Nineteenth-Century
American Education
Chapter 21
Nineteenth-Century American
Education
• Education during the 19th century set the ground
work for the educational systems currently in
place across the country today. There was a
shift from religious control to state &
government control of American education. The
emphasis on universal public education,
inclusion of immigrants, compulsory schooling,
and tax supported education all influenced the
establishment of common schools and higher
education institutions.
Universal Education
• Goal of universal education was to create
literate citizens who were responsible
individuals that would engage in civil
service. This goal included the integration
of diverse religious and ethnic groups as a
means of establishing national unity and
identity.
Universal Education Issues
• Belief that education was a means of social
•
•
•
•
advancement
Belief in the social control theory- dominant
groups would impose their beliefs and values on
the lower socioeconomic class
Dominant groups shaped curriculum
Property owners opposed paying taxes
Culturally diverse populations were afraid of
losing their traditions and customs by
conforming to common schools
Common Schools
• Community institutions of elementary
education
• Advocates: Mann, Barnard, Carter,
Edwards, Owens, & Stevens
• American Lyceum Movement
• Framework influenced by Prussian
elementary school systems &
Pestalozzianism
American Lyceum Movement
• Lyceum- origin word Lyceus (location Greece)
•
•
where Aristotle would lecture and teach his
students
Lyceum Movement- organized adult education
forum: lectures, speeches, debates, instruction,
dramatic performances
National American Lyceum organizationContributed significantly to adult education (new
form of popular education); Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Henry D. Thoreau, Abraham Lincoln,
Susan B. Anthony, Mark Twain, Emma Hart
Willard (supporter of Women’s Education)
American Lyceum Movement
Horace Mann (1796-1859)
• Father of American
•
•
•
•
common school
Educated as a lawyer
Secretary of
Massachusetts Board
of Education
Congressman
President of Antioch
College
Mann’s Educational Philosophy
• Individuals could achieve excellence through reasonable
•
•
•
•
actions & respect for community and laws
Encouraged upper class to contribute and support
common schools
Influenced by Transcendentalist philosophy- educating
the masses for purposes of instilling morals and values
and deemphasizing material objects; Supporter of
Prussian educational systems
Assimilation of immigrants into common schools
Common schools should be governed by school boards
and the public and should be supported by the state
Prussian Education System
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Compulsory attendance
National testing
National curriculum
National teacher training
Mandatory Kindergarten
Skills for industrialized world & ethics and
discipline education
http://www.answers.com/topic/prussianeducation-system
Henry Barnard (1811-1900)
• Secretary of the State
•
•
•
Board of Commissioners
of Common Schools in
Connecticut
Conservative
philosophically and
politically
Supporter of economic
individualism
Supporter of improving
teacher education
Common School Legislation
• Tenth Amendment Constitution- education was
•
•
•
decentralized and states were granted authority
over educational systems
Allow school districts to function administratively
and implement taxes
Development of school districts & funding
Compulsory and tax supported education
Secondary Education
• Latin Grammar Schools•
•
upper preparatory
classical curriculum
Academy SchoolsCollege prep courses,
English courses, Teacher
education courses
(Military, Scientific,
Commercial Academies);
concerns with curriculum
design & lack of universal
accreditation system
Academies were replaced
by public high schools
Women in the
th
19
Century
• Early 19th century- role of wife, mother, house
•
•
•
•
keeper
Childbearing (health concern) & high infant
mortality rates concerns for women
Late 19th century- wife, mother, worked outside
of home (labor/skilled workers), & consumers
Reform: Woman’s Christian Temperance
Movement & Women’s Suffrage
Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, &
Susan B. Anthony
Women and Education in the
Century
th
19
• Public support of education for boys & girls
• Belief- Women should be educated because
•
•
•
they raise children & moral companions of men
(opposition of college education for women)
College educated women often did not marry;
Women treated unequally in Colleges
Mind set-”The proper education of a man
decides the welfare of an individual; but educate
a woman, and the interests of a whole family
are secured” Catherine Beecher
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl
_etext_index.htm
Initiatives for women
• The first coeducational college
established, Oberlin College, 1833.
• First all women colleges, (first enduring)
Vassar, 1861 and Bryn Mawr, 1880—first
graduate school for women.
• Yet in 1850 Antoinette Brown completed
theology, but refused degree. (Oberlin)
Women continued
• Significant women—a few more renowned:
• 1840s Elizabeth Blackwell first American woman
•
•
•
to receive a medical degree.
South Carolina, Limestone Springs Female High
School founded, 1845 “pioneering occurrence in
the South.”
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody first English speaking
kindergarten, Boston 1860s.
Maria Mitchell, Vassar, first woman admitted
American to Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Women continued
• Emma Hart Willard created beginnings of
•
•
advanced ed for women with Middleburg
Seminar for Women, Vermont. Her subsequent
essay “A Plan for Female Education” influential in
promoting cause of learning for women.
1875 six women elected to school committee by
men and are allowed to vote on committee.
By 1900 women represent 75 % of teachers
High Schools
• High schools emerged as urbanization
continued and their curriculum became
much more focused on the industrial
requirements rather than on the classics.
State supported taxation for high schools
came under attack in Michigan in 1874.
Colleges
• Colleges were still following much of the
familiar European structure calling for the
classics and being primarily for religious
purposes through the early portion of the
century, but began to change to meet the
changing economic, social and industrial
requirement, especially with the Morrill
acts.
Morrill Acts
• Provided land the
•
sale/rental of which
provided funds for the
states to create
universities.
Morrill Acts-federal
government required land
grant colleges to provide
military training,
agricultural, and
mechanical training
• 1890 provided same
opportunity to create
colleges for African
Americans.
Teacher Education & Normal
Schools
• During the 1830s and 40s normal school,
originally two year institutions, were
created for educating teachers. They were
later expanded to three years and finally
emerged as full four year degree granting
universities.
African American Ed Milestones
• 1840s still illegal to teach slaves to read
• 1849 Mass refuses Sarah Brown entrance to
•
•
•
public school & sets basis for Plessy v
Ferguson—1896)
1850 Cooper Union, NY first to ban admission
based on race, religion, or color
1855 Massachusetts passes anti school
segregation law 6 yrs too late for Brown
1860s AA schools still segregated even in
North—rundown buildings etc.
African American continued
• 1860s; Several black institutions emerge:
•
•
•
Howard University, Morehouse College, Fisk
University, and Hampton Institute
1877 500,000 black children in school in spite of
southern efforts.
1881 Spelman College first Black Female Liberal
Arts College founded
1883 Booker T. Washington founded Tuskeegee
Institute
More African American
• Fanny Jackson Coppin becomes Head of
•
•
Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia and
trains teachers to work in inferior schools
provided for African American students.
1890 Second Morrill Land Grant Act passed
established several Black land grant colleges
1896 Plessy v Ferguson Supreme Court rules for
separate but equal, applied to schools, which
remains until Brown v. Board of Education in
1954
Review of events of the 19th
century
• Public elementary schools and high
schools established
• First time in 300 years ABC method not
only method for teaching reading
• McGuffey reader introduced and is center
of reading into 20th century
References
• http://www.connerprairie.org/historyonline/1880
•
•
wom.html
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl
_vindication000.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Mann
• http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1990/5/90.0
5.07.x.html
• http://www.answers.com/topic/prussianeducation-system
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system
References
• http://members.aol.com/AlphaChautauquan/lyce
•
•
•
•
um.html
http://womenhistory.about.com/od/work19th/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyceum_movement
http://kclibrary,nhccd.edu/19thcentury.html
http://members.aol.com/aacdcrnnea/lawtime.ht
m