HORACE MANN

CHAPTER I

TWO CENTURIES OF COMMON SCHOOLS

ANY adequate account of Horace Mann, and of the Common School Revival in the United States with which his name is connected, must be introduced by a general view of the progress of elementary education in the country for the first two centuries of its history. Accordingly, the first and second chapters of this work will be devoted to that object. Principal attention will be given to New England. Moreover, Massachusetts will hold the pre-eminence, because it was on her soil that the American system of common schools originated, and because she was both the home of Horace Mann and the first beneficiary of the great work that he accomplished.

1. MASSACHUSETTS

The Puritan character had been well annealed in the hot furnace that glowed in England following the Reformation, and it is nowhere seen to better advantage than in the New England colonics. "God sifted a whole nation," the familiar quotation runs, "that he might send choice grain out into this

wilderness." The New England Puritans were as learned as they were pious, and as thoroughly devoted to education as they were to religion. Men of learning so abounded among them that, at one time, they counted one Cambridge graduate for every two hundred and fifty persons, and not a few Oxford men besides. In repute the teacher stood next to the minister. The leaders were thoroughly acquainted with the results, both of the Renaissance and of the Reformation; they regarded them as inseparable; and so as soon as possible, after they made their first beginning, they took steps to plant the school and the church side by side in their new home.

In February, 1635, the town of Boston took action to establish its celebrated Latin school, the most venerable educational institution in New England.1 Other towns followed the example that Boston had set, and by 1617 as many as seven similar schools existed on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. In 1636, 1637 the General Court founded Harvard College, the oldest American seat of higher learning. The first colonial action relating to general education was had in 1641, when the General Court desired "that the elders would make a catechism for the instruction of youth in the grounds of religion." This expression of desire was soon followed by something more decisive. The grammar schools and the college together would fill the two upper divisions of the tripartite scheme of education; but the educational system could not be considered satisfactory

1 The Oldest School in America. An oration by Phillips Brooks, D.D., etc. Boston, 1885.

until proper elementary schools were founded, and the grammar schools put upon a firmer foundation than mere local consent or agreement. So, on June 14, 1642, the General Court enacted compulsory education. Since many parents and masters neglected the training of their children in learning and employment profitable to the Commonwealth, the Court ordered that the selectmen in every town should thenceforth stand charged with the care of redressing the evil; and to this end they should be clothed with power to take account, from time to time, of all parents and masters, and of their children in respect to calling and employment, and especially in respect to their ability to read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of the country. Fines should be imposed upon all who neglected the training of their children, or refused to render an account to the selectmen when called upon to do so.1

While the Act of 1642 made education compulsory, it did not provide schools or teachers; the people were still left to domestic instruction, to private teachers, and to such voluntary schools as they should organize among themselves. The situation was illogical as well as inconvenient; so at least the statesmen of the Plantation seem to have thought, for, on November 11, 1647, the General Court enacted a general school law, the first one, be it observed, met with in American history. In modernized spelling this law runs as follows:

1A collection of the early Massachusetts statutes relating to education will be found in The Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1892, 1893, Vol. II., pp. 1225–1339.

"It being one chief object of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers, that learning may not be buried in the grave of our fathers in the Church and Commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors,

"It is therefore ordered, That every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty houscholders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major part of those that order the prudentials of the town shall appoint: Provided, Those that send their children be not oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in other towns; and

"It is further ordered, That where any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families or householders, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university: Provided, That if any town neglect the performance hereof above one year, that every such town shall pay five pounds to the next school until they shall perform this order."

In 1647 Massachusetts consisted of some thirty

towns, inhabited by about twenty thousand people. The law of that date rounded out the outline of the system of public instruction as it exists to-day. Evolution and not revolution has characterized the system from the beginning. Let us see what this outline really contained.

The Act recognizes the three customary grades of education,-elementary, secondary, and higher, and all are made subject to the State's control. It lays stress upon the relation of education to the State; what is profitable to the Commonwealth is set up as the criterion to govern the action of the General Court. Again, while the responsibility of educating children is placed primarily upon parents and masters, the State may see to it that parents and masters! perform their duty. Money may be raised by general taxation to defray the cost of public education; whether it shall be done or not, it is left with the towns themselves to determine. School provision is made compulsory, but not school attendance; the "shall" of the Act of 1647 is directed to towns not parents, and so is the fine that is to be imposed for non-compliance with legal duty. Citizens may provide tuition for their children at home, or in private schools as before. The schools are not formally free therefore, since they are to be supported either by those who use the schools or by the inhabitants of the town in general by way of supply, or by both of these. Important history turned on this word "or," as we shall see hereafter.

In the first elementary schools of Massachusetts only writing and reading were required to be taught.