The Common School

1830-1890

A Time of Unprecedented Change

Territorial expansion Dramatic Population Growth Civil War Industrialization Urbanization Social Reform

Jacksonian Democracy The era of the

Common Man Universal Manhood

Suffrage Local Control

A new Working Class Immigration Urbanization Industrialization

Social Problems Industrial revolution

Textile industry Lowell

Massachusetts Immigration

Potato famine in Ireland

Gap between classes

Reform Movements Abolition of

slavery Concord Mass. Henry Ward

Beecher

Reform Movements Women’s Suffrage

Susan B. Anthony Lucretia Mott The Grimke Sisters Elizabeth Cady

Stanton

Reform Movements Temperance

WCTU

Reform Movements Reform of

Prisons Mental

Institutions Dorothea Dix

Reform Movements Was the Goal . .

. Social Justice? Social Control? Both?

The Common School Movement

New England Beginnings Ralph Waldo Emerson Transcendentalism Every human has a

“Spark of the Divine” We have a moral

obligation to help others Education is

liberating

Monitorial (Lancasterian) System

Economical 1 teacher and up to

300 students Rote memorization Considered suitable

for working class children

Catherine Beecher and the Common School

Daughter of Henry Ward Beecher

Sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe

Founded Hartford Female

Seminary Western Institute for

Women

Horace Mann and the Common School

Horace Mann

First state Secretary of Education in Massachusetts

He was a reformer. Led the fight for:

Railroads Insane asylums

Horace Mann

In 1837 he ended his law practice and became Massachusett’s first Secretary of Education

Horace Mann

The state takes better The state takes better care of its livestock care of its livestock that it does of its that it does of its children.”children.”

Horace Mann

““Common schools would Common schools would serve all boys and girls and serve all boys and girls and teach a common body of teach a common body of knowledge that would give knowledge that would give each student an equal each student an equal chance in life.”chance in life.”

““It is a free school system that It is a free school system that knows no distinction of rich knows no distinction of rich and poor. . . It throws open and poor. . . It throws open its doors and spreads the its doors and spreads the table of its bounty for all table of its bounty for all children of the state.”children of the state.”

Horace Mann“ “ Education then, Education then,

beyond all other beyond all other devices of human devices of human origin, is the origin, is the equalizer of the equalizer of the conditions of men, conditions of men, the great balance the great balance wheel of the social wheel of the social machinery.”machinery.”

Henry Barnard and the Common School

First U. S. Commissioner of Education

His goal was for America to create: “Schools good enough for

the best and cheap enough for the poorest.”

Characteristics of the Common School

Funded by local property taxes

Available for all white children

No tuition charges Governed by local school

committees (boards) Regulated by the States

Opposition to common schools

A system funded by state tax dollars Irish Catholics

They were expected to attend schools that were anti-catholic

The Great School Debates Bishop John Hughes

We will not send our children where they will be trained without religion, lose respect for their parents and the faith of their fathers and come out turning up their noses at the name of Catholic. . . In a word, give us our just proportion of the common school fund.

The Great School Debates New York Herald

Once we admit that the Catholics have a right to a portion of the school fund, every other sect will have the same. . . We shall be convulsed with endless jarrings and quarrels about the distribution of it and little left for the public schools.”

The Parochial School Movement

The Kalamazoo Case

Jigsaw Activity Count off by 5 to form discussion

groups Discussion Group

1s with 1s; 2s with 2s, etc. Negotiate within your group so that each of

you is responsible for one of the readings Fifth annual report Eighth annual report Tenth annual report Twelfth annual report (A) Twelfth annual report (B)

Jigsaw Activity Expert Group

Discuss your article in your groupWhat are the main ideas?What will you “teach” in your Discussion Group?

Jigsaw Activity Return to your discussion group “Teach” the other members of your group about your articleEveryone take notes

What common themes did you notice?