Part 70 (2/2)

THE FIRST STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION Another important form for state control which was created a little later was the State Board of Education, with an appointed Secretary, who exercised about the same functions as a State Superintendent of Schools This foranization first arose in Massachusetts, in 1837, in an effort to subordinate the district schools and reduce theanized system In 1826 each town (townshi+p) had been required to appoint a School Coeneral supervision over its schools, in 1834 the state permanent school fund was created, and in 1837 the reform movement reached its culmination in the creation of the first real State Board of Education in the United States Instead of following the usual A for an elected State School Superintendent, Massachusetts provided for a small appointed State Board of Education which in turn was to select a Secretary, as to act in the capacity of a state school officer and report to the Board, and through it to the legislature and the people Neither the Board nor the Secretary were given any powers of coate conditions, report facts, expose defects, and islature The perely on the character of the Secretary it selected

HORACE MANN THE FIRST SECRETARY A proraduate and lawyer in the State Senate, by the name of Horace Mann (1796-1859), who as president of the Senate had been ofthe State Board of Education, was finally induced by the Governor and the Board to accept the position of Secretary Mr Mann now began apublic opinion, and soon becaanization in the United States State after State called upon him for advice and counsel, while his twelve annual Reports to the State Board of Education will always remain memorable docue professors, literary men, teachers--were laid under tribute and sent forth over the State explaining to the people the need for a reawakening of educational interest in Massachusetts Every year Mr Mann organized a ”ca and ieneral education So successful was he, and so ripe was the tireat coeneration of the schools there, but one which was felt and which influenced development in every Northern State

His twelve carefully written _Reports_ on the condition of education in Massachusetts and elsewhere, with his intelligent discussion of the ai place in the history of Aarded as perhaps the greatest of the ”founders” of our American system of free public schools

No one did more than he to establish in the minds of the American people the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, and free, and that its aim should be social efficiency, civic virtue, and character, rather thanor the advancement of sectarian ends

Under his practical leadershi+p an unorganized and heterogeneous series of coanization and welded together into a state school system, and the people of Massachusetts were effectively recalled to their ancient belief in and duty toward the education of the people

HENRY BARNARD IN CONNECTICUT AND RHODE ISLAND Alh of a somewhat different character, was the work of Henry Barnard (1811-1900) in Connecticut and Rhode Island A graduate of Yale, and also educated for the law, he turned aside to teach and became deeply interested in education The years 1835-37 he spent in Europe studying schools, particularly the work of Pestalozzi's disciples On his return to Aislature, and at once fore of the Connecticut law (1839) providing for a State Board of Commissioners for Common Schools, with a Secretary, after the Massachusetts plan Mr Barnard was then elected as its first Secretary, and reluctantly gave up the law and accepted the position at the islature abolished both the Board and the position, in 1842, he rendered for Connecticut a service scarcely less important than the better-known refor on in Massachusetts

[Illustration: PLATE 17 TWO LEADERS IN THE EDUCATIONAL AWAKENING IN THE UNITED STATES

HORACE MANN (1796-1859) (Fro at the Westfield, Massachusetts, Normal School)

HENRY BARNARD (1811-1900)]

In 1843 he was called to Rhode Island to exa schools, and from 1845 to 1849 acted as State Commissioner of Public Schools there, where he rendered a service similar to that previously rendered in Connecticut In addition he organized a series of town libraries throughout the State For his teachers' institutes he devised a traveling ive de Froain in Connecticut, as principal of the newly established state normal school and _ex-officio_ Secretary of the Connecticut State Board of Education He norote the school laws, increased taxation for schools, checked the power of the districts, there known as ”school societies,” and laid the foundations of a state system of schools The work of Mann and Barnard had its influence throughout all the Northern States, and encouraged the friends of education everywhere

Almost contemporaneous with theh the battles of state establishanization and control, and the period of their labors has since been ter”

V THE BATTLE TO ELIMINATE SECTARIANISM

THE SECULARIZATION OF AMERICAN EDUCATION The Church, it will be remembered, was from the earliest colonial ti Not only were the earliest schools controlled by the Church and doht of the Church to dictate the teaching in the schools was clearly recognized by the State Still more, the State looked to the Church to provide the necessary education, and assisted it in doing so by donations of land and money The minister, as a town official, naturally examined the teachers and the instruction in the schools After the establishment of the National Government this relationshi+p for a tiland States specifically set aside lands to help both church and school After about 1800 these land endowious schools continued for nearly a half-century longer Then it became common for a town or city to build a schoolhouse from city taxation, and let it out rent-free to any responsible person ould conduct a tuition school in it, with a few free places for selected poor children Still later, with the rise of the state schools, it became quite common to take over church and private schools and aid them on the same basis as the new state schools

In colonial times, too, and for some decades into our national period, the warmest advocates of the establishment of schools were those who had in view the needs of the Church Then gradually the emphasis shi+fted to the needs of the State, and a new class of advocates of public education now arose Still later the emphasis has been shi+fted to industrial and civic and national needs, and the religious aie is known as the secularization of Ale, and was accoreat factors which served to produce this change were:

1 The conviction that the life of the Republic deent citizenshi+p, and hence the general education of all in coreat diversity of religious beliefs aious freedohts of minorities

The secularization of education arded either as a deliberate or a wanton violation of the rights of the Church, but rather as an unavoidable incident connected with the coreat people

THE FIGHT IN MassACHUSETTS The educational awakening in Massachusetts, brought on largely by the work of Horace Mann, was to s, it revealed that the old school of the Puritans had gradually been replaced by a new and purely American type of school, with instruction adapted to deious ends Mr Mann stood strongly for such a conception of public education, and being a Unitarian, and the new State Board of Education being alainst them, and for the first time in our history the cry was raised that ”The public schools are Godless schools” Those who believed in the old systeious instruction, those who bore the Board or its Secretary personal ill-will, and those who desired to break down the Board's authority and stop the development of the public schools, united their forces in this first big attack against secular education Horace Mann was the first proious onslaught

A violent attack was opened in both the pulpit and the press It was clai to eliminate the Bible from the schools, to abolish correction, and to ”ious instruction at hoious instruction was insisted upon

Mr Mann felt that a great public issue had been raised which should be answered carefully and fully In three public statements he answered the criticisument (R 322) The Bible, he said, was an invaluable book for for the character of children, and should be read without comment in the schools, but it was not necessary to teach it there He showed thatof the Catechism before the establishment of the Board of Education He contended that any atteht would mean the ruin of the schools The attack culious forces to abolish the State Board of Education, in the legislatures of 1840 and 1841, which failed dismally Most of the orthodox people of the State took Mr Mann's side, and Governor Briggs, in one of his :

Justice to a faithful public officer leads able and accomplished Secretary of the Board of Education has performed services in the cause of coratitude of the generation to which he belongs

THE ATTEMPT TO DIVIDE THE SCHOOL FUNDS As was stated earlier, in the beginning it was common to aid church schools on the sas of state aid, theschools without at first establishi+ng any public schools In many Eastern cities church schools at first shared in the public funds In Pennsylvania church and private schools were aided froeneral school law of 1829 had been repealed a year later through the united efforts of church and private-school interests, who unitedly fought the development of state schools, and in 1830 and 1831 nes had permitted all private and parochial schools to share in the sinning of the forties, when the Roly with the increase in Irish iration to the United States, a new factor was introduced and the problem, which had previously been a Protestant problem, took on a somewhat different aspect in the form of a demand for a division of the school funds Between 1825 and 1842 the fight was especially severe in New York City In 1825 the City Council refused to grant public ious Society, [11] and in 1840 the Catholics carried the islature deferred action until 1842, and then did the unexpected thing The heated discussion of the question in the city and in the legislature had ht not be desirable to continue to give funds to a privately organized corporation, to divide theious sects would be islature created for the city a City Board of Education, to establish real public schools, and stopped the debate on the question of aid to religious schools by enacting that no portion of the school funds was in the future to be given to any school in which ”any religious sectarian doctrine or tenet should be taught, inculcated, or practiced” Thus the real public-school system of New York City was evolved out of this atte the churches

The Public School Society continued for a time, but its as now done, and, in 1853, surrendered its buildings and property to the City Board of Education and disbanded

THE CONTEST IN OTHER STATES As early as 1830, Lowell, Massachusetts, had granted aid to the Irish Catholic parochial schools in the city, and in 1835 had taken over two such schools and maintained them as public schools In 1853 the representatives of the Roislature for a division of the school fund of the State To settle the question once for all a constitutional aislature to the people, providing that all state and town moneys raised or appropriated for education anized and conducted public schools, and that no religious sect should ever share in such funds This measure failed of adoption at the election of 1853 by a vote of 65,111 for and 65,512 against, but was re-proposed and adopted in 1855 This settled the question in Massachusetts, as Mann had tried to settle it earlier, and as New Hampshi+re had settled it in its constitution of 1792, Connecticut in its constitution of 1818, and Rhode Island in its constitution of 1842

Other States now faced similar demands, but no demand for a share in or a division of the public-school funds, after 1840, was successful The demand everywhereof enormous numbers of Irish Catholics after 1846, and German Lutherans after 1848, the question of the preservation of the schools just established as unified state school syste one Petitions for a division of the funds deluged the legislatures (R 323), and these were s on both sides of the question were held Candidates for office were forced to declare themselves Anti-Catholic riots occurred in a number of cities The Native-American Party was formed, in 1841, ”to prevent the union of Church and State,” and to ”keep the Bible in the schools” In 1841 the Whig Party, in New York, inserted a plank in its platforainst sectarian schools In 1855 the national council of the Know-Nothing Party,in Philadelphia, in its platform favored public schools and the use of the Bible therein, but opposed sectarian schools This party carried the elections that year in Massachusetts, New Hampshi+re, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Kentucky