Back to school time is here again and it feels as though it comes earlier every year. And in honor of this momentous occasion, I thought it might be interesting to learn a bit about the history of American public education. In doing so, I think we will find a rich legacy of the myriad ways that the progressive political mentality has left its impression upon educational institutions throughout the Union.
In my varied learning and research endeavors, I must admit that I had never looked in depth at the history of public education in America. As with so many other institutions that we are familiar with and that have existed as long as we can remember, we often take them for granted as having always been the way they are. But the state of publicly funded and run education has a long progressive tradition that extends right to the founding era.
English and Early Colonial Public Education
Throughout many of the American colonies, education was the duty of the parent, as was the English tradition. The only public schools that existed, where they existed, were for the benefit of the poor. The major exception, as in many cases in American political history, was in New England. In 1642, the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted a compulsory literacy law, breaking with the English tradition. It soon followed in 1647 with legislation requiring larger settlements to ordain the hiring of teachers or founding of grammar schools. The rationale undergirding these laws seems to have been a Puritan/Calvinist emphasis on literacy for the proper reading of scripture. But while to many Christians their motives will seem pure and well-meaning, the implication throughout is also one of ensuring a Calvinist perspective over others.
This bears itself out in some of the prevailing conditions wherein it was passed. For instance, the Plymouth colony, an older and more religiously tolerant colony, did not pass similar compulsory education laws. As well, the Massachusetts Bay colony required attendance to a Congregational church and only church members, of which membership was heavily restricted and regulated, could vote in state elections. This spirit and legislative tradition began to spread to Connecticut and other New England states. As religious diversity grew in New England, groups like the Quakers were discriminated against and forbidden from establishing schools.
Compulsory Education: Modern Slavery
In true Puritan fashion, Massachusetts once again led the charge in the furthering of force in education. In 1780, it granted legislative authority to enforce compulsory school attendance and in 1789 that compulsion was enacted into law. Connecticut also enacted similar legislation in 1842. And throughout the 19th century, Massachusetts continued to up the ante against truancy, to the extent of the mandatory jailing of habitually truant children, and steadily extended educational age and school year terms.
But though the Puritan underpinnings of public education began in New England, by 1850, all states in the Union had a network of public schools. The continuation of compulsory education also tracked behind New England but by 1900, almost every state had some form of compulsory attendance.
It is my particular focus in this article to review the history of American public education and not to dissect too deeply the philosophical issues that undergird it. But I can imagine that many will find the notion of compulsory education laws largely unoffensive. Suffice it to say that the notion that a child can be forced, and their parents along with them, to pursue education that they do not desire at the subjective decision of another is certainly not a liberal idea and a rather un-American one that was resisted elsewhere in the Union until the end of the 19th century.
It is here that we see the influence of what is referred to as the “Prussian model”. Those familiar with many of the programs that mar American history in the early 20th century will be familiar with the great influence which Prussian society had on the early progressives. The Prussian model for education included compulsory attendance, permitted private schooling only in the case that government school committee requirements were met, and established truant schools to which truant children would be sent and possibly committed to by the courts.
The Educationist Movement
It may be noted that some well revered founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson supported some form of publically funded education, at the very least for the poor. Their reasoning was often that a literate and educated public was more likely to function well within a republican form of government.
But from the very beginning of the Union, one can trace a line of succession of influential figures who wished to use education not only to create good citizens but to inculcate their preferred perspective on religion, authority, and the state. One early and prescient example is that of Archibald Murphey, regarded as the founding father of the North Carolina school system. As early as 1816, his system envisioned that:
“all children will be taught in them…in these schools the precepts of morality and religion should be inculcated, and habits of subordination and obedience be formed…. The state, in the warmth of her solicitude for their welfare, must take charge of those children, and place them in school where their minds can be enlightened and their hearts can be trained to virtue.”
This mentality, previously noted as being particularly strong in New England, is an early example of the way that progressivism has migrated and continues to migrate from power centers to the other states, with large migrations of New Englanders emigrating to the south and west starting in the 1820’s.
This influence quickly gave rise to a group of influential education advocates known as the Educationists. Among their ranks were such well-known names as Horace Mann, Calvin Stowe, Caleb Mills, Samuel Lewis, and Henry Barnard. Throughout the 19th century, their goals were to establish journals and publications meant to influence education policy and teacher’s schools and to successfully gain political positions as heads of the public school boards in their states. Their vision of the future of public education was firmly rooted in Communist ideals of forced egalitarianism and the Prussian ideals of uniformity of language, compulsory attendance, and anti-truant regulation.
This is also the origination and eventual removal of neutrality within the classroom in regards to controversial material. It is a sort of unspoken expectation that because of the nature of public funding for public schools, educators must not favor one viewpoint over another. So it was more explicitly the case in the 1800’s and as long as education was not compulsory, this neutrality was highly influential in gaining voluntary attendance by otherwise wary parents. But with the late nineteenth-century adoption of compulsory attendance, this neutrality no longer served a market purpose and was steadily shed, as many critics of public education today can attest to.
Education: The Conservative Blind Spot
Among the many institutions of American civic life that progressive politics has left a lasting impression on, education ranks near the top. Many landmark changes in the traditional practices found in schools can be found in common refrains from many conservatives who remember a “fairer time”. From the prohibition of corporal punishment, the removal of prayer, the Scopes Trial and other similar cases of conflict regarding evolution and creationism as part of public school curriculum, to the more current disagreements regarding sex education, standardized testing and Common Core, many conservatives need not look far to find something not to like about the state of public education today.
And yet, despite these various objections and intrusions into the preferences of so many parents and educators, the proposed solutions are rarely ever the obvious: the drastic transition out of publicly funded education. A thriving marketplace full of educational options that span the gamut of consumer and parental preferences would completely eliminate the incessant nationalization, standardization, and politicization of education in America. And the increased range of choices would introduce completely new and competitive forces into the educational landscape that would change the face of the education industry for the better.
But education remains America’s civic religion and the conflicts around public education reveal the progressive streak in both political parties. As strong a sentiment as the progressive desire may be for the universal removal of the teaching of creationism from the science classroom, so strong is the similar desire for the universal inclusion of such curriculum. Partisans from both sides believe so strongly that their approach is necessary for future generations that they cannot allow dissent from their desired policy, with the effective outcome being that neither can ever truly realize their preference!
As long as the state retains control of such a fundamental aspect of society as the education of its youth, and so long as the direction of that education is democratized, education will remain a source of conflict between communities, to the benefit of politicians everywhere and to the detriment of students.