ohio, 43 ; in Massachusetts,
44; in New York, 46, 50, 113; in Connecticut, 50; in New '.
Jersey, 53 ; in Pennsylvania, 53 ; in Virginia, 58 ; in South Caro- j.
lina, 59; in North Carolina, 61 ; in California, 102, 104, 107. f(^
Letter-writing, 233.
Libraries, School, Books for, 263, 264, 265, 285, 301, 309. i
Lincoln, Abraham, 63, 71, 86, 294. i
INDEX 317 i
Literature in connection with American history, 266. ;
Lul<ens, H. T., quoted, 221, 227. \
Lyon, Mary, 65, 68. %
Lyte's Grammars, 239. ]
McAllister, James, 57. \
McGuffey's Readers, 140. i
McMurry, C. A., quoted, 183, 195, 198, 296. - %
Management in School Government, 120, 173-178, 309; in class- \
room, 179-187 ; in rural schools. 303-312. \
Manhattan, Schools in, 23, 51, 56, 113. \
Mann, Horace, 70, 74. j
Manners and morals, 292-302. J
Manual Training, 289. ■ \
Map drawing," 272. \
Marietta, Ohio, 43. "*
Martin, G. H., quoted, 65, 71, 79, 141, 295. \
Massachusetts, Schools in, 8, 23, 45, 46, 73, 75, 112. i
Mayo, A. D., quoted, 60, 93, 97, 165. \
Methods and text-books : Reading, 130-141,207-212; spelling, 135- j
137,207,210, 222-225; writing, 119, 206,218; arithmetic, 141- <
146, 191-194, 240-258 ; grammar, 138, 146-153, 194-196, 230-239 ;
geography, 153-158, 269-277, 283; drawing, 225-228; music, i
228; history, 259-268 ; general methods, 180-184, 188-191. \
Military Academy at West Point, 91. \
Mill, John Stuart, quoted, 184, 304. ;
Morals and manners, 292-302.
Morse's Geography, 1 54- 1 57. '1
Mount Holyoke Seminary, 65. \
Mountain States, Education in the, 1 10. 1
Muir, John, 121. "j
Murray, Lindley, 139, 146. 1
Music, Vocal, 228, >
Mythology, Excess of in lower grades, 214. "^
\
National Schools, 90 ; a national university, 91. \
Natural Geographies, The, by Redway and Hinman, 158, 285. \
Natural methods in teaching geography, 269-277. ^
Nature Studies, 278-285, 305.
3i8 INDEX i
Naval Academy at Annapolis, 91. \
Negroes, Education of, 96-100. \
New England, Education in, 7-23, 44, 64, 1 1 1 ; colonial school laws
in, 22 ; normal schools in, 78.
New Jersey, Early schools in, 53. i
Newspapers, Colonial, 162. ^
New York, College of the City of, 52. \
New York, Schools in, 23,46, 49, 56,71, 111-114; normal schools \
in, 77. 1
Normal Schools, 77-80, 83, 108 ; public normal schools, 78 ; statistics \
of, 79 ; private normal schools, 80 ; state normal schools in Cali- j
fornia, 108. )
North Carolina, Schools of, 60. \
North Central States, Education in, 114-116. \
Northwest Territory, 37; ordinance of 1787, 38; land system, 39; !
schools in, 43, 71, 80, 114.
Ohio, First permanent settlement in, 42 ; early schools in, 43. ii
Ordinance of 1787, for Northwest Territory, 38. \
Oregon, Schools in, 1 10. J
Outlook, Educational, 164-170. -^
Pacific States, Education in, loi-iii ; state legislation in California, \
102, 104, 105 ; school beginnings, 102 ; parochial schools in San ]
Francisco, 105 ; normal schools, 108 ; state publication of text- ]
books, 109; the mountain states, no. 1
Parish schools, 27, 49. ';
Parker, Francis W., quoted, 230, 245, 251, 277, 307, 311. ' {
Peabody, George, 94 ; Peabody Educational Fund, 95. \
Pedagogics, Apphed, 204; books on, 158-160, 170, 200-205. 1
Pedagogy, Departments of, in state universities, 83. See Normal \
Schools. . :
Penn, William, 26.
Pennsylvania, Schools in, 26, 46, 53, iii.
Periodicals, Educational, 78. M^
Philadelphia, Schools in, 55, 57, 113.
Phillips-Andover Academy, 64, 77 ; Phillips-Exeter Academy, 64. |
Physical Culture, Modern Views on, 286-291. ^
Physical Geography, 283. y
INDEX 319
Physics, 283.
Physiology and Hygiene, 282.
Pike's Arithmetic, 142-145.
Plants, Studies of, 280, 281, 282.
Plymouth Colony, Schools in, 7, 17, 18, 22.
Politeness, Lessons in, 301.
Practical value of common schools, 67.
"Primer, The New England," 62, 131-134.
Princeton, University of, 53.
Program, 187, 310. /
Promotions, 185, 276.
Psychology, 202; psychological principles, 221.
Public School Society, The, 52.
Punishments in school government, 120, 161, 177.
Puritans, Schools and educational ideas of the, 8, 30.
Quakers, Schools and education among the, 26, 28, 61.
Question and Answer, 180.
Reading, Methods and text-books in, 130-141, 207, 208-212,215-
217, 304.
Reading and Study, Professional, 158-160, 199-205, 312.
Recitations, 121, 180, 188-198, 309.
Records, Historical, of common schools, 18; of grammar schools, 10.
Reform, Educational, 256.
Revolutionary War, Effects of, on Education, 31, 34.
Rural Schools in colonial times, 15 ; in the South, 61 ; in New Eng-
land, 15, 66; common-sense applied to, 303-312.
St. Louis, Schools in, 115, 126.
Salaries, Teachers', 120.
Salem, Mass., Early schools in, 13, 21.
San Francisco, History of schools in 102-105, 124.
Schlee, E., quoted, 190.
School committee, 11.
"School Keeping, Lectures on," Hall's, fj.
Science, Natural, and geography, 276.
Scotch-Irish, The, in America, 27, 33, 50, 58, 59, 61.
Secondary and higher public education, 73-92,
Sherman, Roger, 68.
Slater Fund, The John F., 96.
320
INDEX
South Carolina, Schools in, 59.
Southern States, Education in, 58, 93-101, 116.
Spelling Books, 118, 135-137.
Spelling, Methods of teaching, 135-137, 207, 210, 304.
Spencer, Herbert, quoted. 293.
State control of schools, 37 ; state public universities, 80 ; state normal
schools, 79 ; state agricultural colleges, 86.
Stevens, Thaddeus, 54.
Study, Courses of, 118-120, 123-129; habits of, 181-183, 310.
Supplementary Reading, 208, 212, 215, 261, 263, 264, 266, 284.
Swinton's Readers, 141 ; Grammar and Language Lessons, 153.
Tabor, F. H., quoted, 289.
Taxation for Support of Schools : In the South, 100 ; in California, 107.
Text-books, State publication of, 109; studies on, 130-163; use ot,
189-197. See Methods and Text-books,
Tompkins, Arnold, quoted, 181, 187.
Township, Congressional, Division of, 40.
Training Schools, 'j'], 81. See Not'inal Schools,
Tuskegee, Normal Institute, 99.
Ungraded schools, 303-312.
Universities, State, 80-85, ^o^-
University, A National, 91; California, 82, I08 ; Columbia, 25, 83;
Cornell, 83, 86 ; Harvard, 8, 83 ; Michigan, 82 ; Princeton, 33 ;
Purdue, 87 ; Texas, 82 ; Yale, 83.
Virginia, Schools in, 29, 58.
Vocal music as a means of culture, 228.
Washington, Booker, T., 100.
Washington, D. C, Schools in, 116.
Washington, George, 29. 30, 63, 92.
Webster, Daniel, 68.
Webster, Noah, 118, 135, 137, 140, 148.
West Point, Military Academy, 91.
White, E. E., quoted, 186.
Willard, Emma H., 65.
William and Mary, College of, 29, 58.
Willson's Readers, 140. ^='
Writing, 206, 218. Se e Co1)y Book s,
Yale University ,><C^ « a « y
■^ Of TAB
TIIMTVERSITY
14 DAY USE
RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED
LOAN DEPT.
This book is due on the last date stamped below, or
on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.
REC'D LD
JUL 9 1962
ism?.
' WiZ2'69-4PM
220-'6aiP
LOAN DEPT.
?n
_JL1
REC'D LI>
OCT 8 ladg-""^ MA«12 136Q
LD 21A-50m-8.'61
(Cl795sl0)476B
General Library
University of California
Berkeley
^-iS,-^
^ ^^:^^-^- -^i-mfiQr'
?«^» ...v?% >*y
v5sfv-<£d^
?«.>
**