First American Schools
The first Colonial public school was established on April 23, 1635 in Massachusetts. Today, the Boston Latin School remains the oldest standing school in the U.S. The school’s existence derived from the vision and determination of Reverend John Cotton. He was driven to construct a school teaching Latin and Greek that paralleled to the Free Grammar School of Boston, England. Later, the Mather School, the first free taxpayer-supported public was established in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1639. To follow, in 1647 a progressive law was enacted in Massachusetts that required a teacher to be hired in towns having more than fifty families and for towns with a hundred or more families, they must build a grammar school. (1.)
During the 18th Century, there was an emphasis on literacy by the Puritan’s which helped increase the literacy rate. Education was influenced on your social and family status. As a result, a child’s education, mostly boy’s, were given by the family.
The rural South didn’t have many schools. Private tutor’s education wealthy children, whereas middle-class children could only learn to read or write if their literate parents taught them. The poor, middle-class white, and black children weren’t formally taught in schools. Most people worked farming. As a result, literacy rates were drastically lower in the South than the North; this remained true until the late nineteenth century. The only exception during this time was the Ursuline Academy in New Orleans, founded in 1727 by the Catholic sisters of the Order of Saint Ursula. Today, it remains in operation and recorded as the oldest Catholic all-girl school and convent in the U.S. It also has graduates with the America’s first woman titles. Such as the first female pharmacist, the first woman to receive a book of literary merit, first to have classes for women of color, and Native Americans all free of charges. This part of history really amazed me when I did my French Louisiana genealogy. There were no schools or churches until the 1800’s. I noticed and expected that most spoke French but didn’t realize the prevalence of illiteracy until after the 1900’s according to the censuses. My grandmother once told me that they were shamed and punished, made to kneel on rice in the corner if she spoke French. They were forced to only speak English. The Boys would go to school to learn to read then quit to work on the farm. The girls would only stay in school long enough to read the Bible. My great-grandmother was the last of that generation, she only had a fourth-grade education. She was born in 1904 and the oldest of seven children. The last two siblings, one a brother and the other a sister graduated high school and went to college. The opportunities definitely improved as time went on. However, a huge part of our French culture was destroyed by preventing the language to be spoken. There are only a few towns that still speak the Cajun dialect, one being where I am from, Evangeline Parish where the most French speakers in America reside. Today, schools are teaching French again, but it will never be prevalent in the homes again. In the same respect, all other immigrants go through the same hardship even today.
Education in 1700s
To follow into the 1700s, education in America was modernized and motivated to meet broad, nonsectarian needs. One of our Founding Fathers and future president of the U.S, Thomas Jefferson aspired to reach past educating only a small privileged class or only giving religion teachings. He upheld the idea that education should vastly be offered to white children from every background regardless of money or status. Next, in 1749, another future president and Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin came up with a new form of secondary school, replacing the unpopular Latin grammar school, the academy. He presented this idea in the Proposals Relating to the Youth of Pennsylvania. Even after many years have gone by, both Jefferson and Franklin’s ideas became American educational practices, but the desire for modernization to education was taking place. (Sadker, David M., Page 214.)
An important person in education history was Anthony Benozet, he was a Huguenot immigrant that became a Quaker. He wrote a book putting an importance of a well-versed education. In 1750, he taught classes in his home to black people. Then later in 1754 he began the first Philadelphia secondary school for girls. To follow, in order for a deaf and mute girl that was attending the school to participate, he created a special program for her. He wrote against slavery and spoke of equality. His other accomplishment came in 1770 when he persuaded Quakers to construct the first free school for African Americans. Later, when he died in 1784, he willed his entire estate to support the education of the Native American and African American people.
Thenceforward, were the prints from Benjamin Harris, his reading textbook, The New England Primer was extensively used for the next century. Another significant book we actually use today, the Webster Dictionary was written by Noah Webster in 1783. It was consisted of three-volumes and called, A Grammatical Institute of the English Language.
Another significant law passed for education was in 1785 by Congress requesting the Northwest Territory to be surveyed, part of which today is Ohio. This was to pursue ‘townships,’ which also reserved land for a local school. Resulting into ‘land grants’ and becoming the U.S. system of ‘land grant universities,’ which today we know as our public state universities.
Another pivotal date in American history was 1791, when Congress ratified the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave control of education to all individual states. ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Education in 1800s
Pre-technology, my memories of learning as a child heavily consist of reading and writing down what my teacher wrote on the chalkboard. This method of teaching lessons and writing in schools was the result of James Pillans’ discovery in 1801 when using chalk on a blackboard teaching geography. It was a math instructor at West Point Military Academy that first used it in America. Then, in 1805, a wealthy businessman established a “Lancastrian” modeled school to educate poor children in New York. It had one “master” that taught hundreds of students in a room. Thereby, the older students receive a rote lesson by the master, which whom would then teach the younger students. These school’s main emphasis was strict discipline and obedience since these are the prime qualities that factory owners desired in their employees.
Sadly, throughout history women were not given the same educational opportunities as men up until this point. If they were fortunate, they went to grade school long enough to learn to read the Bible. That is, not until 1831, where a coeducation Mississippi College granted a degree to two woman, Alice Robinson and Catherine Hall. Soon after that, Oberlin College becomes the first U.S. College to admit both women and men in 1833. Horace Mann, the foremost supporter for the creation of a freely open common school. Today, it’s called the public elementary school. Horace Mann is considered to be an outstanding advocate of education for the common person (the Common School Movement), nick-named “the father of the public school.”
Congress passed a law making it illegal for Native Americans teaching native languages in schools. Children starting at four years old were sent to off-reservation boarding schools, Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Development through 90s
In the late 1800’s, education began to grow and become more organized. Hence, the first Department of Education was formed in 1867. The Pledge of Allegiance was first used in public schools on Columbus Day in 1892 and remains in most schools today. Going into the 1900’s, laws were being passed. The U.S. Supreme Court requires public education to the children of Chinese immigrant California residents in 1905. Then, the minimum wage was enacted and prohibiting children under the age of 12 to be employed. In 1918 it became mandatory that students attend school in every state which increased literacy rates. The following year, every state had passed a law to provide public funding for students to have school transportation. As a result, in 1939, Frank W. Cyr lead a conference on student transportation and the national standardization of school buses to later become the Father of Yellow School Bus. A great program since I’m sure everyone that attended public school rode on a yellow school bus at some time or another.
Prior to the mid-1950’s, public schools were segregated, the white children did not inter-mix with black children or ethnic groups such as Hispanics and Native Americans. White schools received most of the education funding, which lead to better school conditions and textbooks. Finally, in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court passed the law that made segregated schools illegal with the case Brown v. Board of Education. There was still a long road ahead to provide an equal opportunity to all students to receive an education since a follow up plan wasn’t in place, only to desegregate not integrate. Slowly, a decade later, Jule Sugarman founded the Head Start Program in 1965 that provided an educational program for low-income preschool children. Today there are debates whether the program is effective and worth the Congressional funding.
Conclusion
As a result of the 1983 Reagan Administration’s report, “A Nation at Risk,” the nation’s confidence in the school system was crushed, igniting a new education reform that started vouchers and charter schools to privatization. Following that reform was another attempt to improve the education system with President G.W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, implementing student testing, in return holding the schools and educators accountable for the student’s achievement. There are arguments on the unfairness of penalizing schools for the students attending, resulting in teachers not wanting to work in those schools. On the other hand, some civil rights groups feel this is an important method to uphold high standards and recognize schools in need.
Regardless of the past and present-day education reforms and programs, a struggle for equality, diversity still exists today. However, slowly we have progressed forward in the school system that was paved for us by many past American’s and their vision for an open and free education. Present day educators also possess a common goal of meeting the tough new academic standards in education. Today, the debate continues: do any of the present-day strategies for diversity and equality challenge the Founding Fathers’ philosophies of an open and free common school, or are they the only a remedy in a multifaceted society?
References
- ‘History of Boston Latin School—oldest public school in America’. BLS Web Site. Archived from the original on 2007-05-02. Retrieved 2007-06-01.
- ‘Education Law.’ American Law Yearbook 2007. . Encyclopedia.com. 24 Sep. 2018
- Cooper, Forrest Lamar (2011). Looking Back Mississippi: Towns and Places. University Press of Mississippi. p. 23. ISBN 9781617031489.
- Irimia R, Gottschling M (2016) Taxonomic revision of Rochefortia Sw. (Ehretiaceae, Boraginales). Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e7720. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.4.e7720
- Guinier, L. (n.d). From Racial Liberalism to Racial Literacy: Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Divergence Dilemma (Publication).
- Lyndsey Layton, ‘Obama signs new K–12 education law that ends No Child Left Behind’ Washington Post Dec 11, 2015
- Curti, M. E. The social ideas of American educators, with new chapter on the last twenty-five years. (1959)
- Sadker, David M.. Teachers Schools and Society (Page 215). McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Kindle Edition.
