The Evolution of American Education

Jamestown (1607)

Plymouth (1620)

European Settlers

Jamestown (1607)

• Settlers were “gentleman” and fortune seekers

• Came to find riches - – gold, spices, furs

• Didn’t know farming, land was owned by the company

Plymouth (1620)

• Pilgrims came seeking religious freedom

• Some knowledge of farming

–No plows during the first 12 years

Education in Colonial America

• Apprenticeships

• Dame Schools

• Latin Grammar Schools

• Higher Education

Apprenticeships

• 1642 - Massachusetts Bay Colony law

• If children were notbeing educated properly, the town leaders wouldapprentice the child

• 1646 - Virginia passed similar law

Old Deluder Satan Act

• 1647 - Massachusetts

• Towns with 50 familieshad to have a teacherto teach reading andwriting

Old Deluder Satan Act

• Towns with 100 familieshad to establish a grammar school(college prep)

Latin Grammar Schools

• For the elite• Teachers were ministers

or transients• Curriculum

– Latin, Greek

• Rote memorization• Strict discipline

What is it?

What is it?

• A whipping post. These wereoutside the school house and students were tied to it to receive whippings.

Dame Schools

• Reading and writing was often taught in dame schools, especially for females. Dame schools were often conducted in kitchens. Students learned only the rudiments while thehomemaker worked.

Dame Schools

• Women were expected to stick to their knitting and not meddlein “such things as are proper for men, whose minds are stronger.”

Higher Education

• Colleges were established to train ministers and government leaders

• Some proficiency in Latin and Greek was needed for admission

• Curriculum emphasized classics and the liberal arts

• No sciences or practical subjects were taught

Our European Heritage

• Seven Liberal Arts

–Trivium

•Grammar

•Rhetoric

•Dialectic

More Liberal Arts

• Quadrivium•Arithmetic•Geometry•Astronomy•Music

Higher Education . . .

• Harvard - 1638• William and Mary - 1693• Yale - 1701• Princeton - 1746 (Presbyterian)• Columbia - 1754 (Episcopal)

Higher Education. . .

• Brown - 1764 (Baptist)

• Rutgers - 1766 (Dutch Reformed)

• Dartmouth - 1769 (Congregationalists)

Elementary Schools

• District School - one elementary school in a school district, New England origin, term is now obsolete

• Common School - a school, elementary or secondary, that was available to all students

Elementary Schools….

• Public School - An early term to differentiate between schools, P.S. 84

• Primary School - really refers to schools with grades 1, 2 and 3

Elementary Schools...

• Grammar School - A shortened form of Latin Grammar School, curriculum is limited

• Elementary School - What we have today

Advanced Schooling

• Lyceum

• Private Venture Schools

• Academy

• High Schools

Lyceum

• Generally, an adult education association operated at the community level

• Had meetings, offered regular courses by lectures, procured books, apparatus and collections

Lyceum

• Agriculture was often emphasized in the early 1800s

• By the mid 1800s thousands of Lyceums were in operation in the United States

• There was even a lyceum association

Private Venture Schools

• Practical matters were taught by individuals in their own house

• Subjects included surveying, navigation, accounting, mathematics, etc.– Similar to the dance, karate, computer, etc.

schools of today.

The Academy

• Ben Franklin’s idea - 1749

Franklin’s Academy

• Two Divisions

–English School

–Classical School

• Latin master had a title, English master none

Franklin’s Academy

• Latin master paid twice as much

• English master had twice as many students

Academies

• Private

• Primarily Classical

• Basically College Preparatory

• Evolved out of the Latin Grammar School

Academies

• Sometimes went by other names

–Institutes

–Seminary

High School

• Originally was terminal

• First High School - Boston - 1821

–Boys only, 12 years or older

High Schools

–Entrance examination required

–English, mathematics, science, history

High Schools, cont.

• Massachusetts Law of 1827–Towns with 500+ families

established high schools–United States History,

bookkeeping, algebra, geometry, surveying

Massachusetts

–Towns with 4000+ inhabitants also had to teach Latin, Greek, history, rhetoric & logic

Early Agricultural Schools

• Gardiner Lyceum (Maine) - 1821-1832

• Agricultural Seminary (Conn.) - 1824-1825

• These schools were boarding schools - didn’t survive long

Early Ag Schools

• Boston Asylum and Farm School - 1832– “the establishment of a farm school in

the country, where idle and morally exposed children of the city can be rescued from vice and danger”

Growth of Schools

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

1800 1830 1860 1880 1900

Academy

High School

High School Attendance

The Awakening

• At the dawning of the 20th Century the public was disenchanted with public education– curriculum was still primarily classical– no relevancy to an agrarian society– no practical application– lecture and rote memorization

were extensively used

Early Schools

The Media

• Education is “as it was 60 years ago in our boyhood, so it is today in 99 out of 100 schools. Not a grain of progress that will help the country boy to a better understanding of the problem of agriculture.” - Hoard’s Dairyman, 1895

The Media

• We need to abandon “the cut-and-dried formula of a period when a man was ‘educated’ only when he knew Greek and Latin” - Wallace’s Farmer, 1908

The Awakening...

• In 1910 only 8.8% of all 17 year olds were high school graduates

• USDA, agricultural societies, farm publications and others demanded change in the educational system

The Awakening

• Many states started teaching agriculture

and home economics in the public schools in the early 1900s

• A state ruling in North Carolina in 1903 required agriculture to be taught in elementary schools

From 1910-1917the teaching of agriculture in schools was started in many

states

The Awakening

• The NC Legislature passed the Farm Life School Act in 1911

• Boarding schools were established where agriculture and home economics was taught

Farm Life School Curriculum

• Agricultural subjects were substituted for Latin

• All other traditional subjects were taught (literature, etc)

• School had to have a farm and adequate facilities

Cary Farm Life School

Students at Cary lived in this dormitory

Cary Farm Life SchoolThis student from Edgecombe County was a boarder.

Cary Farm Life School

• First year:– general principles of agriculture– farm carpentry– use of tools– construction of things needed on the farm

First Year

Second Year

• Field crops– different soils, fertilizers, cultivation– seed selection & testing

• Fruit growing– orchard location– setting trees, budding, grafting– pruning & marketing

Second Year

• Vegetable gardening– construct hotbeds– each student has a garden plot on farm– becomes familiar with the vegetables that

should be grown on the farm

Second Year

Third Year

• Livestock– different breeds & characteristics– feeding– livestock judging– breeding– dairying– poultry raising

Third Year

Fourth Year

• Soils– types– laying of terraces, drainage methods

• Farm Management– apply business methods to farming

• Rural Economics– marketing problems

Cary Farm Life School

Agricultural subjects onthe Report Card

Cary Farm Life School

The Poultry Co-Op was operated out of

the Cary Farm Life School.

A New Era in Agriculture

• The passage of the Smith-Hughes Act in 1917 provided federal funds to support the teaching of agriculture across the nation.