Compulsory Education
To understand compulsory education in America requires us to act as historians. Until 1852 no state required school attendance.You know that education is a state matter and that any law requiring school attendance will be enacted by a state legislature.By 1929 all states required school attendance. Furthermore, as the data in Table One below indicate, there were decades when significant numbers of states passed compulsory education laws.
Table One:Compulsory Education Laws
| MA |
1852 |
OR |
1889 |
SC |
1915 |
| VT |
1867 |
UT |
1890 |
AL |
1915 |
| WA |
1871 |
NM |
1891 |
FL |
1915 |
| NH |
1871 |
PA |
1895 |
TX |
1915 |
| MI |
1871 |
KY |
1896 |
GA |
1916 |
| CT |
1872 |
HI* |
1896 |
MS |
1918 |
| NV |
1873 |
IN |
1897 |
AK* |
1929 |
| ME |
1875 |
WV |
1897 |
||
| NJ |
1875 |
AZ |
1899 |
||
| WY |
1876 |
NE |
1901 |
||
| OH |
1876 |
IA |
1902 |
||
| WI |
1879 |
MD |
1902 |
||
| ND |
1883 |
TN |
1905 |
||
| IL |
1883 |
MO |
1905 |
||
| MT |
1883 |
DE |
1907 |
||
| RI |
1883 |
NC |
1907 |
||
| SD |
1883 |
OK |
1907 |
||
| MN |
1885 |
VA |
1908 |
||
| ID |
1887 |
AR |
1909 |
||
| CI |
1889 |
LA |
1910 |
* Prior to Statehood
Our task is to try to learn more about why the states made it mandatory for children to attend school. We do have four common explanations for these laws which I will summarize. But, I also wish you to do some exploration to generate some of your own explanations for why these laws came into being.
You may wish to read an account of one state’s effort to pass compulsory education. THE STRUGGLE FOR A COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE LAW IN ILLINOIS, 1855-83. History of Illinois School Compulsory Law
1855-84
http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/abbott/Abbott_Breckinridge_1917/Abbott_Breckinridge_1917_03.html
Here are summaries of four explanations for why the states mandated school attendance. The four explanations are grouped as follows:
1) The School is to be used as an instrument of Social Control
2) The School is to be used as an instrument of Political Control
3) The School is to be used as an instrument of ethno/religious control
4) The School is to be used as an instrument of economic control
1) The School is to be used as an instrument of Social Control
When state and national leaders hold beliefs about the values that should dominate in America, they have often turned to the schools as a means of trying to cement those values in the minds of the American public. Many of you who come from Nebraska have ancestors that were directly impacted by this aspect of American education. See Meyer vs. Nebraska as an example of how Nebraska sought to inculcate American values and beliefs in new immigrants. http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/handouts/supcourt/mnebrask.html
In the 1870 and 1880s and 1890s as waves of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe poured into America, efforts were made to teach these new people the dominant values of American culture. Among these new immigrants were Czechs, Poles, Jews, Servians, Greeks, Syrians, and Armenians. In the language of the time, this new “stock” was not up to par with existing native “stock. ”Elwood Cubberly one of the most prominent educational leaders of that era, labeled this new stock as “illiterate, docile, lacking in self reliance and initiative, and not possessing the Anglo-Teutonic conceptions of law, order, and government. ”Many viewed these foreigners as a serious threat that would destroy the fabric of American society. If was a similar fear to that expressed in a flyer that appeared suddenly on the lawns of many Nebraska homes last month that made similar claims about today’s new immigrant populations. http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/impbusin.html
It is thus no co-incidence that states began to require compulsory education during those last three decades of the 19th century. The schools were the vehicle that could Americanize these new immigrants and teach them the values and ways of the American people. The historian, Henry Steele Commager wrote the following in his book, The American Mind (1950, p. 43):
It was not only that Americans had to adjust themselves to changes in the economy and society more abrupt and pervasive than ever before.It was rather that for the first time in their national experience they were confronted with a challenge to their philosophical assumptions.They were not unaccustomed to profound alterations in their physical surroundings; they were unprepared for the crumbling of their cosmic scheme.They were now to be required not only to articulate their economy to a new technology and adjust their society to new ways of life—that was a familiar task—but to make their politics and morals conform to new scientific and philosophical precepts.Under the impact of these new forces, the note of confidence which had long characterized the American accent gave way to doubt, self-assurance to bewilderment, and resolution to confusion.
Commager could be writing about America today.If you can find examples of the American public school curriculum from that era, you will find plenty of evidence of an “anglo” centric curriculum that sought to teach the foreign born to fit in.
2) The School is to be used as an instrument of Political Control
Many nations use their school system as a means of developing loyalty to the nation in the population. It makes reasonably good sense to argue that any nation must, in fact, have some means of doing this.National anthems, flags, national holidays, and political spectacle are one means of inculcating loyalty and fealty in a population. Another way comes in the form of laws. We have laws banning desecration of our flag, working in a subversive way to undermine our government, and a new Patriot Act all designed to bolster the nation’s need to have a citizenry united behind the country. While this use of the school system as a means of political control may blend in with the other uses, there are plenty of examples of how we seek to inculcate democratic values in our population by means of what we do in schools. You have multiple examples of this in the ED131 material but to remind you, consider the following. Nebraska law requires that students in all grades below sixth grade spend one hour a week reciting stories having to do with American history and the deeds of American heroes and the singing of patriotic songs and of the Star Spangled banner. In high school, in at least two grades, three periods a week will be devoted to teaching citizenry and the dangers of Nazism, communism, and similar ideologies. If school administrators don’t make this happen, they can be fired. http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
3) The School is to be used as an instrument of ethno/religious control
William Bennett was a former Secretary of Education. He has been a very influential force in education.His book, The Book of Virtue, is one of the very clearest examples of how we have at times used the schools to teach particular religious and ethnocentric viewpoints. A commentary on Bennett can be found below.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0306.green.html
You may find it interesting to know that Nebraska’s many Roman Catholic schools were created largely because people of that faith objected to the strongly Protestant character of schools in the 19th century. The Common School movement of Horace Mann had many Protestant elements. All over the country, the Catholic school system grew as an alternative to a system viewed as dominated by Protestant religion. If you know the religious background of many of the immigrant groups that came to America in the 1870s-1890s, you know that Catholicism was a major religion. Thus, the dominant groups sought to enforce their own religious views on this new population. You have several Supreme Court cases that resolved the matter of whether one could satisfy the compulsory education requirements by sending children to a private, religious school.
4) The School is to be used as an instrument of economic control
This idea is popular today. When a rural Nebraska community seeks to attract business, it typically finds a way to brag about its school system. When the state of Nebraska was settled in pioneer times, advertising a quality school system featured prominently in the promotional material sent back east and to Europe itemizing the wonderful features of the town. Today, we are constantly told we need to have a superior educational system in order to compete internationally.
From a macro economic perspective, this argument is built upon the concept of human capital. That is, developing human beings as contributors to economic productivity is a means of growing economically. Each one of us has some potential to contribute our small share to the nation’s economic productivity.If each of us is more productive, the national gross national product (GNP) will increase. The chief tool available to grow each one of us as an economic engine is our educational system. The greater our individual knowledge, the greater the national productivity.
For twenty years American education has been exhorted to contribute an improved workforce to the nation’s economy. This most recent chapter in American educational history began with a report initiated by President Reagan entitled A Nation at Risk. In it the school system was faulted for producing a workforce inferior to that of other nations. This theme has remained at the forefront of national efforts to improve education. It even appears in the most recent No Child Left Behind Act. There is a reason that President GW Bush wants all American children to read above today’s 40th percentile.Such an attainment will improve economic productivity.
Assignment
I would like you to examine some material that relates to this topic by using internet resources. I provide you with web addresses for the various topics and issues that I pose below. You may also go to my website and look under the link to ED131 for this same material. To access my website, go to http://tc.unl.edu/mbryant
Questions for Class Discussion:
Topic One:
1) If I told you I was attempting to pass a law that made school attendance voluntary, that repeated Nebraska’ compulsory attendance laws, what argument would you give me against such legislation?
Topic Two:
Jean Jacques Rosseau wrote a novel about education entitled Emile. Please locate this work at http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/Projects/emile/emile.html
Rosseau had some ideas about education that would have provided ammunition for those who might argue that school should not be compulsory. You can gain a sense of what these might be by looking at the two excerpts from Emile below
Emile will have no padded bonnets, no go-carts, no leading-strings; or
at least as soon as he can put one foot before another he will be supported
only along pavements, and those will be crossed very quickly.[note 18]
Instead of keeping him cooped up in a stuffy room, take him out into a
meadow every day. There let him run, let him frisk about. If he falls a hundred
times, so much the better. He will learn all the sooner how to pick himself up.
The well-being of liberty will make up for many wounds. My pupil will often
have bruises; in return he will always be gay. Your pupils may have fewer
bruises, but they are always constrained, always enchained, always sad. I
doubt whether they are any better off.
What is to be thought, therefore, of that cruel education which
sacrifices the present to an uncertain future, that burdens a child with all sorts
of restrictions, and begins by making him miserable in order to prepare him for
some far-off happiness he may never enjoy? Even if I considered such an
education wise in its aims, how could I view without indignation those poor
creatures subjected to an intolerable yoke and condemned like galley-slaves
to endless tasks with no certainty of any rewards? The age of gaity is spent in
tears, punishments, threats, and slavery. You torment the poor thing for his
own good; you fail to see that you are calling Death to snatch him from these
gloomy machinations. Who can say how many children fall victims to the
excessive wisdom of their fathers or tutors? Lucky to escape from his cruelty,
the only advantage they gain from the ills they are made to suffer is to die
without regretting a life known only for its torments.
And lest you think that this position is hopelessly antiquated, please browse the website of the contemporary education critic, John Taylor Gatto. Gatto is a well known speaker for home school groups and has a position that argues against compulsory schooling. http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/prologue.htm
2) How might Rosseau have argued against compulsory schooling?
Topic Three:
3) Kill the Indian, save the man! Examine the website below to explore this notion. Why was it that political and educational leaders wished to “in immersing the Indians in our civilization and when we get them under holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked... Kill the Indian and save the man."?
Topic Four:
4) Horace Mann was the great 19th century common school crusader. What is implicit in the phrase “common school”? Why did Mann think compulsory schooling would be a good idea.Check the website below.
http://www.pbs.org/onlyateacher/horace.html
Topic Five:
America began with certain ideas about what schooling could accomplish. These ideas appeared in the very earliest American writing. Below are two websites that speak to early education and some of the very first laws speaking of school attendance. What was the thinking of these New England leaders as they advocated for rules applying to children.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/winthrop.htm
About John Winthrop’s Concept of a City on a Hill
http://facweb.furman.edu/~svecmichael/ /library/ed11laws.html
About Massachusetts law of 1642 and laws governing incorrigible children
5) In these early school laws, what were the reasons for wanting children to be in school?
Topic Six:
Look at the dates when the southern (former slave states) passed compulsory education laws. Why do you suppose these states waited so long to pass such laws?
You can examine one southern state law at the website below for a possible answer to why these states waited.
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc08/htm/ii.iii.htm
6) But, the question remains, what happened that caused these deep south states to act almost in unison between 1910 and 1918?