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Cornell University Library 
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 Fifty years of American education 
 
 3 1924 032 496 501 
 
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 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032496501 
 
FIFTY YEARS OF 
 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
FIFTY YEARS OF 
 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 =/f SKETCH OF THE TROGRESS 
 
 OF EDUCATION 13^ THE UNITED STATES 
 
 FROM 1867 TO J pi 7 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST CARROLL MOORE 
 
 GINN AND COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 
 ATLANTA • DALLAS ■ COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1917. BY ERNEST CARROLL MOORE 
 
 ENTERED AT STATIONERS HALL 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 A 314^02- 
 
 etc gUienanin grtga 
 
 GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
 PRIETORS ■ BOSTON • U.S.A. 
 
1867—191^7 
 
 |iV" THE year 18 6y Edwin Ginn took desk 
 room in a modest Boston office and so began 
 the business which has for many years been 
 conducted under the firm name of Ginn and Company. 
 When an individual or an organization reaches the 
 half-century mark it seems fitting to signalize in some 
 appropriate way that achievement. Casting about for 
 a suitable anniversary memento of our own fifty years, 
 we were struck by the remarkable growth and develop- 
 ment of the school system of the United States during 
 this period. 
 
 It finally seemed to us that we could do no better than 
 invite Dr. Ernest C. Moore to sum up the educational 
 progress of the United States since 186 j. We are sure 
 that Dr. Moore's admirable sketch of the history of 
 education in this country for the period beginning in 
 18 6 J and ending in igiy will be a welcome and useful 
 contribution to our educational literature, and we bring 
 it before the public with gratitude that our own busi- 
 ness development has been contemporaneous with this 
 marvelous change in our American scfiools. 
 
 GINN AND COMPANY 
 !}(ovember, ipiy 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I 3 
 
 WE LIVE IN A PERIOD OF CHANGE 
 
 CHAPTER II 1 1 
 
 EDUCATION AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 CHAPTER III 43 
 
 SOME CHANGES SINCE THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 95 
 
FIFTY YEARS OF 
 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 lOTHING seems more certain than We live 
 that this is a dynamic universe, in ^^ '^ 
 which all things change, for activity _, ^° "•' 
 is their law^. Yet the changes which everywhere 
 go on take place so imperceptibly that it is only 
 when their effects are massed that we begin to 
 note their existence. Something very like a tor- 
 rent of change has been pushing life forward in 
 the United States since the Civil War, and we 
 who are caught up in its onrushing have been 
 carried along too swiftly to be aware of the dis- 
 tance we have traveled or the speed at which 
 we are moving. Francis Galton declared that 
 man's work in clearing the forests of North 
 America " would be visible to an observer as 
 far off as the moon," yet we who dwell in the 
 land that that clearing made habitable tend to 
 think of its physical features as always having 
 been the same as they now are. That same 
 statifying tendency benumbs our perception 
 
 3 
 
Fifty throughout. I heard President Eliot say in a 
 
 Tears of j-ecent address that the last fifty years has been 
 
 _, "the most prodigious period of change through 
 
 which the world has ever passed." Most of us do 
 
 not think of it in that way. 
 
 Let us note a few of the changes which 
 came on the heels of the Civil War. The first 
 transatlantic cable was laid in 1866. The first 
 transcontinental railway was operated in 1 869. 
 Bell's first telephone bears the date 1875, and 
 telephone exchanges were instituted in 1879. 
 The first cable car line was started in San Fran- 
 cisco in 1 8 7 3 . Electric lighting dates from 1 8 76 
 and electric traction from 1880. The Mer- 
 genthaler linotype was completed in 1884. In 
 1885 Daimler invented the internal combus- 
 tion motor, and in 1894 the first trialrun of 
 automobiles was organized by a French news- 
 paper. In 1896 Marconi produced an opera- 
 tive electric-wave telegraph. Langley tested his 
 steam-driven flying machine in 1893, ^'^'^ 
 in 1903 the Wright brothers made their first 
 flight in a motor-driven aeroplane. In 1877 
 Holland constructed his first submarine. The 
 
first dreadnought made its trial run in 1906. We live 
 New guns, of long range, accuracy, and rapidity ^^ ^ 
 of fire, and high explosives contributed an in- _ ■' 
 strument of slaughter which the combined 
 power of mankind is hardly able to keep from 
 destroying the human race. If tools are but the 
 elongation of the human hand, man's arm has 
 been mightily lengthened during the last half 
 century. 
 
 But progress in mechanical inventions is but 
 one phase of the development of science. Per- 
 haps the most significant changes of all have 
 taken place in medicine. " Forty years ago," 
 says Sir William Osier, "the world did not 
 know the cause of any of the great infections. 
 . . . Of all the great camp diseases — plague, 
 cholera, malaria, yellow fever, typhoid fever, 
 typhus, and dysentery — we know the mode of 
 transmission, and of all but yellow fever, the 
 germs. Man has now control of the most malign 
 of Nature's forces in a way never dreamt of by 
 our fathers. . . . Half a century has done more 
 than a hundred centuries to solve the problem 
 of the first importance in his progress." 
 
 5 
 
Fifty Such are a few of the revolutionary changes 
 
 Years of which science has ushered in in the brief period 
 ^merican ^^ ^^^ j^^j^ century which will, it seems, be 
 known in history as the scientific age. Darwin s 
 epochal discovery had been given to the world 
 in 1859. Huxley, Spencer, Pasteur, Berthelot, 
 Joule, Clerk Maxwell, Tait, and Kelvin were 
 at work and Faraday was still alive when the 
 period we are studying began. The creation of 
 the sciences, always a slow process, had reached 
 a period of intensification. 
 
 Science is an active force which infiltrates all 
 human relations. The discovery which Darwin 
 made has wrought no less significant changes 
 in religious, moral, political, social, and philo- 
 sophical conceptions than have steam and elec- 
 tricity in the way of mechanical assistance. In 
 view of its enlarged comprehension and the 
 changed attitudes which that enlarged compre- 
 hension entails, it is nothing short of exact truth 
 to say that in the last half century the race has 
 achieved a new heaven and a new earth. 
 
 If we ask how it has been with our country 
 during this period we shall find that immense 
 6 
 
social transformations have taken place. First We live 
 
 m a 
 
 Change 
 
 came the ever-to-be regretted period of recon- 
 struction and at the same time the rapid de- JP° "■' 
 velopment of the farming regions of the great 
 West. Then in rapid succession came civil-serv- 
 ice reform, great labor agitations, the Sherman 
 Antitrust Act, the panic of 1 89 3, and the wide- 
 spread agitation for monetary legislation w^hich 
 it caused. Then came the war with Spain, in 
 which the United States took possession of Cuba 
 and restored that island to its rightful owners, 
 drove Spain from the Philippine Islands and 
 determined to retain them until such time as 
 they might safely be intrusted to their own in- 
 habitants, thus forsaking its previous policy of 
 isolation to become an active member of the 
 family of the great powers of the world. The 
 Pacific was joined to the Atlantic, the franchise 
 was extended to women in several states, immi- 
 grants poured into the country by the million. 
 The desert was reclaimed; farm acreage was ex- 
 tended by an area that exceeded the territory of 
 the German Empire. Industrialism grew, cities 
 doubled and trebled their populations, great 
 
 7 
 
Fifty combinations of skilled and unskilled workers 
 
 Years of were formed. Political radicalism gained con- 
 
 - , . trol and semisocialistic programs oi reform 
 taucatton . 
 
 were enacted into laws. 
 
 Have changes at all comparable with these 
 taken place in education ? Has the progress of 
 invention, the advance of science, the onrush- 
 ing development of social, economic, and po- 
 litical life been accompanied by a corresponding 
 development in the schools of the nation? Prog- 
 ress in education follows progress in other activ- 
 ities of life. It is apt to follow somewhat afar off, 
 for the school is a conserving rather than a re- 
 newing force. The battle of ideas does not rage 
 in it as it rages in the world. Its first duty is to 
 teach, and before it can do so confidently it must 
 be assured of the validity and the great worth of 
 what it teaches. Adults are far more ready to try 
 experiments upon themselves than upon their 
 children. The young, they feel, must not be en- 
 dangered by innovations. Only that which has 
 been tested and proved, although usually by time 
 rather than by merit, has a claim upon their 
 attention. The school, therefore, sits somewhat 
 8 
 
apart from the current of change. Yet there is We live 
 
 a relation between educational advance and in- ^'^ ^ 
 
 J ^ • 1 J . . 1 . J Teriodof 
 
 dustnal and civic progress, and in a democracy _, ■' 
 
 it must, in a measure, overcome its tendency to 
 
 aloofness and make itself the responsive servant 
 
 of the public need. This it has done and is doing, 
 
 and, as a consequence, the changes which have 
 
 taken place in education in the last fifty years 
 
 are momentous. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 O PROVIDE a background for our Education 
 picture let us take note of the signiii- (it the End 
 cant educational movements which ^. .,^^ 
 had been set afoot before the period which we 
 are to study began, in order that we may know 
 its historical heredity. In Massachusetts localism 
 obtained its greatest control over education in 
 the decentralized district school about the year 
 1827. There were only two functions which the 
 districts could not perform. One was the levying 
 and apportioning of taxes and the other was the 
 certificating of teachers, both of these functions 
 being retained by the towns. The school district 
 is the minutest subdivision into which govern- 
 m ental authority has ever been broken, and under 
 its control of instruction public education de- 
 clined to its nadir. The process by which the 
 school districts thus unhappily opposed the gen- 
 eral welfare and obtained a destructive measure 
 of local- control was at least a century long. It 
 
 II > 
 
Fifty brought about the undoing of the town gram- 
 Years of j^^r schools and provided only very inferior 
 
 c, , neighborhood schools in place of them. In self- 
 
 tducation ° ^ 
 
 defense the w^ealthier folks here and there es- 
 tablished private academies to obtain a better 
 education for their children, and in time the 
 state aided them with grants of public money. 
 These schools were free in the sense that th^ 
 were open to all who could meet their condi- 
 tions, but their tuition fees had to be paid. 
 
 But about the year 1 800 an immense change 
 had begun to come over the land. The invention 
 of the steam engine had started a mighty 
 transformation in the life of the people. Do- 
 mestic industry was supplanted by the factory 
 system. The factories which sprang up needed 
 workers, and people flocked from the country 
 into the towns. At first the towns were little 
 better than hastily constructed camps without 
 adequate housing, adequate sanitation, adequate 
 police and health regulations. Ignorance, dis- 
 ease, drunkenness, poverty, and crime flourished 
 in them. Then came the hard times of 1 8 1 9— 
 1 8 2 1 , which made conditions so desperate that 
 12 
 
great humanitarian movements took form to Education 
 alleviate them. Among these were the tern- '^^ ^"^^ ^"'* 
 perance movement; the labor movement; the ^. .,^ 
 philanthropic movement to care for the poor, 
 to provide hospitals for the insane, to combat 
 the increase of crime and furnish training to the 
 deaf, dumb, and blind ; and, most important of 
 all, a mighty rhovement in behalf of popular 
 education, preaching a veritable crusade against 
 the evils of the time by the creation of tax- 
 supported public schools. This is the period of 
 our educational revival which after-years may 
 look back upon as no less significant in human 
 history than the Renaissanceor the Reformation. 
 The names of the humanitarians are on the 
 honor roll of the nation. Among them are the 
 educational revivalists. James G. Carter is their 
 leader and more than any other is responsible 
 for starting the great school reform. He fought 
 valiantly against the two causes which seemed 
 to him to be chiefly responsible for the failure 
 of free schools : bad teachers and poor books. 
 The state, he said, must go into the business of 
 training teachers, and must provide that training 
 
 13 
 
Fifty without cost to them. He outlined an insti- 
 
 Tears of tution which would do this, and declared that 
 
 merican ^^ , ^^^ creation could standards of qualifica- 
 Saucatton ■' ■' 
 
 tion be set, and stability, dignity, and power be 
 
 given to the teaching profession. He did not 
 succeed immediately in persuading the state 
 of Massachusetts to authorize the founding of 
 normal schools, but he was the prime mover in 
 that enterprise and one of the founders of that 
 oldest of teachers' associations, the American 
 Institute of Instruction, which took form in 
 1829. That organization met in Boston. Its 
 membership was composed largely of teachers 
 and educational leaders from New England ; but 
 representatives from the Middle, the Southern, 
 and the Western states were present at its meet- 
 ings and gave the society a national character 
 from its very beginning. Its purpose was "to do 
 something toward elevating the standard and 
 increasing the efficiency of popular instruction, ' ' 
 says the preface to the first volume of its Pro- 
 ceedings. "It will furnish the means, by the 
 cooperation of its members, of obtaining an 
 exact knowledge of the present condition of the 
 
 14 
 
schools in all parts of the country. It will tend Education 
 to render universal, so that it shall pervade every '^t the End 
 districtandvillage,astrongconvictionofthepar- ^. .^,' 
 amount national importance of preserving and 
 extending the means of popular instruction, thus 
 securing the aid of multitudes of fellow laborers 
 in every portion of the country. It will tend to 
 raise the standard of the qualification of instruc- 
 tors, so that the business of teaching shall not be 
 the last resort of dullness and indolence, but shall 
 be considered, as it was in the days of republican 
 Greece, an occupation worthy of the highest 
 talents and ambition. It will hardly fail to show 
 that education is a science, to be advanced, like 
 every other science, by experiment; whose prin- 
 ciples are to be fixed and capacities determined 
 by experiment; which is to be entered upon by 
 men of a philosophical mind and pursued with a 
 philosophical spirit. It will be likely to bring for- 
 ward the modes and objects of instruction in for- 
 eign nations and ancient times and their appli- 
 cability to the state of things among ourselves."^ 
 
 * From the preface to the first volume of the Proceedings of The 
 American Institute of Instruction. 
 
 15 
 
Fifty The nation now had a parliament for "the dif- 
 
 Years of fusion of useful knowledge in regard to educa- 
 
 °ff' '■''.'"' tion." The cry had been sounded that "this 
 Education ■' 
 
 country ought to be the best educated on the 
 
 face of the earth," and its educational leaders 
 were now organized to make it so. 
 
 Other revivalists of education were Samuel 
 R. Hall, who founded at Andover in the year 
 1829 a seminary for teachers, a private normal 
 school and the first real school for teachers in 
 the United States; Horace Mann, the protago- 
 nist of public education, who having worked 
 with the others of that splendid company to cre- 
 ate the first State Board of Education in Massa- 
 chusetts, in 1837 became its secretary; Charles 
 Brooks, who without compensation traveled 
 over New England, preaching the gospel of free 
 public education; George B.Emerson, the prime 
 mover in forming the Boston Mechanics' Insti- 
 tution in 1 8 2 7 ; and Henry Barnard, "the Educa- 
 tor." They preached the doctrine that universal 
 education is necessary to increase production, to 
 diminish crime, to prevent poverty, to preserve 
 free institutions, and to prevent the creation of 
 16 
 
a caste system, and that it is one of the natural Education 
 rights of man. The people heard them gladly. ^ttheBnd 
 The pioneers in the West and the laboring men ^. ..^ 
 in the cities lent valiant support to the cause. 
 Of Horace Mann and his work something 
 more must be said even in so brief an account as 
 this is intended to be. In 1836 the directors of 
 the American Institute of Instruction presented 
 a memorial to the legislature of Massachusetts, 
 "show^ing the inefficiency of the means now^ 
 employed for the education of the teachers of 
 the common schools and praying the legisla- 
 ture to do something for their better instruc- 
 tion." They asked it to appoint a superintendent 
 of the common schools. Governor Everett, 
 how^ever, in his message to the legislature rec- 
 ommended the creation of a state board of 
 education ; and, very fortunately for the future 
 of the public schools of the nation, since no 
 lone and unsupported superintendent could have 
 done v^hat w^as required unaided, the governor's 
 recommendation prevailed. Accordingly, in 
 1837, a State Board of Education, made up 
 of the governor and lieutenant-governor as 
 
 17 
 
Fifty ex-officio members and of eight others ap- 
 
 Years of pointed by the governor, came into being. The 
 
 „ . . Board was authorized to appoint a secretary 
 tducatton '^'- _ _ ■' 
 
 whose duty was to be "to collect information 
 of the actual conditions and efficiency of the 
 common schools and other means of popular 
 education and to diffuse as widely as possible 
 throughout every part of the commonwealth 
 information of the most approved and success- 
 ful modes of instruction." 
 
 Mr. Horace Mann, an attorney-at-law of 
 Dedham, who was the presiding officer of the 
 senate of Massachusetts, championed the bill 
 from the first. His keen interest in the cause of 
 education, his activity in many lines of pubHc re- 
 form, and his readiness to work wdthout sparing 
 himself led the governor to appoint him as one 
 of the members of the new Board. "For my- 
 self," he writes, "I never had a sleeping or wak- 
 ing dream that I should ever think of myself or 
 be thought of by any other in relation to" the 
 post of secretary. Twenty days before the ap- 
 pointment of the new Board was announced 
 such a suggestion was made to him by one who 
 18 
 
was in the confidence of the governor and was, Education 
 like himself, to be a member of the Board. Was ^.ttheEnd 
 
 Mr. Mann fitted for such a post? He had not been "% .f„^ 
 
 ^ Civil mir 
 
 professionally trained for educational leader- 
 ship, but nobody else had been then. He had 
 not served the cause of public education as 
 had Mr. James G. Carter, who for years had 
 urged school reform in Massachusetts. But he 
 had served the people most acceptably in a posi- 
 tion of leadership. He was a trained and success- 
 ful lawyer, a man of great talent, and no one alive 
 was more interested than he in the welfare of 
 humanity or more eager to serve its helplessness 
 and need. Indeed, he was a kind of knight-errant 
 of the holy spirit, laborious and self-denying to a 
 fault, one of the finest and most useful of all the 
 great men whom our country has yet produced. 
 "By their fruits ye shall know them." Judged in 
 the light of what he did for public-school edu- 
 cation in America, the members of the Board of 
 Education seem to have been inspired in their 
 choice of their secretary. 
 
 The words of the fathers are both interest- 
 ing and profitable. How did this first de facto 
 
 19 
 
Fifty superintendent of schools in our country regard 
 
 Tears of ^^g work ? Of the Board of Education he writes : 
 
 <^merican 
 
 Education It is the first great movement toward an organized 
 system of common education which shall be at once 
 thorough and universal. Every civilized state is im- 
 perfectly organized without a minister or secretary of 
 instruction, as it would be without ministers or secre- 
 taries of state, finance, war, or the navy. Every child 
 should be educated; if not educated by its own father, 
 the state should appoint a father to it. I would much 
 sooner surrender a portion of the territory of the com- 
 monwealth to an ambitious neighbor than I would 
 surrender the minds of its children to the dominion 
 of ignorance. . . . When will society, like a mother, 
 take care of all her children ? 
 
 When he is pressed for an answer whether 
 he will accept the secretaryship of the Board, 
 he writes in his diary : 
 
 I cannot think of that station as regards myself 
 without feeling both hopes and fears, desires and 
 apprehensions multiplying in my mind — so glorious 
 a sphere should it be crowned with success, so heavy 
 a disappointment and humiliation should it fail 
 through any avoidable misfortune. What a thought, 
 to have the fiiture minds of such multitudes de- 
 pendent in any perceptible degree upon one's own 
 
 20 
 
exertions ! It is such a thought as must mightily Education 
 
 energize or totally overpower any mind that can at the End 
 
 adequately comprehend it. of the 
 
 Civil ff^r 
 And when on the 29 th of June, 1837, this first 
 
 American director of the education of the young 
 is elected to his high responsibihty, we find him 
 writing down a prayer for "an annihilation of 
 selfishness, a mind of wisdom, a heart of benevo- 
 lence" and resolving within himself, as both he 
 and all his sons of the office have such good 
 need to, that there is but one spirit in which the 
 impediments raised by men of one motive, who 
 are incased in jealousy and prejudice and intent 
 only upon gain for themselves, can be met, and 
 that is the spirit of self-abandonment — the 
 spirit of the martyr. 
 
 I must not irritate, I must not humble, I must not 
 degrade anyone in his own eyes. I must not present 
 myself as a solid body to oppose, an iron barrier to 
 any. I must be a fluid sort of man, adapting myself 
 to tastes, opinions, habits, manners, so far as this can 
 be done without hypocrisy or insincerity or a com- 
 promise of principle. In all this there must be a higher 
 principle than to win personal esteem, or favor, or 
 worldly applause. A new fountain may now be opened. 
 
 21 
 
Fifty Let me strive to direct its current in such a manner 
 Years of that if when I have departed from life I may still be 
 ^American permitted to witness its course, I may behold it 
 Education broadening and deepening in an everlasting progres- 
 sion of virtue and happiness. ... I have faith in 
 the improvability of men — in their accelerating 
 improvability. 
 
 Such was his consecration and such was his 
 creed. 
 
 By 1850 the New England doctrine of tax- 
 supported free schools had been accepted in all 
 the Northern States, and free schools had made 
 their appearance in some of the states of the 
 South. The normal school was from the first an 
 essential feature, perhaps the chief feature of 
 this great democratic movement for popular 
 education. In 1839— 1840 Massachusetts cre- 
 ated three of them, at Lexington, Barre, and 
 Bridgewater . Other states soon established them. 
 It followed that if the schools were to be of 
 the people, for the people, and by the people, 
 the endowed academies must be superseded by 
 public high schools. The first high school had 
 been established by the municipality of Boston 
 in 1821. Neighboring towns soon created 
 22 
 
similar ones. Philadelphia in 1838 established Education 
 the Central High School; Baltimore opened <^ttheEnd 
 a city college and Providence created a high L. .,j^ 
 •school in 1843; ^^^ Hartford made over her 
 grammar school into a high school in 1 847. 
 
 It was fortunate for the nation that the claims 
 of education w^ere so incomparably championed 
 at the time w^hen the life of the states was begin- 
 ning to take organized form. But for what the 
 educational revivalists did and stimulated others 
 to do in other parts of the land, the nation might 
 have been very different from what it has been 
 and will be, and education might have had but 
 a small and insignificant part in it. As it was, 
 the foundations which they put down had only 
 been laid, when the question of slavery and the 
 all-absorbing Civil War claimed the attention 
 of men, and what they had so finely begun had 
 to be taken up as unfinished business and carried 
 to completion when the war was over and life 
 had once more resumed its proper course. 
 
 The year 1867 witnessed that great resump- 
 tion of the nation's proper business. On March 2 
 of that year an act establishing a department 
 
 23 
 
Fifty of education was approved, the first section of 
 
 Tears of which reads as follows: 
 
 „ , . Be it enacted by the Senate and the House ofRepre- 
 tducation . r , TT ■ J o I- yi ■ • V> 
 
 sentatives oj the Untted Citates of America, tn Congress 
 
 assembled, that there shall be established at the city 
 of Washington, a Department of Education for the 
 purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall 
 show the condition and progress of education in the 
 several States and Territories, and of diffusing such 
 information respecting the organization and manage- 
 ment of school systems and methods of teaching as 
 shall aid the people of the United States in the estab- 
 lishment and maintenance of efficient school systems 
 and otherwise promote the cause of education through- 
 out the country. 
 
 That tireless struggler for public schools, 
 Henry Barnard, was appointed the first Com- 
 missioner of Education, and at the end of oneyear 
 in office, on March 15, 1 868, he submitted his 
 first report. That report contains priceless mate- 
 rial concerning the history of education in our 
 country, not the least of which is the speech 
 made by James A. Garfield of Ohio in support 
 of the bill to establish a national bureau of edu- 
 cation which a select committee, of which he 
 was chairman, had reported to the House on 
 24 
 
the memorial of the National Association of Education 
 School Superintendents. at the End 
 
 There were -26 states in the United States at ^. .f„^ 
 •^ _ LivtlWar 
 
 that time. Even the Congressional Library con- 
 tained no educational reports whatever from 1 9 
 of them. The other 1 7 had raised by taxation 
 $34,000,000 annually for the support and 
 maintenance of public schools during the five 
 years of war. The Census of 1 860 showed that 
 there were in the United States 1 1 5,224 com- 
 mon schools, 150,241 teachers, and 5,477,037 
 scholars. According to the same census there 
 were 1,218,311 free white inhabitants of the 
 United States over twenty-one years of age who 
 could not read or write, and 871,418 of these 
 were American-born citizens. Their number 
 had been growing alarmingly. Mr. Mann added . 
 30 per cent to these figures for " undoubted un- 
 derestimates," and some persons went so far as to 
 declare that one fourth of the population were 
 illiterate. A third of a million immigrants were 
 arriving every year, a large proportion of 
 whom were uneducated, and 4,000,000 slaves 
 had just been admitted to citizenship by the 
 
 ^5 
 
Fifty events of the war. "Such,Sir," said Mr. Garfield, 
 Tears of «< jg (-hg immense force which we must now 
 
 o , . confront by the eenius of our institutions and 
 Education ■' .... 
 
 the light of our civilization. How shall it be 
 
 done? An American citizen can give but one 
 answer. We must pour upon them the light of 
 our public schools. We must make them intel- 
 ligent, industrious, patriotic citizens,orthey will 
 drag us and our children down to their level." 
 The work to be done in the new era which 
 began at the close of the Civil War was gigan- 
 tic, but the American spirit had been re-created 
 and balked at nothing. What were the agencies 
 already in existence which it could employ in 
 the resolute fight for internal development to 
 which it now gave itself.? Public education was 
 now definitely regarded as a national interest. 
 It is not only the birthright of the child but the 
 state's indispensable means of self-preservation 
 and improvement. Twenty-six states had by 
 the beginning of the year 1867 created state 
 school systems and state superintendents of pub- 
 lic instruction to direct them. By that date there 
 were 4 state normal schools in Massachusetts, 
 
2 in New York, i in Michigan, i in New Jer- Education 
 
 sey, I in Illinois, 4 in Pennsylvania, 5 in Wis- ^i the End 
 
 consin, i in Minnesota, i in California, i in /. .,,„ 
 
 CivtlWar 
 
 , Indiana, i in South Carolina, 3 in Vermont, i 
 in Kansas, 2 in Maine, i in Maryland, and i 
 in Delaware. City normal schools had been 
 opened at New Haven, St. Louis, San Francisco, 
 and in 3 towns in Indiana and 3 in Iowa. Upon 
 the refusal of the legislature of Ohio to establish 
 such a school the State Teachers' Association 
 in 1855 started one. The report of the Com- 
 missioner of Education for the year 1870, a 
 precious volume because it contains the first 
 available body of statistics concerning the schools 
 of the United States, reports that in this year 
 no less than 369 colleges were in existence. In 
 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, Congress 
 had passed a bill granting to each state 30,000 
 acres of land for each senator and representative 
 in Congress. The income from the sale of this 
 land was, according to the directions of the bill, 
 to constitute a perpetual fund, and the interest 
 on that fund was to be used for "the endow- 
 ment, support, and maintenance of at least one 
 
 27 
 
Fifty college" in which "the leading object should 
 Tears of 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 their several pursuits and professions 
 in life." Nineteen states had established colleges 
 before the end of 1 8 6 1 , the University of Penn- 
 sylvania having been created in 1 755, the Uni- 
 versity of Vermont in 1 79 1 , the University of 
 Virginia in 1825, the University of Indiana in 
 1828, the University of Michigan in 1837, and 
 the University of Wisconsin in 1848. 
 
 If we turn now to the report of the Com- 
 missioner of Education for the year 1 870, in 
 order to learn where the educational battle was 
 pitched, we shall find some interesting facts 
 concerning the condition of education in the 
 several states at that time. 
 
 The first free public school was estabEshed 
 in California in 1849, ^^ 1869 there were 
 28 
 
73j754 children enrolled in 1268 schools. In Education 
 the 1 9 16 Report of the Commissioner of Ed- ^i the End 
 
 uc^tion the whole number of pupils in school {,. .,„. 
 
 ^ ^ Civil War 
 
 in that state is reported as 513,002. 
 
 Though the laws of the state of Connecticut 
 laid an obligation upon every parent and guard- 
 ian of children " not to suffer so much barbarism 
 in any of their families as to have a single child 
 or apprentice unable to read " and also " to 
 bring them up to some lawful calling or em- 
 ployment," the rate bill existed in that state 
 until the year 1868, when a law was passed re- 
 quiring each town to " raise by taxation such 
 sum of money as it may find necessary to make 
 its schools free." The first year's trial of this 
 measure demonstrated that some 6000 children 
 had been kept from school by the rate bill. 
 New Haven reports that it has maintained a 
 system of graded schools for sixteen years. 
 
 Delaware replies to the request of the com- 
 missioner for information about its schools that 
 it "is unable to supply reports asked for." There 
 appears to have been a complete absence of 
 supervision there. 
 
 29 
 
Fifty The number of children attending school in 
 
 Years of ^he state of Illinois in 1868 was 706,780. 
 ertca •j^y^^ latest figure is 1,246,827. Only about 5 
 per cent of its schools were graded in 1867. 
 "This small proportion of graded schools," 
 writes the superintendent, "furnishes an im- 
 pressive practical argument in favor of the 
 abolition of the independent local school dis- 
 trict. But while the adoption of the township 
 system would remove all organic obstacles to 
 the general prevalence of graded schools, it 
 would not remove the misapprehension, preju- 
 dice, and indifference which so largely obtain 
 in respect to the improved kinds of schools and 
 methods of instruction." In this wise observa- 
 tion made fifty years ago, the need for the con- 
 solidation of schools is clearly stated and the 
 obstacle which to this day has prevented that 
 much agitated reform is pointed out. 
 
 The S uperintendent of Schools of Indiana re- 
 ports that although the constitution of the state 
 makes it incumbent upon the legislature to pro- 
 vide "a general and uniform system of com- 
 mon schools wherein tuition shall be without 
 
 30 
 
charge and equally open to all, we cannot avoid Sducation 
 
 the grave consideration that there is a large at the End 
 
 colored population in the state who have^'.f„, 
 
 . Civil ffar 
 
 hitherto submitted patiently to the ordeal of 
 
 adverse public sentiment and the force of our 
 statutes in being denied participation in our 
 public-school funds, while at the same time no 
 bar can be discovered to their natural and con- 
 stitutional right to these. . . . Colored citizens 
 while hitherto deprived of their natural and 
 constitutional rights have been subject to the 
 special school tax for township purposes in 
 common with white citizens, and have thus 
 paid their proportion of expense for building 
 schoolhouses for white children. After being 
 denied all privilege to the school funds and 
 thus taxed, they have been under the necessity 
 of levying upon themselves an additional tax to 
 build their own schoolhouses and for the entire 
 cost of their tuition." This passage shows that 
 since that day the people of the United States 
 have, in at least one respect, grown considerably 
 in grace and in justice. 
 
 Iowa reports that every civil township is a 
 
 31 
 
Fifty school district and is divided into subdistricts 
 
 Years of vvith subdirectors, each subdirector having 
 
 „ . charge of the school affairs in his district. 
 
 Education ° 
 
 It is a notable fact that persons are often chosen 
 for these positions without any reference to financial 
 ability or even common prudence. Much attention 
 is attached to the training in music which is given 
 in many of the graded schools. The old practice of 
 rote singing is discarded. 
 
 Kansas reports that though "the constitution 
 of the state provides that 'the 500,000 acres of 
 land granted to the new states under an act of 
 Congress distributing the proceeds of public 
 lands among the several states of the Union, 
 approved September 4, a. D. 1 841, shall be in- 
 violably appropriated to the support of the 
 common schools,' notw^ithstanding this provi- 
 sion, the legislature of 1866 appropriated the 
 w^hole5oo,ooo acres tofourrailwaycompanies." 
 
 The report of the Superintendent of Schools 
 of Kentucky gives an account of the struggle 
 of that state to obtain a reform in its school 
 law^s w^hich failed "through the ignorance and 
 prejudice of the legislature, notwithstanding a 
 
 32 
 
previous decision of the people, by a majority Education 
 of 20,000 votes, in favor of such reform. The '^i the End 
 common sentiment expressed was, * Give us ^. ..^^ 
 better laws and more money or abolish the 
 school system altogether.' " 
 
 Michigan reports that " the plan of free 
 schools has been in operation less than a single 
 term, the legislature having only at the last 
 session abolished the rate bill. In consequence 
 of the schools being free, the length of time 
 they have been held has been greatly increased. 
 In some districts they are said to have nearly 
 twice the length of school that they have pre- 
 viously had. The advantages of the free-school 
 system are so manifest that it was adopted in 
 most of the cities and large towns several years 
 since, the rate being abolished by public vote. 
 It is estimated that tuition in the graded schools 
 is at least ten cents a month cheaper than in the 
 schools which are not graded." 
 
 A New Hampshire superintendent, even in 
 that early day, finds courage to protest against 
 the study of grammar. "How vague and un- 
 satisfactory the ideas which our pupils gain 
 
 33 
 
Fifty from such terms as auxiliary, antecedent, correl- 
 
 Years of ative, coordinate, proposition, passive, imper- 
 
 „ , sonal, infinitive, logical, synopsis, etc." " But 
 
 music," he writes, " is now^ a regular exercise, 
 
 the same as arithmetic or geography." 
 
 The superintendent reports that in New- 
 Jersey there are 696 districts in which the 
 schools are free and 634 in which they are sup- 
 ported in part by tuition fees which the pupils 
 pay. "If the action necessary to make schools 
 free is not taken by the legislature soon, I am 
 confident the people themselves will make 
 them free by their own voluntary efforts." 
 
 The schools of New York were not free to all. 
 the children of the state until 1 867. The super- 
 intendent of that state speaks of its public-school 
 system as "but an orderly plan of the people to 
 educate themselves." At that time the city of 
 Brooklyn had a course of study which was 
 divided into six primary and six grammar grades, 
 with a thirteenth grade added as an advanced 
 course. Promotions were made semiannually 
 after "careful examination of all the classes 
 throughout the entire school at the same time." 
 
 34 
 
Ohio reports the number of districts in which Education 
 the teachers "boarded round" as 2025. The '^^^^^^'^'^ 
 average number of pupils per teacher in the ^. ..^^ 
 schools of Cincinnati at that time was 50.3 in 
 the district school and 48.9 in the intermediate. 
 In that city "the phonic method has now been 
 very generally adopted in the schools as the basis 
 for instruction in reading in the lower grades. 
 Since the beginning of the year the department 
 of drawing has been thoroughly reorganized. 
 The superintendent of drawing gives regular 
 lessons two days in the week and devotes the 
 remainder of his time to supervision." 
 
 High schools are mentioned in the report 
 from Pennsylvania: . 
 
 Exceptin the matter ofauthorizingschool directors 
 to grade the schools where they can be graded, our 
 school law makes no provision for the encouragement 
 of higher education. A district may tax itself to estab- 
 lish and support a high school, but the state lends it 
 no helping hand in doing so. 
 
 The city of Philadelphia reports that up- 
 wards of 20,000 children not attending any 
 school qre running the streets "in idleness and 
 
 35 
 
Fifty vagabondism. To enact a compulsory-education 
 Years of j^w without other essential provisions would be 
 
 o , . idle and chimerical. Not unless we clothe these 
 
 tducatton 
 
 20,000 children and place them in point of ap- 
 pearance on a level with those who now occupy 
 almost every seat, can our public schools open 
 their doors for these outcasts of society and 
 render them the same facilities afforded to the 
 better class now in attendance." 
 
 We find the president of the Board of Educa- 
 tion of that city offering this testimony as to the 
 unorganized condition of the schools: 
 
 Had the public schools of Philadelphia the very 
 necessary and competent services of a city superin- 
 tendent to interpret, arrange, and execute our rules 
 upon this and other kindred matters of school gov- 
 ernment and discipline, how readily could these con- 
 flicting views be harmonized and all difficulties and 
 diversity of sentiment among the teachers adjusted. 
 Let us hope that the time is not far distant when 
 councils will see the imperative necessity of making 
 appropriation necessary to secure the services of such 
 an executive head for the public schools. Our duty is 
 simply to legislate. We need a proper officer to exe- 
 cute the laws essential to the prosperity and unity of 
 the system. 
 
 36 
 
The fifty years since this was written have sup- Education 
 plied many a superintendent to city boards of ^^ ^"-^ ^"" 
 education, but they have not disclosed many i,. ..^^ 
 boards of education with as clear a notion of 
 their duties as this board member had. 
 
 The references to the schools of Massachu- 
 setts in this report of the United States Com- 
 missioner of Education are particularly valuable, 
 for enough quotations from the school reports 
 of the towns are given to enable a reader to con- 
 struct a rather clear picture of the educational 
 situation in the mother commonwealth shortly 
 after the close of the war. The number of public 
 schools in the state for 1869 was 4959. The 
 average length of school was eight months and 
 four days, and 1085 male and 6937 female 
 teachers were employed. There were in the 
 state 175 high schools, 35 more than the law 
 required. There were also 45 incorporated 
 academies and 481 private schools and unin- 
 corporatedacademies,in which the amount paid 
 for tuition was estimated at $593,005, making 
 an aggregate of $3,716,892.40 expended in 
 the state in teaching its children. There are a 
 
 37 
 
Fifty number of protests in the reports of the towns 
 
 Years of which tell in an incisive way what difficulties 
 
 ^ , the schools were contending: with. Among them 
 
 education ° ° 
 
 are such statements as "One fourth of the time 
 
 and money devoted to the schools is wasted and 
 will be until parents manifest an increasing 
 interest in the intellectual welfare of their chil- 
 dren and consider it a duty to keep them regu- 
 larly at school." "It is a remarkable fact that 
 a majority of those who vote at town meeting 
 against sufficient appropriations for a full term 
 of free school are those who pay small taxes." 
 "When our churches are magnificent and our 
 houses are elegant, our temples of learning 
 should not be barns." "To make a child think 
 for hihiself is the teacher's main business. He 
 should not aim to cram the memory of children 
 with the results of his own thinking, but stimu- 
 late them to do their own thinking." "If the 
 teacher would teach topics in such a way that 
 each mind could grasp the thoughts, instead of 
 requiring pupils to commit to memory only 
 words, we should seldom be obliged to hear 
 the too frequent remark, 'I have been over the 
 
 38 
 
lessons but do not know anything about them.' " Education 
 "Let the school hours and studies be few and '^t the End 
 pleasant, especially to the beginner, lest he ^. ..^^ 
 learn to hate them before he knows their value 
 and become a truant before he becomes a 
 scholar." "The school in this town where most 
 attention has been given to object instruction 
 has done more work in the regular studies than 
 any other of its grade." "There should be one 
 school in town open to advanced scholars from 
 all parts of the town for a term of twelve weeks 
 at least. If so vast a majority of our children 
 cannot go to the high school, it is important to 
 take measures to bring some of the high-school 
 studies to them." 
 
 , In 1868 the town of Fall River established 
 half-time schools "for children between the 
 ages of 5 and 1 5 employed in the mills." One 
 half of these children went to school in the 
 forenoon and worked in the mill in the after- 
 noon, the other half worked in the morning 
 and went to school in the afternoon. Indian 
 Orchard had a similar half-time school. It is 
 clear from the ages included in this arrangement 
 
 39 
 
Fifty that child-labor laws are a creation of the last 
 Years of fifty years. 
 
 - , The city of Boston in 1870 reported that 
 
 Education _ ■' ' ^ 
 
 lessons in vocal and physical culture have been 
 given in all the primary schools. Music is taught 
 universally, and its study is considered of much 
 importance. In someprimary schools thephonic 
 system of teaching reading has been employed 
 and with success. There are thirteen special 
 teachers of sewing. 
 
 In 1869 the district-school system was for a 
 second time abolished, but its abolition was re- 
 pealed the next year. It did not meet its doom 
 in Massachusetts until the year 1882. 
 
 In short, our study shows that though in 
 1867a beginning had been made in most of the 
 activities of education, nothing more than a 
 beginning had been made. The development, 
 therefore, of all the great present-day agencies 
 of education — free graded elementary schools, 
 intermediate schools, high schools, normal 
 schools, the great universities, schools for the 
 negro and the Indian, vocational schools, the 
 great foundations, departments in universities 
 40 
 
for the study of education, statistical informa- Education 
 tion concerning schools, new courses of study, '^t the end 
 a vast literature about teaching, well-nigh the ^. ., ^^ 
 whole present-day science of education (includ- 
 ing school administration, child-study, educa- 
 tional psychology, the history and theory of 
 education, school hygiene, and educational 
 standards and measurements), and very nearly 
 the entire machinery of school supervision (city 
 superintendents, supervising principals, super- 
 visors of subjects, and state inspectors and 
 agents) — is a growth of the last fifty years. This 
 statement refers to changes so colossal that the 
 mere effort to think of them one after the other is 
 stupefying, but we have not begun to enumerate 
 them all. Our list makes no mention of school 
 buildings, play and playgrounds, compulsory 
 education, truant schools, juvenile courts, public 
 libraries, and a score more of agencies which 
 have been developed to assist the school in its 
 work. This whole accumulation of progress has 
 come about so gradually that it is only when we 
 set ourselves consciously to unravel its history 
 that we become aware how truly marvelous it is. 
 
 41 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 lET us examine its several parts a little Some 
 
 in detail. In 1 87 1 New Jersey, the last Changes 
 
 state in the United States to do so, abol- _,. .,„. 
 
 Ctvtlfmr 
 
 ished the rate bill, and the schools of the entire 
 
 nation became definitely free. In 1866, when 
 
 James A.Garfield made his report to the House 
 
 of Representatives urging it to establish a national 
 
 bureau of education, he referred to compulsory 
 
 school attendance in rather hesitating terms : 
 
 The genius of our government does not allow us 
 to establish a compulsory system of education, as is 
 done in some of the countries of Europe. There are 
 states in this Union, however, which have adopted a 
 compulsory system, and perhaps that is well. It is for 
 each state to determine. A distinguished gentleman 
 ' from Rhode Island told me lately that it is now the 
 law in that state that every child within its borders 
 shall attend school and that every vagrant child shall 
 be taken in charge by the authorities and sent to 
 school. It may be well for other states to pursue the 
 same course; but probably the general government 
 can do nothing of the sort. 
 
 43 
 
Fifty The complaint is general in the first reports of 
 
 Years of thg school authorities which the Commissioner 
 
 c .of Education reproduces that children do not 
 
 taucation ^ 
 
 attend school; that parents are very remiss in 
 their duty of sending them. Maine reports that 
 "in general terms truancy and absenteeism de- 
 prive us of at least 25 per cent of attainable 
 results in the educational line." Massachusetts 
 was among the first to act, passing a compulsory- 
 education law in 1852. Each town was author- 
 ized to establish "a reform school" for children 
 between the ages of seven and sixteen who," not 
 attending school or without any regular occu- 
 pation, are growing up in ignorance," and to 
 send such children there instead of fining them, 
 if it is thought best. Springfield reports that 
 such a school was established in the almshouse, 
 but, more significantly, that an ungraded school 
 has also been established where habitual truants 
 "who ought to be sent to the reform school 
 may be kept under instruction until they can 
 be returned to the graded schools." In 1870 
 the city of Boston employed ten truant officers 
 who gave their entire time to investigating 
 
 44 
 
cases of truancy and securing the attendance of Some 
 
 absentees. It is a far cry from these beginnings Changes 
 
 to the more wholesome conditions of the pres- „. .,„, 
 
 ^ Ctvtimir 
 
 ent time. In 1 9 1 6 all the states but one, Mis- 
 sissippi, and certain counties of Arkansas had 
 compulsory-attendance laws ; twenty-seven of 
 them requiring attendance for the full school 
 year and the others for a specified part of it, in 
 no case less than twelve weeks. In 1 8 70 the aver- 
 age number of years of schooling of two hun- 
 dred days each received by each pupil in public 
 and private schools was 3.36; in 1914 it was 
 6.16. The persistent effort to secure for all the 
 children their right to an education which has 
 characterized the last fifty years has produced 
 a great number of agencies and devices for the 
 protection of children, among them child-labor 
 laws, which have been passed by most of the 
 states and just recently by the nation ( 1 9 1 6). In 
 1899 the state of Illinois created a juvenile 
 court. The law which brought that wholesome 
 child-saving agency into being has since been 
 adopted by forty-four states and the District of 
 Columbia. It has proved itself a real contribution 
 
 45 
 
Fifty to the world, for many foreign countries have 
 
 Tears of adopted it. "I observe," says George Sorel in 
 
 ^merican^^^ "Reflections on Violence," "that nothing 
 Education . 
 
 is more remarkable than the change w^hich 
 
 has taken place in the methods of bringing up 
 
 children ; formerly it was believed that the 
 
 rod was the most necessary instrument of the 
 
 schoolmaster ; nowadays corporal punishments 
 
 have disappeared from our public elementary 
 
 schools." That statement is not literally true for 
 
 the United States, but it is so nearly true that it 
 
 may stand as perhaps the most significant proof 
 
 which can be shown that civilization has really 
 
 been in process of becoming in recent years. 
 
 The modern school is a cheerful, happy place. 
 
 In it teachers train rather than govern. Its first 
 
 aim is to inculcate self-control. Flogging and 
 
 a pallid quiet are no longer to be found in it. 
 
 It is a workshop rather than a disciplinary 
 
 cell. The suggestion which was made in the 
 
 more optimistic years of its first decade that the 
 
 twentieth century was to be the century of the 
 
 child may not, let us hope, be so far wrong 
 
 after all. 
 
 46 
 
The course of study which the people of this Some 
 
 democracy at the several periods of its history Changes 
 
 have regarded as sufficient to prepare their chil- ^!^f^.r„t 
 
 Ctvtifmr 
 dren for the w^ork of life is a pretty good index 
 
 of the real progress of the nation. The period 
 of rigorous Puritanism from 1630 to 1750 
 brought up its children on the hornbook, the 
 religious primer, the Psalter, the New and the 
 Old Testament. In the period from 1750 to 
 1 800 the spelling book took the place of the 
 primer; in 1789 arithmetic was required by 
 law in Massachusetts. Geography began to be 
 "read" here and there about the year 1800. 
 There was a bit of English grammar in the 
 spelling books, and brief lessons were assigned 
 in that subject at the beginning of the nine- 
 teenth century. " In some of the early editions 
 [of the third part of my Institute published in 
 1785] I introduced short notices of the' geog- 
 raphy and history of the United States, and these 
 led to more enlarged descriptions of the coun- 
 try," says Noah Webster, History was taught 
 only in this incidental way until the second 
 quarter of the nineteenth century. 
 
 47 
 
Fifty There was imperative need for expansion of 
 
 Tears of ^^ course of study. The first address delivered 
 
 p , before the American Institute of Instruction 
 
 Education 
 
 was upon the " Importance of Physical Edu- 
 cation," by Dr. J. C. Warren. At its fourth 
 meeting (1834) the Institute discussed the ques- 
 tion " Can common schools be conducted prof- 
 itably without the aid of bodily punishment?" 
 and adopted a resolution " that the introduction 
 of vocal music into our schools is an object of 
 high importance to the community, and the 
 American Institute of Instruction do hereby 
 most cordially recommend it to public favor." 
 A resolution of 1 8 3 8 declared " it is desirable 
 that the teaching of vocal music should be in- 
 troduced into the common schools as soon as it 
 may be practicable." A resolution was intro- 
 duced in 1844 "that the time now devoted to 
 the study of the dead languages as a part of col- 
 legiate education may be better employed upon 
 other subjects," but was laid on the table. 
 
 In 1 87 1 the Institute listened to an address 
 on " Kindergartening the Gospel for Children," 
 by Miss E. P. Peabody, but it was not until 1882 
 48 
 
that it recommended " the teaching of draw- Some 
 
 ing, not as an accomplishment but as a language Changes 
 
 for the graphic presentation of the facts and ^!!!."!!tt 
 r r , . ,, CtvilWar 
 
 lorms 01 objects. 
 
 The spirit of Pestalozzi brooded over the 
 practice of education in the United States about 
 the middle of the last century. Education, 
 he said, is not memorizing the contents of 
 books, it is learning to use one's own mind in 
 doing something. It is growth from within 
 outward, not from without inward. The dull 
 bookwork of reading, writing, and ciphering 
 was touched with life. The inclusion of object 
 lessons introduced oral instruction, with all its 
 beneficent, lively, free conversation about real 
 things in place of the mumbling about abstrac- 
 tions which had previously comprised so large 
 a part of school work. 
 
 The Schoolmaster of Yverdon transformed 
 the schools of America as well as of Europe. 
 " The importation of the Pestalozzian methods 
 of the Home and Colonial School Society into 
 the United States is the most striking develop- 
 ment in American elementary education during 
 
 49 
 
Fifty the middle of the nineteenth century," says Pro- 
 
 Tears of fessor Parker. The first improvement was the 
 
 mertcan introduction of object lessons as an experiment 
 Education . ^ -kt i n i i ^i • i • 
 
 at the Oswego Normal School. Object teachmg 
 
 soon became the leading subject for discussion 
 in teachers' institutes and spread widely in the 
 schools. In 1 870 object lessons began to develop 
 into instruction in natural science as a system- 
 atic study for children in the elementary schools. 
 That in turn gave place to nature study in the 
 latter part of the nineteenth century, the dis- 
 tinction between them being that nature study 
 is the observational study of living objects and 
 processes for the sake of becoming familiar with 
 them, while the natural science which it dis- 
 placed was a highly technical endeavor to master 
 the general principles of science, which usually 
 resulted in only a verbal knowledge of them. 
 Geography was one of the sciences of the 
 Greeks. Its modern form is due to Humboldt 
 and Carl Ritter. Ritter, the scientist, about 1807 
 came under the influence of Pestalozzi, the 
 teacher, and undertook to prepare " a treatise 
 in his method on Geography." From that time 
 50 
 
" the first step in a knowledge of geography is Some 
 to know thoroughly the district where we live. " Changes 
 This ideal teaching of geography as a study of "^0^^.!^^ 
 man's relation to the earth, based on the per- 
 sonal investigation of every student who at- 
 tempts to pursue it,is still fighting its way against 
 mnemonic devotion to a text. Arnold Guy ot, the 
 pupil of Ritter, came from Switzerland to 
 Massachusetts in the year 1848. For six years 
 he was employed as an inspector and institute 
 lecturer by the Massachusetts State Board of 
 Education. In 1854 he was made professor of 
 geology and physical geography at Princeton. 
 Of his work he wrote: 
 
 During more than nine years it was my privilege 
 to address thousands of teachers in the normal schools 
 of Massachusetts and New Jersey, and in the teachers' 
 institutes, on the subject of geographical teaching and 
 the reform so much needed in that important depart- 
 ment of instruction. 
 
 About the year 1866 he published a series of 
 textbooks and also a manual on " Geographical 
 Teaching." The task of carrying on the reform 
 in geography teaching which Guyot had begun 
 
 51 
 
Fifty fell to Francis W, Parker. In season and out of 
 
 Years of season he preached its claims for a lifetime. He 
 
 mencan ^^^^^^^ thousands of teachers, addressed hun- 
 6ducatton . . . i- i i i • 
 
 dreds of institutes, and in 1889 published his 
 
 "How to teach Geography," "a practical ex- 
 position of methods and devices in teaching 
 geography which apply the principles and plans 
 of Ritter and Guyot" his editor calls it. But with 
 these men the modern teaching of geography 
 had only begun. Their work has been carried 
 forward by scores of disciples and in every part 
 of the land. 
 
 In 1 8 2 1 Warren Colburn published his "First 
 Lessons in Arithmetic on the Plan of Pesta- 
 lozzi." The object of this book, as of Pestalozzi's 
 teaching itself, was to banish ciphering as the 
 mere carrying out of rules. Its whole purpose 
 was to do away with ununderstandable abstrac- 
 tions by teaching little children in their very 
 first lessons that all numbers are numbers of 
 things. "The idea of number is first acquired 
 by observing sensible objects," he said, and to 
 prevent otherwise inevitable confusion no fig- 
 ures were introduced in the first fifty-five pages 
 
 52 
 
of the book. Number ideas and number names Some 
 and mental operations with numbers were given Changes 
 the complete right of way over figures, rules, 1!!'^^,„5 
 written work, and the ciphering of the past. 
 This plan commended itself to great numbers 
 of teachers, and the textbook which presented 
 it was very widely used. About the year 1870 
 an intensified Pestalozzianism, known as the 
 Grube method of teaching arithmetic, became 
 very popular in the United States. Each numeral, 
 according to this method, was treated by itself, 
 and the student learned to put it through all the 
 fundamental operations before he was allowed 
 to pass on to the next number. Such exhaustive 
 thoroughness was not only impossible to chil- 
 dren but undesirable on the part of anyone, and 
 the rise of the Grube method was followed by 
 its fall in the early part of the period. But in- 
 terest in the proper teaching of arithmetic has 
 grown with the years. The thinking arithmetic 
 which Warren Colburn struggled for has been 
 the aim not of all but of every informed teacher 
 who has come after him. Next to this the most 
 noteworthy change has been in a persistent effort 
 
 53 
 
Fifty to modernize our rather archaic textbooks by 
 
 Years of omitting all subjects, methods, and problems 
 
 _ , which are not warranted by obvious applica- 
 
 Sducation _ _ _ _ •' ^^ _ 
 
 bility. A third change which has come about in 
 arithmetic is the extended use of standardized 
 tests to measure the work which children are 
 able to do in it. We shall speak of these later. 
 The teaching of geography and arithmetic 
 had begun to be rationalized here and there 
 before the end of the Civil War. That work 
 went forward. Object lessons had been intro- 
 duced, and natural science and nature study fol- 
 lowed them. New methods of teaching pupils 
 to read began, as we have seen, to find favor. The 
 worst method of teaching reading, the alpha- 
 bet method, was practically the only method 
 used from the earliest days of instruction in 
 that subject by the Greeks down to our period. 
 Comenius and the Jansenists found a better way, 
 but their discovery did not change the universal 
 ABC practice. The author of Worcester's 
 "Primer," 1828, declared in his preface: 
 
 It is not, perhaps, very important that a child 
 should know the letters before it begins to read. It 
 
 54 
 
may learn first to read words, by seeing them, hearing Some 
 
 them pronounced, and having their meanings illus- Changer 
 
 trated; and afterwards it may learn to analyze them since the 
 
 or name the letters of which they are composed. Civil PfSr 
 
 Horace Mann vigorously advocated the word 
 method. But since the order of learning accord- 
 ing to Pestalozzi was from simple to complex, 
 there must be long drills, he said, upon the 
 letters and after that long drills in forming letters 
 into syllables and in making syllables into words. 
 Consequently the influence of Pestalozzi and ' 
 his followers upon the proper teaching of read- 
 ing was harmful. It was not until the year 1 870 
 that the ABC method began to be generally 
 forsaken; so that the modern teaching of read- 
 ing belongs almost entirely to the last fifty years. 
 The Pestalozzian practice of reducing each sub- 
 ject to its lowest terms or elements and practic- 
 ing at great length upon them and, finally, after 
 this great mass of meaningless exercising had 
 been performed, bringing the elements together 
 into letters or words or sentences had as bad an 
 effect upon the teaching of writing as it had 
 upon the teaching of reading. The lessons which 
 
 55 
 
Fifty were given were not really lessons in writing. 
 
 Tears of "Yhc letters were analyzed into strokes, — the 
 
 mencan g(.j.^j„jjt tJig outcurved, and the incurved. One 
 Sducatton ° . 
 
 must have drilled upon the strokes at very great 
 
 length before he was considered fit to attempt 
 to shape letters or to write words and sentences. 
 Thus it will be seen that the educational bill of 
 fare was pretty meager. 
 
 In 1 869 several of the leading manufacturers 
 of Massachusetts appealed to the legislature to 
 direct the Board of Education to report "some 
 definite plan for introducing schools for draw- 
 ing or instruction in drawing free to all men, 
 women, and children in all the towns of the 
 commonwealth of more than 5000 inhabit- 
 ants," saying "every branch of manufactures 
 in which the citizens of Massachusetts are en- 
 gaged requires in the details of the processes 
 connected with it some knowledge of drawing 
 and other arts of design on the part of the skilled 
 workmen engaged." The Board of Education, 
 being deeply impressed with the importance 
 of the subject, intrusted its consideration to a 
 special committee, which subsequently reported 
 56 
 
that the almost total neglect of this branch of Some 
 learning in past times had been a great defect; Changes 
 
 that we were behind many other nations in all ^!!!'^^./!^t 
 . /- 1 /. CiviLWar 
 
 the means of art culture, a defect felt by native 
 
 artisans and mechanics, since "foreign work- 
 men occupy the best and most responsible places 
 in our factories and workshops"; that agents 
 should be employed to go through the com- 
 monwealth and interest the people in this most 
 important subject; and that "teachers should be 
 required to be qualified to instruct in free-hand 
 drawing, and the work should be begun in the 
 primary departments and should be continued 
 with zeal and fidelity through the period of 
 school life." As a result, a law was passed in 
 1870 including drawing among the branches 
 of learning required to be taught in the public 
 schools and authorizing cities and towns of more 
 than 10,000 inhabitants to provide for free in- 
 struction in industrial or mechanical drawing to 
 persons over fifteen years of age, either in day or 
 evening schools. A supervisor of drawing was 
 imported from England in 1870, and in 1875 
 the Boston Normal Art School was established. 
 
 SI 
 
Fifty Manual training was introduced to the United 
 
 Tears of States by an exhibit made by a Russian institu- 
 
 _ , tion at the Centennial Exposition in Philadel- 
 
 tducatton ^ 
 
 phia in 1 876. Schoolmen fought it bitterly for 
 a time, but whereas in 1 890 only 37 cities had 
 made a place for it in their schools, by 1898 
 there were 146 cities in which it was taught. 
 
 The movement for school instruction in 
 drawing, which had its beginning in Boston in 
 1 870, was greatly stimulated by the Centennial 
 Exposition of 1 876. Nation-wide instruction in 
 the fine and industrial arts, with all that mar- 
 velous development of taste and appreciation 
 shown in more recent American manufactures 
 and homes, is the result of that beginning. 
 
 In 1 870 there were less than a dozen kinder- 
 gartens in the United States, and all save one of 
 them were conducted in the German language; 
 the one English-speaking kindergarten had 
 been opened in Boston in 1 860 by Miss Eliza- 
 beth Peabody. Since that time the kindergarten 
 has made its way into every corner of this land. 
 In 19 14 there were but 6 states whose laws 
 did not provide for kindergartens, and in 1 9 1 5 
 58 
 
there were 9486 private and public kinder- Some 
 gartens, with 10,877 teachers and 486,800 Changes 
 students in them. It is likely that by this time """.,[^J 
 not less than 4,000,000 children have profited 
 by its training, and perhaps as many as 30,000 
 youngwomen have been instructed in the fine 
 art of providing opportunities for beginning 
 their education to young children, for whom 
 the beginning is still the most iniportant part of 
 their entire course, even as it was to the discern- 
 ing mind of Plato. The introduction of the kin- 
 dergarten into American education has been 
 called " the greatest step in the educational his- 
 tory of the country, with the exception of the 
 founding of normal schools." And perhaps the 
 most significant change which the kindergarten 
 has wrought, it has brought about indirectly, 
 through its wholesome modification of the 
 work which children do in the primary grades 
 and of the spirit in which they do it, rather than 
 directly through its own instruction. 
 
 For a comparative study of the changes 
 which have taken place in common schools, 
 that is, the public elementary and high schools 
 
 59 
 
Fifty maintained by state and local taxation, we can- 
 
 Tears of ^q^ Jq better than examine the following table 
 
 mertcan ^^^^^ ^^yq report of the Commissioner of Educa- 
 Saucatton ^ i 
 
 tion for the year 1 9 1 6. 
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL STATISTICS OF THE UNITED 
 
 1870 
 
 1875 
 
 1880 
 
 1885 
 
 Total population 
 
 Persons five to eighteen years 
 of age 
 
 Pupils enrolled (duplicates ex- 
 cluded) 
 
 Per cent of total population 
 enrolled 
 
 Per cent of persons five to 
 eighteen years of age enrolled 
 
 Average daily attendance . . 
 
 Relation of same to enrollment 
 (percent) 
 
 Average length of school term 
 (days) 
 
 Total number of days attended 
 by all pupils 
 
 Average number of days at- 
 tended by each person five 
 to eighteen 
 
 Average number of days at- 
 tended by each pupil enrolled 
 
 Male teachers 
 
 Female teachers 
 
 Whole number of teachers . . 
 
 Per cent of male teachers . 
 
 Average monthly wages of male 
 teachers* 
 
 Average monthly wages of fe- 
 male teachers 
 
 Average for all teachers * . . 
 
 Number of schoolhouses ^ . . 
 
 Value of eJI school property . 
 
 ^ 38,558,37' 
 
 2 12,055,443 
 
 6,871,522 
 
 17.82 
 
 57.00 
 4,077»347 
 
 59-3 
 
 * 133-2 
 
 539jOS3.423 
 
 44-7 
 
 78.4 
 
 ^ 43,700,554 
 
 8 13,405,200 
 
 8,785,678 
 
 20.10 
 
 65-54 
 5,248,114 
 
 59-7 
 
 130.4 
 
 684,189,477 
 
 51.0 
 
 77-9 
 
 77.529 
 122,986 
 
 108,791 
 149,074 
 
 200,515 
 
 38.7 
 
 $28.54 
 116,312 
 
 lfi30,383jOo8 
 
 257,865 
 42.2 
 
 «32-5S 
 
 157.364 
 
 $192,013,666 
 
 ' 50,155.783 
 
 ^ 15,065,767 
 
 9,867,505 
 
 19.67 
 
 65.50 
 6.144.143 
 
 62.3 
 
 130.3 
 
 800,719,970 
 
 531 
 
 122,795 
 163,798 
 
 286,593 
 42.8 
 
 $29.96 
 
 178,122 
 
 $209,571,718 
 
 » 56,221,868 
 
 " 16,773,190 
 
 11,398,024 
 
 20.27 
 
 67.96 
 7,297.529 
 
 64.0 
 
 130.7 
 
 953,451.056 
 
 56.8 
 S3.6 
 
 121,762 
 204,154 
 
 325,916 
 37-4 
 
 $34.22 
 
 205,315 
 
 $263,668,536 
 
 * The figures for this year are subject to cotrecdon. 
 2 United States census. ° Estimated. 
 
 60 
 
The number of persons from five to eight- Some 
 
 een years of age in the United States in 19 14 Changes 
 
 was a little more than twice as many as in 1 870, "J^" f^^ 
 ,1 1 r ■■, 1, , i Ctvilftur 
 
 but the number 01 pupils enrolled in school 
 
 STATES IN VARIOUS YEARS — GENERAL STATISTICS 
 
 1890 
 
 1895 
 
 1900 
 
 1905 
 
 1910 
 
 19141 
 
 2 62,622,250 
 
 3 68,844,341 
 
 " 75,602,515 
 
 « 82,584,061 
 
 ' 91,972,266 
 
 98,781,324 
 
 2 18,543,201 
 
 3 19,911,050 
 
 2 21,404,322 
 
 " 23,410,800 
 
 " 24,239,948 
 
 26,002,153 
 
 12,722,581 
 
 14,243,765 
 
 15,503,110 
 
 16,468,300 
 
 17,813,852 
 
 19,153,786 
 
 20.32 
 
 20.6g 
 
 20.51 
 
 19.94 
 
 19.56 
 
 19.39 
 
 68.61 
 
 71-54 
 
 72.43 
 
 70.35 
 
 73.49 
 
 73.66 
 
 . 8,153,635 
 
 9,548,722 
 
 10,632,772 
 
 11,481,531 
 
 12,827,307 
 
 14,216,459 
 
 64.1 
 
 67.0 
 
 68.6 
 
 69.7 
 
 72.1 
 
 74.2 
 
 134.7 
 
 1395 
 
 144.3 
 
 150.9 
 
 157.5 
 
 158.7 
 
 1,098,232,72s 
 
 1,331,775.201 
 
 1,534,822,633 
 
 1,732,845,238 
 
 2,011,477,065 
 
 2,255,657,142 
 
 59-2 
 
 66.9 
 
 71.8 
 
 74.0 
 
 83.0 
 
 86.7 
 
 86.3 
 
 93-5 
 
 99.0 
 
 105.2 
 
 1 13.0 
 
 1 17.8 
 
 "5,525 
 
 129,706 
 
 126,588 
 
 110,532 
 
 110,481 
 
 114,662 
 
 238,397 
 
 268,336 
 
 296,474 
 
 349,737 
 
 412,729 
 
 465,396 
 
 363,922 
 
 398,042 
 
 423,062 
 
 460,269 
 
 523,210 
 
 580,058 
 
 34-5 
 
 32.6 
 
 29.9 
 
 24.0 
 
 21. 1 
 
 .9.8 
 
 
 J46.82 
 
 *46.53 
 
 I55.04 
 
 $68.86 
 
 $79.94 
 
 
 fe9-4i 
 
 *38.93 
 
 $42.69 
 
 »53.40 
 
 $62.57 
 
 *37-47 
 
 J4I.02 
 
 $45.11 
 
 $51.10 
 
 $61.70 
 
 $66.07 
 
 224,526 
 
 239,630 
 
 248,279 
 
 256,826 
 
 265,474 
 
 276,460 
 
 S342,53i,79i 
 
 $440,666,022 
 
 $550,069,217 
 
 $733,446,805 
 
 $1,091,007,512 
 
 $1,444,666,859 
 
 * Several states are not included in this average. 
 ^ Including buildings rented. 
 
 61 
 
Fifty 
 Tears of 
 'American 
 Sducation 
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL STATISTICS OF THE UNITED 
 
 
 1870 
 
 1875 
 
 1880 
 
 1885 
 
 Receipts : 
 
 From income of penna- 
 nent funds and rents . 
 From state taxes .... 
 From local taxes .... 
 From all other sources . 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total received . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 Percentoftotal derived from — 
 Income of permanentfunds 
 
 and rents 
 
 State taxes 
 
 Local taxes 
 
 All other sources . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 Expenditures : 
 
 For sites, buildings, furni- 
 ture, libraries, and appa- 
 ratus 
 
 For salaries of superin- 
 tendents and teachers . 
 
 For all other purposes . . 
 
 $37,832,566 
 
 $54,722,250 
 
 $55,942,972 
 
 $72,878,993 
 
 Total expended . . . 
 
 Expenditure per capita of pop- 
 ulation 
 
 463,396,666 
 $1.64 
 
 $83,504,007 
 $1.91 
 
 $78,094,687 
 $1.56 
 
 $110,328,375 
 $1.96 
 
 Expenditure per pupil in aver- 
 age attendance : 
 For sites, buildings, etc. . 
 
 For salaries 
 
 For all other purposes . . 
 
 $9.28 
 
 $10.43 
 
 $9.10 
 
 $9-99 
 
 Total expenditure per 
 pupil 
 
 |^Ji5-S5 
 
 $15.91 
 
 $12.71 
 
 $15-12 
 
 Per cent of expenditure de- 
 voted to — 
 Sites, buildings, etc. . . 
 
 Salaries 
 
 All other purposes , . . 
 Average expenditure per day 
 for each pupil (cents) — 
 
 For salaries 
 
 For all purposes .... 
 
 59-7 
 
 7-0 
 11.8 
 
 65.5 
 
 S.o 
 12.2 
 
 71.6 
 
 7-0 
 9-7 
 
 66.1 
 
 7.6 
 11.6 
 
 62 
 
STATES IN VARIOUS YEARS— FINANCIAL STATISTICS Sotne 
 
 1890 
 
 1895 
 
 1900 
 
 1905 
 
 1910 
 
 1914' 
 
 since the 
 
 $7,744,765 
 26,345,323 
 97.222,426 
 11,882,292 
 
 $7,800,740 
 
 34,638,098 
 
 118,915,304 
 
 15,210,769 
 
 $9,152,274 
 37,886,740 
 149.486,845 
 23,240,130 
 
 $13,194,042 
 44.349.295 
 
 210,167,770 
 34,107,962 
 
 $14,096,555 
 64,604,701 
 
 312,221,582 
 42,140.859 
 
 $16,916,690 
 87.S95.320 
 
 425.457.487 
 31.473.977 
 
 Civiimr 
 
 $143,194,806 
 
 $175,564,911 
 
 $219,765,989 
 
 $301,819,069 
 
 $433,063,697 
 
 $561,743,474 
 
 1 
 
 5-4 
 .8.4 
 67.9 
 
 8.3 
 
 4.4 
 19.6 
 
 67.3 
 8.7 
 
 4.2 
 J7.2 
 68.0 
 10.6 
 
 4-4 
 14.7 
 69.6 
 11.3 
 
 3.2 
 14.9 
 72.1 
 
 9.8 
 
 3.01 
 
 15.65 
 75-74 
 S.60 
 
 
 $26,207,041 
 
 91,836,484 
 22,463,190 
 
 $29,436,940 
 
 113.872.3S8 
 32.499.951 
 
 fo5.450.S20 
 
 137.687,746 
 41,826,052 
 
 $56,416,168 
 
 177.462,981 
 57.737.5" 
 
 $69,978,370 
 
 253.915.170 
 102,356,894 
 
 $91,606,460 
 
 323,610,915 
 139.859.771 
 
 
 $140,506,715 
 $2.24 
 
 $175,809,279 
 
 $2.55 
 
 $214,964,618 
 $2.84 
 
 $291,616,660 
 $3.53 
 
 $426,250,434 
 $4.64 
 
 $555,077,146 
 $5.62 
 
 
 $3.21 
 11.26 
 2.76 
 
 $3.08 
 "93 
 3.40 
 
 *3.33 
 12.95 
 3-93 
 
 $4.91 
 •5.46 
 5.03 
 
 $5.46 
 19.79 
 7.98 
 
 $6.44 
 22.76 
 9.84 
 
 
 $17.23 
 
 $18.41 
 
 $20.21 
 
 $25.40 
 
 *33.23 
 
 $39.04 
 
 
 18.6 
 
 65.4 
 16.0 
 
 8.4 
 12.8 
 
 .6.7 
 64.8 
 18.5 
 
 8.6 
 13.2 
 
 16.5 
 64.0 
 19.5 
 
 9.0 
 14.0 
 
 19.3 
 60.9 
 19.8 
 
 10.2 
 16.8 
 
 16.41 
 59.60 
 23.99 
 
 12.6 
 21. 1 
 
 16.50 
 58.30 
 25.20 
 
 14-34 
 
 24.60 
 
 
 ' The figures for this year are subject to correction. 
 
 63 
 
Fifty was nearly three times as many in 19 14 as in 
 
 Years of 1870, while the average daily attendance in 
 
 „ , I Q 1 4 was more than three times that of 1 870. 
 
 Education ' 
 
 The average number of days attended by each 
 
 person in 1870 was 44.7, in 19 14 it was 86.7. 
 The average monthly wages of teachers has in- 
 creased from $28.54 to $66.07, while the num- 
 ber of schoolhouses has more than doubled, 
 and the value of school property was more than 
 eleven times as great in 1 9 1 4 as in 1 8 70. More- 
 over, the funds available for the maintenance 
 of public schools were nearly four times as great 
 in 1914 as they were but twenty-three years 
 before, in 1 892. Surely this is a record of which 
 a country may well be proud. 
 
 But the table does not by any means tell the 
 complete story of the changes which have taken 
 place. The first graded schools came into being 
 about i860. Before that time primary schools 
 were not'' generally regarded as a part of the 
 school system, but were thought of as things 
 apart and were very indifferently treated. They 
 had to make their way into the system very 
 much in the same way that the kindergartens 
 64 
 
have since made theirs. The high schools also Some 
 were at first supplementary schools. They too Changes 
 had to be integrated into the system. Supervi- ^•'^yrr^ 
 sion of instruction is almost wholly a thing of 
 the last fifty years. The first city superintendent 
 took office in Buffalo in 1837. Providence fol- 
 lowed in 1839; New Orleans in 1 84 1 ; Cleve- 
 land in 1844; Baltimore in 1849; Cincinnati 
 in 1850; Boston in 1851; New York, San 
 Francisco, and Jersey City in 1852; Newark 
 and Brooklyn in 1853; Chicago and St. Louis 
 in 1854; Philadelphia not until 1 8 8 3 . A school 
 system without a superintendent is practically 
 unthought of at the present time. At the begin- 
 ning of this half century it was the rule and 
 its opposite the rare exception. It was in 1867 
 that WilliamTorrey Harris becamesuperintend- 
 ent of schools of St. Louis, beginning thirteen 
 years of almost unequaled service as educator 
 of the American people. The course of study 
 which he made, the conceptions of education 
 which he championed, — as, for example, " Our 
 American idea rests on this principle: not what 
 the teacher does for the pupil, but what he gets 
 
 65 
 
Fifty the pupil to do for himself is of value," " Every 
 Tears of gj-gp toward the mastery of the printed page is 
 
 e, . .a step toward freedom from and independence 
 tducation /, ... 
 
 of living teachers. Thus our education is a giv- 
 ing of the conventionalities of a perpetual self- 
 education," — and the journal of Speculative 
 Philosophy which he edited (the first periodi- 
 cal devoted to philosophy anywhere published 
 in the English tongue) demonstrate for all 
 time w^hat the office of city superintendent of 
 schools at its best may be. 
 
 "The history of education since the time of 
 Horace Mann," says Dr. Harris, "is very largely 
 an account of the successive modifications in- 
 troduced into elementary schools through the 
 direct or indirect influence of the normal school" 
 The 42 normal schools with which our period 
 started had increased to 273 in 19 14, 232 of 
 them being public and 4 1 private schools. Be- 
 sides, there were 11 89 public and 292 private 
 high schools offering training courses for teach- 
 ers. In all a total of 131,998 students were being 
 made acquainted with the functions of the 
 teacher and habituated under direction to the 
 66 
 
work of teaching. The first normal schools re- Some 
 ceived their pupils from the elementary schools. Change! 
 Framingham's requirements in 1 867 were that _. ..^^ 
 the candidate must be at least sixteen years of 
 age, must declare his intention to teach in the 
 schools of Massachusetts, and " must present a 
 certificate of good physical, intellectual, and 
 moral character, and pass a satisfactory exami- 
 nation in reading, spelling, writing, defining, 
 grammar, geography, and arithmetic." "The 
 course of study," says this same circular of 1 8 67, 
 "includes reading, with analysis of sounds and 
 vocal gymnastics; writing; spelling, with deri- 
 vations and definitions; punctuation; grammar, 
 with analysis of the English language; arith- 
 metic; algebra; geometry; physical and political 
 geography, with map drawing; physiology; bot- 
 any; zoology; natural philosophy; astronomy; 
 mental and moral philosophy; school laws; 
 theory and art of teaching; civil polity of Massa- 
 chusetts and the United States; English liter- 
 ature; vocal music; drawing. The Latin and 
 French languages may be pursued as optional 
 studies, but not to the neglect' of the English 
 
 . 67 
 
Fifty course." And all this was to be done in a two- 
 
 Tears of year course ! Dr. Harris declared at the semi- 
 
 mencan centennial celebration of the founding; of the 
 
 Education 1 1 , . onn 1 
 
 Framingham Normal School, in 1 8 8 8, that "all 
 normal-school work in the country follows sub- 
 stantially one tradition . . . and this traces back 
 to the course laid down at Lexington in 1839." 
 There have been great departures from that 
 tradition since 1867. Normal schools now re- 
 quire their students to be graduates of high 
 schools and find a two-year course all too short 
 for proper instruction in the art of teaching. If 
 we compare the training which they give now 
 with the training of fifty years ago, their earlier 
 efforts will be seen to be but a promise and be- 
 ginning of the larger and more helpful work 
 which they are doing to-day. 
 
 The first teachers' institute was assembled by 
 Dr. Henry Barnard in Hartford, Connecticut, 
 in 1839.^ He regarded it as only a temporary 
 device for giving teachers an " opportunity to 
 revise and extend their knowledge of the studies 
 
 ^ Jacob S. Denman organized his first teachers' institute at Ithaca, 
 on April 4, 1843. 
 
 68 
 
usually pursued in district schools and of the best Some 
 methods of school arrangements, instruction, Changes 
 and government under the recitations and lee- ^. .j^ 
 tures of experienced and well-known teachers 
 and educators." This "temporary device" has 
 lasted for seventy-seven years and has become a 
 permanent feature of the school life of every 
 state. The purpose of the institute has not 
 changed. The words of its founder still state its 
 program. In every corner of the land it provides 
 a means of educational rededication and pro- 
 fessional renewing and bids fair to last in some 
 form or other as long as children and schools 
 and teachers exist. 
 
 The spread of these two agencies for the 
 training of teachers has during the last fifty 
 years been the distinctive thing about them. 
 While their work has been intensified, their 
 benefits have been made nearly universal. But 
 three new agencies for professional improve- 
 ment have been created within that period. 
 One of them is the summer school, another the 
 Teachers' Reading Circle, and the third is uni- 
 versity-extension courses. Chautauquas, after 
 
 69 
 
Fifty the type of their original in New York State, 
 
 Tears of have been held in many places. Summer schools 
 
 ^American 11 1 ^ ^ c ^ c 
 
 c, J . have become almost a regular feature 01 nor- 
 
 taucatton _ _ ° 
 
 mal-school, university, and college work. And 
 university-extension teaching, after a period 
 of lethargy, now seems to be firmly established 
 both as a duty and a privilege of most of the great 
 teaching centers. Certain states have thought 
 it so indispensable that they have made it an 
 integral part of their educational work. The 
 Teachers' Reading Circle was the invention of 
 an Ohio teacher in the year 1882. It is now a 
 nearly nation-wide institution. 
 
 If we turn from elementary education, and 
 the special agencies more particularly charged 
 with conserving it, to secondary and higher 
 education, we shall find the same phenomenal 
 changes at work there also. The high school 
 had but a fitful and uncertain status fifty years 
 ago. In no department of education has such 
 amazing development taken place in the last 
 half century as in this. In 1826 Massachusetts 
 directed every town of 500 households to em- 
 ploy a master to teach United States history, 
 70 
 
bookkeeping, geometry, surveying, and alge- Some 
 bra; and every town of 4000 inhabitants to Changes 
 employ a master to teach Greek and Latin, his- ^"!.".!„i 
 tory, rhetoric, and logic. It was the intention of 
 this law to universalize the high school within 
 the state. A law passed in 1848 brought it into 
 being here and there in Ohio. Legal permission 
 was given to organize higher grades in the pub- 
 lic schools of Iowa in 1 849, and county high 
 schools were authorized there in 1 8 5 8 . Boards of 
 education of union free school districts were au- 
 thorized to establish academical departments in 
 1 864 in New York State. Maryland legislated to 
 abolish academies and substitute high schools 
 for them in 1865. The high school seemed so 
 desirable and necessary that some communities 
 established it without waiting for authoriza- 
 tion of law. Efforts were made to prevent this. 
 In 1872 Judge Cooley's decision in the Kal- 
 amazoo case established the principle that "edu- 
 cation not merely in the rudiments, but in an 
 enlarged sense was regarded as an important 
 practical advantage to be supplied at their 
 option to rich and poor alike." This greatly 
 
 .71 
 
Fifty encouraged the formation of high schools in 
 
 Tears of other states, as well as legalized them in Michi- 
 
 <y2»«(?nf«« j^ Wisconsin established a system of free high 
 Education , ,«•• . nn t> i 
 
 schools in 1875 and Minnesota in 1801. Each 
 
 succeeding year has seen their number grow, 
 until in 1 9 1 4 there was a total number of 1 1 ,5 1 5 
 public high schools, with 57,909 instructors 
 and 1,218,804 students. There were moreover 
 2199 private secondary schools, with 13,890 
 teachers and 154,857 students. No statistics 
 seem to be available to make possible a com- 
 parison of the number of schools in existence 
 at the beginning of the half century with the 
 number in existence at its close. Their tre- 
 mendous growth can, however, be indicated 
 by a comparison of the above figures with the 
 number of schools in existence in 1890, when 
 a total of 2526 public high schools, with 9 1 20 
 teachers and 202,963 students, were reported. 
 There were at that time 1632 private schools, 
 with 7209 teachers and 94,931 students. That 
 is, there were more than three and one-third 
 times as many high schools, more than four and 
 one-third times as many teachers, and more 
 72 
 
than four and one-third tirnes as many students Some 
 in 19 14 as there had been twenty-four years Changes 
 before. The explanation of this remarkable "J!".!!ti 
 change is to be lound in the more thorough 
 character of high-school instruction, in the 
 greater variety of courses which are offered, 
 and, above all, in a growing conviction on the 
 part of the American people that an elementary 
 education, no matter how good it may be, is 
 not sufficient preparation for the battle of life 
 on the part of the young. The time seems to be 
 rapidly approaching when public opinion will 
 demand some sort of high-school training for 
 all. At the beginning of our period the high 
 school was hardly a common school. Its chief, 
 and nearly its only function, was to teach Latin, 
 Greek, and mathematics to the small part of the 
 population which planned to go on to college. 
 That traditional task has colored all its work, 
 but is now the smallest part of it. It was solic- 
 itude "to give a child an education that shall 
 fit him for active life and shall serve as a foun- 
 dation for eminence in his profession, whether 
 mercantile or mechanical," that led to the 
 
 . 73 
 
Fifty founding of the first high school, in 1821. 
 
 Years of Though the high school was an outgrowth of 
 
 mertcan ^^^ elementary school, the college practice of 
 Educatton . . , . 
 
 admitting students upon examination made it 
 
 an adjunct to the college. At the beginning 
 of the Civil War these examinations were in 
 Latin, Greek, arithmetic, geography, English 
 grammar, algebra, geometry, and ancient his- 
 tory. New subjects made their appearance in 
 the college-entrance examinations in this order: 
 
 Modern history (United States), Michigan 1869 
 
 Physical geography, Michigan and Harvard 1870 
 
 English composition, Princeton . . . . 1870 
 
 Physical science, Harvard 1872 
 
 English literature. Harvard 1874 
 
 Modern language (foreign). Harvard . . 1875 
 
 Alternative courses and a large freedom of elec- 
 tion began to be offered in colleges about the 
 year 1 869, and, as a consequence, courses other 
 than the classical course began to be given in 
 high schools. Their diversity has increased with 
 the years, and now commercial courses, tech- 
 nical courses, manual-training and domestic- 
 science courses, art courses, agricultural courses, 
 
 74 
 
English scientific courses, etc., and frequently Some 
 separate schools devoted to one or another of Changes 
 
 these forms of instruction, are much more in ^!!!", ,,1 
 
 Civtlmir 
 evidence than is the classical course of instruc- 
 tion from which they all sprang. The old method 
 of passing from the high school to the college 
 through the entrance way of examinations is 
 still pretty completely in force in the eastern 
 part of the United States. In the West an ac- 
 crediting system, the outgrowth of that intro- 
 duced by the University of Michigan in 1871, 
 obtains. Innumerable conferences have been 
 held for the purpose of improving the articula- 
 tion between the high school and the college. 
 That subject is temporarily in abeyance, for in 
 more recent years the question of the relation- 
 ship of the elementary school to the high school 
 has supplanted it. The junior high school, or 
 intermediate school, has been created to bridge 
 the gap that formerly lay between them. That 
 institution is as yet rather too new for statistical 
 consideration. It took form in Berkeley, Cali- 
 fornia, in the year 1 908, and has been adopted 
 in some form or other in many cities and towns 
 
 IS 
 
Fifty of the United States* Fundamentally, it involves 
 Years of ^ reorganization of courses in the seventh and 
 „ , eighth grades of the elementary school, to pro- 
 
 vide for differentiation of work for pupils in 
 accordance with their tastes, aptitudes, and 
 probable future careers. This rearrangement of 
 courses facilitates departmental teaching. In 
 some places this reorganized upper-elementary 
 school is combined with the first year of the 
 high school, and a separate intermediate school 
 is formed. This is the six, three, and three plan. 
 Other redistributions are found. While the six, 
 three, and three plan bids fair to be generally 
 accepted, the period of preliminary experimen- 
 tation is not yet over. 
 
 Another change to be noted is the lengthen- 
 ing of the high-school course by the addition 
 of two years of college work. This is called 
 the junior college. It too is still an experiment 
 which as yet but few communities have been 
 moved to try. 
 
 Vocational education, which is the oldest 
 form of education of all, has asserted its claims 
 with unusual vigor since the beginning of the 
 76 
 
twentieth century. After much agitation three Some 
 
 types of schools have been evolved to prepare Changes 
 
 boys and girls over fourteen years of asre for em- ^Z".!!tt 
 . ^. . - ^ ^ CivtlWar 
 
 ployment m agriculture and in the trades and 
 
 industries: all-day schools, which aim to give 
 opportunities for practicing a vocation on a 
 productive basis; part-time schools, intended to 
 give young workers an opportunity to extend 
 their knowledge of their vocation or fit them- 
 selves for a new one; evening schools, to provide 
 opportunity for mature workers to extend their 
 knowledge of the vocations in which they are 
 engaged during the dayr Though this whole 
 endeavor falls within this century, six or more 
 states already have in operation definite plans for 
 organizing and supervising vocational schools 
 and assist local communities in financing them. 
 These states are Massachusetts, New York, New 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Indiana. 
 At least four other states have made the begin- 
 nings of similar organization. Efforts to pro- 
 mote this type of education have already been 
 so effective that the Smith-Hughes Bill has 
 become a law, subsidizing vocational education 
 
 77 
 
Fifty in the several states by maximal grants of 
 Years of 17,000,000 per annum from the national treas- 
 
 merican ^ ^^^ money to be given to the states for the 
 education ■ ^ ^ 
 
 salaries of vocational teachers and for the train- 
 ing of such teachers only upon condition that 
 they expend an equal amount for the same pur- 
 pose. With the development of vocational edu- 
 cation the problem of vocational guidance has 
 demanded attention and the beginnings of a 
 helpful service to young people have been made. 
 Of the 563 colleges, universities, and techno- 
 logical schools in the United States in 1 9 1 5, not 
 less than 304 were established since the begin- 
 ning of the year 1 867. "The Illinois Industrial 
 University," located at Champaign, Illinois, was 
 founded in 1867, "to teach such branches of 
 learning as are related to agriculture and the 
 mechanic arts, not excluding other scientific 
 and classical studies and military tactics." The 
 preparatory department of the University of 
 Minnesota was opened in 1 867, and by 1 869 a 
 class had been fitted for the first college year. 
 Cornell University was opened to students in 
 1 8 6 8 . The American college goes back to 1 6 3 6 
 
 78 
 
for its beginning, but the American university Some 
 
 is almost entirely a creation of the last fifty years. Changes 
 
 The Yale catalogue of 1 860- 1 86 1 contains the t"f'j!lt 
 
 CtvulVar 
 lirst announcement that the Ph.D. degree will 
 
 be granted. Harvard did not announce it until 
 1 872. It was not until 1 890 that Harvard organ- 
 ized a separate graduate school. The University 
 of Michigan offered the doctor's degree in phil- 
 osophy in 1 874. Johns Hopkins University was 
 opened for instruction in 1 8 76. It was primarily 
 a graduate school from the first and has shaped 
 university instruction throughout the entire 
 country as perhaps no other influence has. The 
 Massachusetts Institute of Technology was 
 opened in 1865. Of the significant history and 
 the vast influence of these and a score of other 
 great teaching organizations the limits within 
 which we work forbid us to speak; upon the 
 teaching of medicine, law, and theology we may 
 not enter, though changes as significant as any 
 which we have mentioned have taken place in 
 these great fields. For the education of atypical 
 and defective children, as for each of these great 
 subjects, a whole volume would be required. 
 
 79 
 
Fifty Of the growth of scientific agriculture we 
 
 Tears of must speak a little more at length. It began with 
 jp , the passage of the Morrill Act on July 2, 1862, 
 
 in the midst of the Civil War. It increased so 
 mightily that in 19 14 there were 69 agricul- 
 tural colleges, with 69,132 students and 6379 
 instructors. These places of agricultural learn- 
 ing have for some years been teaching from 
 60,000 to 80,000 students per year. Approxi- 
 mately 5 3 per cent of their graduates return to 
 the farm, and 95 per cent devote themselves to 
 agriculture in some form or other. Of those not 
 graduating, practically all return to the land. In 
 addition, very liberal provisions have been made 
 by some of the states for the teaching of agri- 
 culture in the public schools. Massachusetts has 
 developed a remarkable system of project work. 
 New York State has recently adopted the town- 
 ship system of school control and has passed a 
 law authorizing each town to employ a town 
 director of agriculture, the state pledging itself 
 to provide $600 as its contribution to his salary. 
 The higher education of women has been 
 peculiarly a development of the last fifty years. 
 80 
 
The Civil War left the work of teaching the Some 
 
 young largely in the hands of women. They Changes 
 
 were so faithful in that which was committed ^. .,.„ 
 
 CtviLmir 
 
 to them that they were made rulers over more 
 and more cities. If they were to teach, they 
 must have opportunities for learning. When 
 Michigan University opened its doors to them, 
 in 1870, they were for the first time in the 
 United States accorded equal opportunities with 
 men in a thoroughly established college. All the 
 state universities made provision for them. Of 
 colleges for women, Vassar was opened in 1 8 6 5, 
 Wellesley in 1 875, Smith in 1 875, Bryn Mawr 
 in 1885, RadclifFe in 1879, Barnard in 1889. 
 All the universities save three or four are open 
 to them. In 1870 but 30.7 per cent of the 
 colleges were coeducational, and 69.3 per cent 
 were for men only. In 191 5, however, 70.7 
 per cent of the colleges open to men were 
 coeducational, and 29.3 per cent for men only. 
 The education of the children of the negro 
 race was one of the most serious problems that 
 the nation confronted at the end of the war. 
 The-Freedmen's Bureau, created by Congress 
 
 81 
 
Fifty in 1865, was the first governmental agency to 
 Tears of. organize schools for them. It had the assist- 
 merican ^^^^ q£ numerous religious and philanthropic 
 tducatton . . -r, r, ■ 11 1 
 
 societies. By 1870 it was able to report that 
 
 more than 247,000 children had been gathered 
 into classes, that the states had already made a 
 beginning, and that " the whole race is recover- 
 ing from the effects of slavery." Normal schools 
 for the training of colored teachers had been 
 established, and the freedmen themselves, dur- 
 ing the first six months of 1 870, paid $200,000 
 for their schools. This bureau was abolished in 
 1872. The rancor which mistaken methods of 
 reconstruction engendered prevented for a long 
 time the necessary work of public education. 
 Missionary organizations, the American Mis- 
 sionary Association, the Freedmen's Aid Society 
 of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Pres- 
 byterian Board of Missions for Freedmen, and 
 the American Baptist Home Mission Society, 
 together with smaller societies of other denom- 
 inations, and private benefactions, carried on 
 and extended the work which had been begun. 
 The dimensions of the service which - they 
 82 
 
rendered may be gathered from the fact that Some 
 the American Missionary Association, organized Changes 
 in 1 8 66, alone spent |6,ooo,ooo in twenty years "^"%rr^ 
 of its existence in creating and maintaining no 
 less than 9 colleges and professional schools, 
 12 normal schools, and 50 academies and ele- 
 mentary schools. The record of the other soci- 
 eties is of the same tenor. 
 
 In 1 867, George Peabody (immortal for his 
 benefactions) created a trust fundof$ 1,000,000, 
 the income thereof to be applied and used "for 
 the promotion and encouragement of intellec- 
 tual, moral, or industrial education among the 
 young of the more destitute portions of the 
 southern and southwestern states of the Union." 
 He directed that this benefit should be "distrib- 
 uted among the entire population without other 
 distinction than their needs and the opportuni- 
 ties of usefulness to them." In the same year he 
 added $1,100,000 in Mississippi state bonds 
 and at his death another million, making a total 
 of $3,000,000. This fund was most wisely dis- 
 tributed, aiding only those districts which raised 
 twice the amount they received from it. Schools 
 
 83 
 
Fifty received no aid unless they were graded and 
 Tears of \y^^ ^^ Xq^sX ioo pupils, with one teacher for 
 p, every 50 pupils, and an average attendance of 
 
 not less than 85 per cent. During the first four 
 years of its existence this fund was used to assist 
 the establishing of school systems in the cities 
 of the South; for the next four years it was used 
 to encourage the establishment of state school 
 systems. In 1875 its secretary reported that all 
 the states had established school systems and 
 were maintaining them. The trustees of the fund 
 thereupon devoted it to the proper training of 
 teachers. They established a normal school at 
 Nashville, and in order that it might leaven the 
 entire South they created a large number of 
 scholarships, of $200 each, to enable deserving 
 students from all the Southern states to attend 
 its classes. By 1903 this parent normal school 
 was no longer needed, for it had secured the 
 creation of state normal schools to foster the 
 schools of each state. The trustees thereupon 
 transformed the Peabody Normal School into 
 the well-endowed Peabody College for the 
 Training of Teachers. 
 84 
 
In 1882 John F. Slater created a trust of Some 
 $ 1 ,000,000 for the promotion of normal and in- Changes 
 
 dustrial education among: the children of freed- ^. -iTrr 
 
 ° CtvtlfVar 
 
 men. The income from this fund is used chiefly 
 to pay the salaries of teachers of industrial pur- 
 suits in schools for colored students. A board of 
 trustees was organized in 1908 to administer a 
 fund of$i,ooo,ooo given by Miss Anna T . J eanes 
 for fostering rural schools for negroes. This fund 
 is used in several ways : in some districts county 
 superintendents are assigned a superior teacher 
 of industrial work, whose duty it is to introduce 
 such work into the rural schools of the county 
 and to supervise it; in other districts a teacher 
 is assigned to a central school and does exten- 
 sion work in the schools of the region about it; 
 a third method consists in cooperating with 
 local communities in lengthening the school 
 term. Another fund of $ i ,000,000, the Phelps- 
 Stokes fund, assists by making researches, endow- 
 ing scholarships, etc. The General Education 
 Board, incorporated in 1903 for "the promo- 
 tion of education within the United States of 
 America without distinction of race, sex, or 
 
 85 
 
Fifty creed," and which controls a fund of some 
 
 Tears of ^46, coo, coo, originally devoted its resources 
 
 American , • c 1 11 
 
 £, . to the promotion 01 secondary, rural, and 
 
 negro education in the Southern states. Since 
 1905 it has taken the entire country for its 
 province, and more recently it has planned to 
 assist medical education in China.' It is chiefly 
 concerned with the promotion of agriculture 
 in the South, the development of a system of 
 secondary schools there, and the promotion of 
 higher education throughout the nation. With 
 such encouragement as these great organiza- 
 tions have been able to give the education of 
 the colored race, it is clear that progress alto- 
 gether unprecedented in the history of the world 
 has been made. The average of life has risen so 
 rapidly, and colored men who were born in 
 slavery have attained such usefulness and leader- 
 ship in the short period since the war, as to en- 
 courage a confident hopefulness for the future 
 of their race. The work of Booker T. Washington 
 alone has transformed the status of a people. It 
 is a significant fact that the industrial training 
 developed in the colored schools has blazed a 
 86 
 
since the 
 CivilWhr 
 
 path which education is to-day taking through- Some 
 out the nation. Changes 
 
 In addition to those already mentioned, three 
 other great endowments have been made for 
 the promotion of education. One of these is the 
 Carnegie Institution at Washington. It took 
 form in 1 907 and is a corporation "to encourage 
 in the broadest and most liberal manner investi- 
 gation, research, and discovery, and the appli- 
 cation of knowledge to the improvement of 
 mankind," It has a fund of $22,000,000 for 
 that purpose. 
 
 In the year 1906 Mr. Carnegie created a 
 Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 
 endowing it with 1 10,000,000, to which sum 
 in 1908 he added $5,000,000. "I have reached 
 the conclusion," said Mr. Carnegie, "that the 
 least rewarded of all the professions is that of 
 the teacher in our higher educational institu- 
 tions I have transferred to you, and to your 
 
 successors as trustees, % 1 0,000,000, the revenue 
 from which is to provide retiring pensions 
 for -the teachers of universities, colleges, and 
 technical schools in our country, Canada, and 
 
 87 
 
Fifty Newfoundland, under such conditions as you 
 Tears of ^ns-j adopt from time to time." 
 
 o J The Russell Sage Foundation was created in 
 
 tducation ° 
 
 1 907, by a gift of 1 1 0,000,000 from Mrs. Sage, 
 for the "improvement of social and living condi- 
 tions in the United States of America." Its trus- 
 tees decided at the beginning that its primary 
 function is "to eradicate as far as possible the 
 causes of poverty and ignorance rather than to 
 relieve the sufferings of those who are poor 
 or ignorant." Among its activities has been a 
 persistent study of the ways of measuring edu- 
 cational progress and results, and a series of 
 important investigations of the problem of re- 
 tardation and elimination in the public schools. 
 Very important school surveys have been made 
 by its educational staff. The total bequests to 
 education from 1871 to 19 14, inclusive, is re- 
 ported by the United States Commissioner of 
 Education as $584,418,082. 
 
 It is fitting since we began with science that 
 
 we should end with science. There is no magic 
 
 about it, nothing but the patience to answer 
 
 human problems by examining minutely facts 
 
 88 
 
which bear upon them. This same minuter ex- Some 
 
 amining of facts which in fifty years produced Changes 
 
 J. . 1 J J J . since the 
 
 a new medicme has produced a new education. „. .,^^ 
 
 Three hundred years ago Richard Mulcaster 
 urged the importance of a serious study of edu- 
 cation. "I conclude," he said, "that this trade 
 requireth a particular college for these four 
 causes. First, for the subject, being the means 
 to make or mar the whole fry of our state. Sec- 
 ondly, for the number, whether of them that 
 are to learn or of them that are to teach. Thirdly, 
 for the necessity of the profession, which may 
 not be spared. Fourthly, for the matter of their 
 study, which is comparable to the greatest pos- 
 sessions, for language, for judgment, for skill 
 how to train, for variety in all points of learn- 
 ing, wherein the framing of the mind and the 
 exercising of the body craveth exquisite con- 
 sideration, besides the staidness of the person." 
 College authorities were deaf to this proposal 
 and blind to this need until President Wayland 
 sought to establish a course of instruction in the 
 science of teaching at Brown University in 1 8 5 o. 
 His efforts were not successful. Horace Mann 
 
 89 
 
Fifty introduced such a course as an elective study at 
 
 Years of Antioch College in 1853. The University of 
 
 _ , Iowa had a normal department from i8c6 to 
 
 tducatton . . 
 
 1873, which became a chair of didactics after 
 
 that date. In 1874 President Angell recom- 
 mended that lectures be given to the senior class 
 of the University of Michigan on the organiz- 
 ing and management of schools and the art of 
 teaching. In 1879 the Regents, on the recom- 
 mendation of the president and faculty of that 
 university, established a chair of science and 
 art of teaching, with the fivefold purpose, as 
 they declared, of fitting university students for 
 the higher positions in the public-school serv- 
 ice, of promoting the science of education, of 
 teaching the history and theory of education, 
 of securing to teaching the rights and preroga- 
 tives of a profession, and of giving a more per- 
 fect unity to the state educational system. 
 
 Since that time many universities and col- 
 leges have created similar chairs, which have 
 not been slow in becoming energetic depart- 
 ments. For a long time their occupants were 
 regarded with a good deal of suspicion by their 
 90 
 
more conservative colleagues in the academic Som^ 
 family. They were not slow, however, in prov- Changes 
 
 in ff their usefulness, and it soon became appar- ^. .,„. 
 ° . . ^^ CivtlWar 
 
 ent that the interest which they represented 
 was too serious and far-reaching to be conserved 
 by such inadequate means. 
 
 Clark University, which opened in 1889, 
 made ampler provision for it; and in 1898 
 Teachers College became a professional school 
 of Columbia University, taking rank with the 
 schools of law, medicine, and applied science. 
 The University of Chicago has also established 
 a college of education, and schools of education 
 are now to be found in nearly all of the larger 
 universities. 
 
 This institutional study of education is a 
 twentieth-century activity. Its first fruits are 
 a clearer comprehension of educational prin- 
 ciples and a more thorough organization of 
 educational machinery. Energetic research has 
 already been as profitable in this field as in other 
 fields of science. 
 
 One of our most capable historians of edu- 
 cation values what has been achieved in this 
 
 91 
 
Fifty direction so highly that he does not hesitate to 
 
 Years of g^y that John Dewey's discovery that real edu- 
 
 _ , cation is and must be based upon the nature of 
 
 tducatton , , 
 
 the child and E. L. Thorndike's discovery of a 
 
 method of scientifically measuring educational 
 results will in time be ranked in importance with 
 Darwin's conception of evolution. Rousseau's 
 adjuration "Study your pupil, for it is evident 
 that you know nothing about him" has been a 
 controlling principle in the last four decades. 
 A science of child psychology came into being, 
 and psychological conceptions and methods 
 took the place of empirical notions and rule-of- 
 thumb devices of an earlier time. Herbart's 
 reconstructions of educational doctrine contrib- 
 uted to this movement. Physiology and psy- 
 chology taught the schoolmaster that the human 
 organism is an action system. Passivity in learn- 
 ing was abandoned, and methods of training 
 through activity were substituted for it. The 
 newly discovered science of medicine and the 
 new education joined forces to conserve the 
 physical well-being of the growing child. Acti- 
 vistic psychology revealed the importance of 
 92 
 
Nature's method of training him by play. Scien- Some 
 tific study of administration and of methods of Changes 
 
 instruction led to a reorganization of schools, ^l!!'.'^^.!„l 
 . ° . CivtlWar 
 
 and school surveying came into being as a 
 
 method of determining whether or not condi- 
 tions called for improvement and of deciding 
 what that improvement should be. The effort to 
 evaluate instruction necessitated the formula- 
 tion of standards and measuring scales with 
 which to detect the presence or absence of the 
 results required. That particular endeavor is still 
 in its earlier stages, but bureaus for measuring 
 and testing the sufficiency of the processes and 
 the products of instruction have been created in 
 several places. The study of sociology has con- 
 tributed substantially to the remaking of educa- 
 tional theory. The pragmatic philosophy, with 
 its revolutionary conception of the nature and 
 function of knowledge, has just begun to revise 
 educational aims and remake programs of study . 
 Newer and truer educational rallying cries begin 
 to sound above the call to get knowledge for 
 the sake of knowledge and science for the sake 
 of science. Purposive education begins to banish 
 
 93 
 
Fifty aimless learning from the field. The doctrine 
 
 Tears of of formal or general discipline, which directed 
 
 „ , the pursuit of certain studies for the develop- 
 
 tducatton ^ _ . ^ 
 
 ment of the faculties or powers of the mind, has 
 been scientifically tested and found wanting. 
 A philosophy of education can no longer be 
 made out of it. When it is given up, as it must 
 be, only specific education will remain, but 
 specific education so rich in variety and so defi- 
 nite in purpose and method that it promises 
 results far better than those which the old train- 
 ing gave. 
 
 Thus at the end of fifty years of unparalleled 
 progress the world waits impatiently for the 
 coming of peace to begin a yet greater cycle 
 of educational renewing. 
 
 94 
 
A BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Boone, Richard J. Education in the United States. 
 D. Appleton and Company, New York. 
 
 Brown, Elmer E. The Making of our Middle 
 Schools. Longmans, Green, & Co., New York. 
 
 Butler, Nicholas Murray (Editor). Mono- 
 graphs on Education. Department of Education 
 for the United States Commission to the Paris 
 Exposition of 1 900. 
 
 Carlton, Frank. "Economic Influences upon 
 Educational Advance in the United States, 
 1 820-1 850," Bulletin of the University of 
 Wisconsin, 1908. 
 
 CuBBERLY, E. P. Changing Conceptions of Edu- 
 cation. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 
 
 Finegan, Thomas E. Teacher Training Agencies. 
 Eleventh Annual Report of the State Depart- 
 ment of Education, Vol. II, Albany, New York. 
 
 Hanaford, Phebe a. The Life of George Pea- 
 body. B. B. Russell, Boston. 
 
 Mann, Mrs. Mary (Editor). Life and Works of 
 Horace Mann. Horace B. Fuller, Boston. 
 
 Martin, George H. The Evolution of the Mas- 
 sachusetts Public School System. D. Appleton 
 and Company, New York. 
 
 95 
 
Parker, S. C. A History of Modern Elementary 
 Education. Ginn and Company, Boston. 
 
 Thwing, Charles F. A History of Higher Edu- 
 cation in America. D. Appleton and Company, 
 New York. 
 
 Proceedings of the American Institute of Instruction. 
 
 The Reports of the Massachusetts Board of Edu- 
 cation. 
 
 Reports of the School Committee of Boston. 
 
 The Reports of the United States Commissioner of 
 Education (particularly the earlier ones). 
 
 96 
 
*''''WI