THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION
by
ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
Part 9 out of 18
with a reasoning soul toward God, government, their fellow-men, and
themselves, and also at least the first rudiments of useful and
indispensable knowledge."
It was in the American Colonies, though, that the waning of the old
religious interest was most notable. Due to rude frontier conditions, the
decline in force of the old religious-town governments, the diversity of
sects, the rise of new trade and civil interests, and the breakdown of
old-home connections, the hold on the people of the old religious
doctrines was weakened there earlier than in the old world. By 1750 the
change in religious thinking in America had become quite marked. As a
consequence many of the earlier parochial schools had died out, while in
the New England Colonies the colonial governments had been forced to
exercise an increasing state oversight of the elementary school to keep it
from dying out there as well.
STUDIES AND TEXTBOOKS. The studies of the elementary vernacular school
remained, throughout the whole of the eighteenth century, much as before,
namely, reading, a little writing and ciphering, some spelling, religion,
and in Teutonic countries a little music. La Salle (R. 182) had
prescribed, for the Catholic vernacular schools of France, instruction in
French, some. Latin, "orthography, arithmetic, the matins and vespers, le
Pater, l'Ave Maria, le Credo et le Confiteor, the Commandments, responses,
Catechism, duties of a Christian, and maxims and precepts drawn from the
Testament." The Catechism was to be taught one half-hour daily. The
schoolbooks in England in Locke's day, as he tells us (p. 435), were "the
Horn Book, Primer, Psalter, Testament, and Bible." These indicate merely a
religious vernacular school. The purpose stated for the English Church
charity-schools (R. 238 b), schools that attained to large importance in
England and the American Colonies during the eighteenth century, shows
them to have been, similarly, religious vernacular schools. The _School
Regulations_ which Frederick the Great promulgated for Prussia (1763),
fixed the textbooks to be used (R. 274, sec 20), and indicate that the
instruction in Prussia was still restricted to reading, writing, religion,
singing, and a little arithmetic. In colonial America, Noah Webster's
description (R. 230) of the schools he attended in Connecticut, about
1764-70, shows that the studies and textbooks were "chiefly or wholly
Dilworth's Spelling Books, the Psalter, Testament, and Bible," with a
little writing and ciphering. A few words of description of these older
books may prove useful here.
[Illustration: FIG. 130. A HORN BOOK]
THE HORN BOOK. The Horn Book goes back to the close of the fifteenth
century, [7] and by the end of the sixteenth century was in common use
throughout England. Somewhat similar alphabet boards, lacking the handle,
were also used in Holland, France, and in German lands. This, a thin oak
board on which was pasted a printed slip, covered by translucent horn, was
the book from which children learned their letters and began to read, the
mastery of which usually required some time. Cowper thus describes this
little book:
Neatly secured from being soiled or torn
Beneath a pane of thin translucent horn,
A book (to please us at a tender age
'T is called a book, though but a single page)
Presents the prayer the Savior designed to teach,
Which children use, and parsons--when they preach.
The Horn Book was much used well into the eighteenth century, but its
reading matter was in time incorporated into the school Primer, now
evolved out of an earlier elementary religious manual.
THE PRIMER. Originally the child next passed to the Catechism and the
Bible, but about the middle of the seventeenth century the Primer began to
be used. The Primer in its original form was a simple manual of devotion
for the laity, compiled without any thought of its use in the schools. It
contained the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and a few of
the more commonly used prayers and psalms. [8] The Catechism soon was
added, and with the prefixing of the alphabet and a few syllables and
words it was transformed, as schools arose, into the first reading book
for children. There was at first no attempt at grading, illustration, or
the introduction of easy reading material. About the close of the
seventeenth century the illustrated Primer, with some attempt at grading
and some additional subject-matter, made its appearance, both in England
and America, and at once leaped into great popularity.
The idea possibly goes back to the _Orbis Pictus_ (1654) of Comenius (p.
413: R. 221), the first illustrated schoolbook ever written. The first
English Primer adapted to school use was _The Protestant Tutor_, a rather
rabid anti-Catholic work which appeared in London, about 1685. A later
edition of this contained the alphabet, some syllables and words, the
figures and letters, the list of the books of the Bible, an alphabet of
lessons, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and a poem,
long famous, on the death of the martyr, John Rogers. [9] It was an
abridgement of this book which the same publisher brought out in Boston,
about 1690, under the name of _The New England Primer_ (R. 202). This at
once leaped into great popularity, and became the accepted reading book in
all the schools of the American Colonies except those under the Church of
England. For the next century and a quarter it was the chief school and
reading book in use among the Dissenters and Lutherans in America.
Schoolmasters drilled the children on the reading matter and the Catechism
it contained, and the people recited from it yearly in the churches. It
was also used for such spelling as was given. It was the first great
American textbook success, and was still in use in the Boston dame schools
as late as 1806. It was reprinted in England, and enjoyed a great sale
among Dissenters there. Its sales in America alone have been estimated at
least three million copies. The sale in Europe was also large. It was
followed in England by other Primers and other introductory reading books,
of which _The History of Genesis_ (1708), a series of simple stories
retold from the first book of the Bible, and _The Child's Weeks-Work_
(1712), containing proverbs, fables, conundrums, lessons on behavior, and
a short catechism, are types. Frederick the Great, in his list of required
textbooks for Prussian schools (R. 274, sec 20), does not mention a Primer.
[Illustration: THE WESTMINSTER CATECHISM.
(A page from _The New England Primer_, natural size)]
THE CATECHISM. In all Protestant German lands the Shorter Catechism
prepared by Luther, or the later Heidelberg Catechism; in Calvinistic
lands the Catechism of Calvin; and in England and the American Colonies
the Westminster Catechism, [10] formed the backbone of the religious
instruction. Teachers drilled their pupils in these as thoroughly as on
any other subject, writing masters set as copies sentences from the book,
children were required to memorize the answers, and the doctrines
contained were emphasized by teacher and preacher so that the children
were saturated with the religious ideas set forth. No book except the
Bible did so much to form the character, and none so much to fix the
religious bias of the children. Almost equal importance was given to the
Catechism in Catholic lands (R. 182, sec 21-22), though there supplemented
by more religious influences derived from the ceremonial of the Church.
[Illustration: FIG. 132. THOMAS DILWORTH (?-1780)
The most celebrated English textbook writer of his day.
(From the Frontispiece of his _Schoolmaster's Assistant_, 1740)]
SPELLERS. The next step forward, in the transition from the religious
Primer to secular reading matter for school children, came in the use of
the so-called Spellers. Probably the first of these was _The English
School-Master_ of Edmund Coote (R. 229), first issued in 1596. This gave
thirty-two pages to the alphabet and spelling; eighteen to a shorter
Catechism, prayers, and psalms; five to chronology; two to writing copies;
two to arithmetic; and twenty to a list of hard words, alphabetically
arranged and explained. As will be seen from this analysis of contents,
this was a schoolmaster's general manual and guide. After about 1740 such
books became very popular, due to the publication that year of Thomas
Dilworth's _A New Guide to the English Tongue_. This book contained, as
the title-page (R. 229) declared, selected lists of words with rules for
their pronunciation, a short treatise on grammar, a collection of fables
with illustrations for reading, some moral selections, and forms of prayer
for children. It became very popular in New as well as in old England, and
was followed by a long line of imitators, culminating in America in the
publication of Noah Webster's famous blue-backed _American Spelling Book_,
in 1783. This was after the plan of the English Dilworth, but was put in
better teaching form. It contained numerous graded lists of words, some
illustrations, a series of graded reading lessons, and was largely secular
in character. It at once superseded the expiring _New England Primer_ in
most of the American cities, and continued popular in the United States
for more than a hundred years. [11] It was the second great American
textbook success, and was followed by a long list of popular Spellers and
Readers, leading up to the excellent secular Readers of the present day.
[Illustration: FIG. 133. FRONTISPIECE TO NOAH WEBSTER'S "AMERICAN SPELLING
BOOK"
This is from the 1827 edition, reduced one third in size.]
ARITHMETIC AND WRITING. The first English Arithmetic, published about 1540
to 1542, has been entirely lost, and was probably read by few. The first
to attain any popularity was _Cocker's Arithmetic_ (1677), this "Being a
Plain and Familiar Method suitable to the meanest Capacity, for the
understanding of that incomparable. Art." A still more popular book was
_Arithmetick: or that Necessary Art Made Most Easie_, by J. Hodder,
Writing Master, a reprint of which appeared in Boston, in 1719. The first
book written by an American author was Isaac Greenwood's _Arithmetick,
Vulgar and Decimal_, which appeared in Boston, in 1729. In 1743 appeared
Dilworth's _The Schoolmaster's Assistant_, a book which retained its
popularity in both England and America until after the beginning of the
nineteenth century.
No text in Arithmetic is mentioned in the School Regulations of Frederick
the Great (R. 274, sec 20), or in scarcely any of the descriptions left us of
eighteenth-century schools. The study itself was common, but not
universal, and was one that many teachers were not competent to teach. To
possess a reputation as an "arithmeticker" was an important recommendation
for a teacher, while for a pupil to be able to do sums in arithmetic was
unusual, and a matter of much pride to parents. The subject was frequently
taught by the writing master, in a separate school, [12] while the reading
teacher confined himself to reading, spelling, and religion. Thus, for
example, following earlier English practice, the Town Meeting of Boston,
in 1789, ordered "three reading schools and three writing schools
established in the town" for the instruction of children between the ages
of seven and fourteen, the subjects to be taught in each being:
The writing schools: Writing, Arithmetic
The reading schools: Spelling, Accentuation, Reading of prose and
verse, English grammar and composition
The teacher might or might not possess an arithmetic of his own, but the
instruction to the pupil was practically always dictated and copied
instruction. Each pupil made up his own book of rules and solved problems,
and few pupils ever saw a printed arithmetic. Many of the early
arithmetics were prepared after the catechism plan. There was almost no
attempt to use the subject for drill in reasoning or to give a concrete
type of instruction, before about the middle of the eighteenth century,
[13] and but little along such reform lines was accomplished until after
the beginning of the nineteenth century.
[Illustration: FIG. 134. TITLE-PAGE OF HODDER'S ARITHMETIC
An early reprint of this famous book appeared in Boston in 1719.]
Writing, similarly, was taught by dictation and practice, and the art of
the "scrivener," as the writing master was called, was one thought to be
difficult to learn. The lack of practical value of the art, the high cost
of paper, and the necessity usually for special lessons, all alike tended
to make writing a much less commonly known art than reading. Fees also
were frequently charged for instruction in writing and arithmetic;
reading, spelling, and religion being the only free subjects. The
scrivener and the arithmetic teacher also frequently moved about, as
business warranted, and was not fixed as was the teacher of the reading
school.
THE TEACHERS. The development of the vernacular school was retarded not
only by the dominance of the religious purpose of the school, but by the
poor quality of teachers found everywhere in the schools. The evolution of
the elementary-school teacher of to-day out of the church sexton, bell-
ringer, or grave-digger, [14] or out of the artisan, cripple, or old dame
who added school teaching to other employment in order to live, forms one
of the interesting as well as one of the yet-to-be-written chapters in the
history of the evolution of the elementary school.
Teachers in elementary schools everywhere in the eighteenth century were
few in number, poor in quality, and occupied but a lowly position in the
social scale. School dames in England (R. 235) and later in the American
Colonies, and on the continent of Europe teachers who were more sextons,
choristers, beadles, bell-ringers, grave-diggers, shoemakers, tailors,
barbers, pensioners, and invalids than teachers, too often formed the
teaching body for the elementary vernacular school (Rs. 231, 232, 233). In
Switzerland, the Netherlands, and some of the American Colonies, where
schools had become or were becoming local semi-civic affairs, the
standards which might be imposed for teaching also were low. The grant of
the tailoring monopoly to the elementary teachers of Prussia, [15] in
1738, and Kruesi's recollections of how he became a schoolmaster in
Switzerland, in 1793 (R. 234), were quite typical of the time. In Catholic
France, and in some German Catholic lands as well, teaching congregations
(p. 345), some of whose members had some rudimentary training for their
work, were in charge of the existing parish schools. These provided a
somewhat better type of teaching body than that frequently found in
Protestant lands, though by the latter part of the eighteenth century the
beginnings of teacher-training are to be seen in some of the German
States. The Church of England, too, had by this time organized strong
Societies [16] for the preparation of teachers for Church-of-England
schools, both at home and abroad. In Dutch, German, and Scandinavian
lands, and in colonies founded by these people in America, the parish
school, closely tied up with and dependent upon the parish church, was the
prevailing type of vernacular school, and in this the teacher was regarded
as essentially an assistant to the pastor (R. 236) and the school as a
dependency of the Church.
[FIG. 135. A "CHRISTIAN BROTHERS" SCHOOL
La Salle teaching at Grenoble. Note the adult type of dress of the boys.]
In England, in addition to regular parish schools and endowed elementary
schools, three peculiar institutions, known as the Dame School, the
religious charity-school, and the private-adventure or "hedge school" had
grown up, and the first two of these had reached a marked development by
the middle of the eighteenth century. Because these were so characteristic
of early English educational effort, and also played such an important
part in the American Colonies as well, they merit a few words of
description at this point.
THE DAME SCHOOL. The Dame School arose in England after the Reformation.
By means of it the increasing desire for a rudimentary knowledge of the
art of reading could be satisfied, and at the same time certain women
could earn a pittance. This type of school was carried early to the
American Colonies, and out of it was in time evolved, in New England, the
American elementary school. The Dame School was a very elementary school,
kept in a kitchen or living-room by some woman who, in her youth, had
obtained the rudiments of an education, and who now desired to earn a
small stipend for herself by imparting to the children of her neighborhood
her small store of learning. For a few pennies a week the dame took the
children into her home and explained to them the mysteries connected with
learning the beginnings of reading and spelling. Occasionally a little
writing and counting also were taught, though not often in England. In the
American Colonies the practical situations of a new country forced the
employment as teachers of women who could teach all three subjects, thus
early creating the American school of the so-called "3 Rs"--"Reading,
Riting, Rithmetic." The Dame School appears so frequently in English
literature, both poetry and prose, that it must have played a very
important part in the beginnings of elementary education in England. Of
this school Shenstone (1714-63) writes (R. 235):
In every village marked with little spire,
Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame,
There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name,
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame.
[Illustration: FIG. 136. AN ENGLISH DAME SCHOOL
(From a drawing of a school in the heart of London, after Barclay)]
The Reverend George Crabbe (1754-1832), another poet of homely life,
writes (R. 235) of a deaf, poor, patient widow who sits
And awes some thirty infants as she knits;
Infants of humble, busy wives who pay,
Some trifling price for freedom through the day.
This school flourished greatly in America during the eighteenth century,
but with the coming of Infant Schools, early in the nineteenth, was merged
into these to form the American Primary School.
[Illustration: FIG. 137. GRAVEL LANE CHARITY-SCHOOL, SOUTHWARK
Founded in 1687, and one of the earliest of the Non-Conformist English
charity-schools. Still carrying on its work in the original schoolroom at
the time this picture appeared, in _Londina Illustrata_ in 1819.]
THE RELIGIOUS CHARITY-SCHOOL. Another thoroughly characteristic English
institution was the church charity-school. The first of these was founded
in Whitechapel, London, in 1680. In 1699, when the School of Saint Anne,
Soho (R. 237), was founded by "Five Earnest Laymen for the Poore Boys of
the Parish," it was the sixth of its kind in England. In 1699 the "Society
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge" (S.P.C.K.) was founded for the
purpose, among other things, of establishing catechetical schools for the
education of the children of the poor in the principles of the Established
Church (R. 238 b). In 1701 the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts" (S.P.G.) was also founded to extend the work of the
Anglican Church abroad, supply schoolmasters and ministers, and establish
schools, to train children to read, write, know and understand the
Catechism, and fit into the teachings and worship of the Church. To
develop piety and help the poor to lead industrious, upright, self-
respecting lives, "to make them loyal Church members, and to fit them for
work in that station of life in which it had pleased their Heavenly Father
to place them," were the principal objects of the Society.
All were taught reading, spelling, and the Catechism, and instruction in
writing and arithmetic might be added. The training might also be coupled
with that of the "schools of industry" (workhouse schools, as described by
Locke [R. 217]) to augment the economic efficiency of the boy. Girls seem
to have been provided for almost equally with boys, and, in addition to
being taught to read and spell, were taught "to knit their Stockings and
Gloves, to Mark, Sew, and make and mend their Cloathes." Both boys and
girls were usually provided with books and clothing, [17] a regular
uniform being worn by the boys and girls of each school.
[Illustration: FIG. 138. A CHARITY-SCHOOL GIRL IN UNIFORM
Saint Anne's, Soho, England]
The chief motive in the establishment of these schools, though, was to
decrease the "Prophaness and Debauchery ... owing to a gross Ignorance of
the Christian Religion" (R. 237) and to educate "Poor Children in the
Rules and Principles of the Christian Religion as professed and taught in
the Church of England." Writing, in 1742, Reverend Griffith Jones, an
organizer for the S.P.C.K. in Wales, said:
It is but a cheap education that we would desire for them [the poor],
only the moral and religious branches of it, which indeed is the most
necessary and indispensable part. The sole design of this charity is
to inculcate upon such ... as can be prevailed upon to learn, the
knowledge and practice, the principles and duties of the Christian
religion; and to make them good people, useful members of society,
faithful servants of God, and men and heirs of eternal life.
These schools multiplied rapidly and soon became regular institutions, as
the following table, showing the growth of the S.P.C.K. schools in London
alone, shows:
Year Schools Boys Girls Total
1699 0 0 0 0
1704 54 1386 745 2131
1709 88 2181 1221 3402
1714 117 3077 1741 4818
In England and Ireland combined the Society had, by 1714, a total of 1073
schools, with 19,453 pupils enrolled, and by 1729 the number had increased
to 1658, with approximately 34,000 pupils. From England the charity-school
idea was early carried to the Anglican Colonies in America and became a
fixed institution in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and
somewhat in the Colonies farther south. In the Pennsylvania constitution
of 1790 we find the following directions for the establishment of a state
charity-school system to supplement the parish schools of the churches:
Sec. I. The legislature shall, as soon as conveniently may be,
provide, by law, for the establishment of schools throughout the
State, in such manner that the poor may be taught _gratis_.
[Illustration: FIG. 130. A CHARITY-SCHOOL BOY IN UNIFORM
Saint Anne's, Soho, England]
The first Pennsylvania school law of 1802 carried this direction into
effect by providing for pauper schools in the counties, a condition that
was not done away with until 1834. In New Jersey the system lasted until
1838.
THE PRIVATE-ADVENTURE, OR "HEDGE," SCHOOL. This was a school analogous to
the Dame School, but was kept by a man instead of a woman, and usually at
his home or shop. Plate 15, showing a shoe cobbler teaching, represents
one type of such schools. The term "hedge schools" arose in Ireland, where
teaching was forbidden the Catholics, and secret schools arose in which
priests and others taught what was possible. Of these McCarthy writes:
[18]
On the highways and on the hillsides, in ditches and behind hedges, in
the precarious shelter of the ruined walls of some ancient abbey, or
under the roof of a peasant's cabin, the priests set up schools and
taught the children of their race.
The term soon came to be applied to any kind of a poor school, taught in
an irregular manner or place. Similar irregular schools, under equivalent
names, also were found in German lands, [19] the Netherlands, and in
France, while in the American Colonies "indentured white servants" were
frequently let out as schoolmasters. The following advertisement of a
teacher for sale is typical of private-adventure elementary school-keeping
during the colonial period.
[Illustration: FIG. 140. ADVERTISEMENT FOR A TEACHER TO LET
(From the _American Weekly Mercury_ of Philadephia, 1735)]
These schools were taught by itinerant school-keepers, artisans, and
tutors of the poorer type, but offered the beginnings of elementary
education to many a child who otherwise would never have been able to
learn to read. In the early eighteenth century these schools attained a
remarkable development in England.
A new influence of tremendous future importance--general reading--was now
coming in; the vernacular was fast supplanting Latin; newspapers were
being started; little books or pamphlets (tracts) containing general
information were being sold; books for children and beginners were being
written; the popular novel and story had appeared; [20] and all these
educative forces were creating a new and a somewhat general desire for a
knowledge of the art of reading. This in turn caused a new demand for
schools to teach the long-locked-up art, and this demand was capitalized
to the profit of many types of people.
THE APPRENTICING OF ORPHANS AND CHILDREN OF THE POOR. The compulsory
apprenticing of the children of the poor, as we have seen (p. 326), was an
old English institution, and workhouse training, or the so-called "schools
of industry" became, by the eighteenth century, a prominent feature of the
English care of the poor. These represented the only form of education
supported by taxation, and the only form of education to which Parliament
gave any attention during the whole of the eighteenth century. This type
of institution also was carried to the Anglican Colonies in America, as we
have seen in the documents for Virginia (R. 200 a), and became an
established institution in America as well.
The apprenticing of boys to a trade, a still older institution, was also
much used as a means for training youths for a life in the trades, not
only in England and the American Colonies, but throughout all European
lands as well. The conditions surrounding the apprenticing of a boy had by
the eighteenth century become quite fixed. The "Indenture of
Apprenticeship" was drawn up by a lawyer, and by it the master was
carefully bound to clothe and feed the boy, train him properly in his
trade, look after his morals, and start him in life at the end of his
apprenticeship. This is well shown in the many records which have been
preserved, both in England (R. 242) and the American Colonies (R. 201).
For many boys this type of education was the best possible at the time,
and worthily started the possessor in the work of his trade.
In the eighteenth century different English church parishes began to set
up workhouse schools of various types, and to maintain these out of parish
"rates." The one established in Bishopsgate Street, London, in 1701, is
typical. This cared for about 375 children and in it, by 1720, there had
been educated and placed forth 1420 children, and in addition 123 had
died. Of this school it is recorded that poor children
"being taken into the said Workhouse are there taught to Read and
Write, and kept to Work until they are qualified to be put out to be
Apprentices, and for the Sea Service, or otherwise disposed; ... The
Habit of the Children is all the same, being made of Russit Cloth, and
a round Badge worn upon their Breast, representing a poor Boy, and
a Sheep; the Motto: '_God's Providence is our Inheritance_.'" ...
In this workhouse children were "taught to spin Wool and Flax, to Sow
and Knit, to make their own Cloaths, Shoes, and Stockings, and the
like Employments; to inure them betimes to labour. They are also
taught to read, and such as are capable, to write and cast Accounts;
and also the Catechism, to ground them in Principles of Religion and
Honesty." [21]
The school established by Saint John's parish, Southwark, London, in 1735,
and designed to train and "put out" girls for domestic service (R. 241),
and which cared for, clothed, and trained forty girls, is also typical of
these parish schools "for the children of the industrious poor."
METHODS OF INSTRUCTION. Throughout the eighteenth century the method of
instruction commonly employed in the vernacular schools was what was known
as the individual method. This was wasteful of both time and effort, and
unpedagogical to a high degree (R. 244). Everywhere the teacher was
engaged chiefly in hearing recitations, testing memory, and keeping order.
The pupils came to the master's desk, one by one (see Figures 98, 99), and
recited what they had memorized. Aside from imposing discipline, teaching
was an easy task. The pupils learned the assigned lessons and recited what
they had learned. Such a thing as methodology--technique of instruction--
was unknown. The dominance of the religious motive, too, precluded any
liberal attitude in school instruction, the individual method was time-
consuming, school buildings often were lacking, and in general there was
an almost complete lack of any teaching equipment, books, or supplies.
Viewed from any modern standpoint the schools of the eighteenth century
attained to but a low degree of efficiency (R. 244). The school hours were
long, the schoolmaster's residence or place of work or business was
commonly used as a schoolroom, and such regular schoolrooms as did exist
were dirty and noisy and but poorly suited to school purposes. Schools
everywhere, too, were ungraded, the school of one teacher being like that
of any other teacher of that class.
So wasteful of time and effort was the individual method of instruction
that children might attend school for years and get only a mere start in
reading and writing. Paulsen, [22] writing of schools in German lands at
an even later date, says that even in the better type of vernacular
schools
many children never achieved anything beyond a little reading and
knowing a few things by heart.... The instruction in reading was never
anything else but a torture, protracted through years, from saying the
alphabet and formation of syllables to the deciphering of complete
words, without any real success in the end, while writing was nothing
but a wearisome tracing of the letters, the net result of all the toil
being the gabbling of the Catechism and a few Bible texts and hymns,
learned over and over again.
The imparting of information by the teacher to a class, or a class
discussion of a topic, were almost unknown. Hearing lessons, assigning new
tasks, setting copies, making quill pens, dictating sums, and imposing
order completely absorbed the time and the attention of the teacher.
SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. The discipline everywhere was severe. "A boy has a
back; when you hit it he understands," was a favorite pedagogical maxim of
the time. Whipping-posts were sometimes set up in the schoolroom, and
practically all pictures of the schoolmasters of the time show a bundle of
switches near at hand. Boys in the Latin grammar schools were flogged for
petty offenses (R. 245). The ability to impose order on a poorly taught
and, in consequence, an unruly school was always an important requisite of
the schoolmaster. A Swabian schoolmaster, Haeuberle by name, with
characteristic Teutonic attention to details, has left on record [23]
that, in the course of his fifty-one years and seven months as a teacher
he had, by a moderate computation, given 911,527 blows with a cane,
124,010 blows with a rod, 20,989 blows and raps with a ruler, 136,715
blows with the hand, 10,235 blows over the mouth, 7,905 boxes on the ear,
1,115,800 raps on the head, and 22,763 _notabenes_ with the Bible,
Catechism, singing book, and grammar. He had 777 times made boys kneel on
peas, 613 times on a triangular piece of wood, had made 3001 wear the
jackass, and 1707 hold the rod up, not to mention various more unusual
punishments he had contrived on the spur of the occasion. Of the blows
with the cane, 800,000 were for Latin words; of the rod 76,000 were for
texts from the Bible or verses from the singing book. He also had about
3000 expressions to scold with, two thirds of which were native to the
German tongue and the remainder his invention.
[Illustration: FIG. 141. A SCHOOL WHIPPING-POST
Drawn from a picture of a five-foot whipping-post which once stood in the
floor of a school-house at Sunderland, Massachusetts. Now in the Deerfield
Museum.]
[Illustration: FIG. 142. AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GERMAN SCHOOL
Reproduction of an engraving by J. Mettenleiter, now in the
Kupferstichkabinet, Munich, and printed in Joh. Ferd. Schlez's.
_Dorfschulen zu Langenhausen_. Nuremberg, 1795.]
Another illustration of German school discipline, of many that might be
cited, was the reform work of Johann Ernest Christian Haun, who was
appointed, in 1783, as inspector of schools in the once famous Gotha (p.
317). Due to warfare and neglect the schools there had fallen into
disrepute. Haun drove the incapable teachers from the work, and for a time
restored the schools to something of their earlier importance. Among other
reforms it is recorded that he forbade teachers to put irons around the
boys' necks, to cover them with mud, to make them kneel on peas, or to
brutally beat them. Diesterweg (R. 244) describes similar punishments as
characteristic of eighteenth-century German schools. The eighteenth-
century German schoolmaster shown in Fig. 142 was probably a good sample
of his class.
Pedagogical writers of the time uniformly complain of the severe
discipline of the schools, and the literature of the period abounds in
allusions to the prevailing harshness of the school discipline. A few
writers condemn, but most approve heartily of the use of the rod. "Spare
the rod and spoil the child" had for long been a well-grounded pedagogical
doctrine. Among many literary extracts that might be cited illustrating
this belief, the following poem by the English poet Crabbe (1754-1832) is
interesting. He puts the following words into the mouth of his early
schoolmaster:
Students like horses on the road,
Must be well lashed before they take the load;
They may be willing for a time to run,
But you must whip them ere the work be done;
To tell a boy, that if he will improve,
His friends will praise him, and his parents love,
Is doing nothing--he has not a doubt
But they will love him, nay, applaud without;
Let no fond sire a boy's ambition trust,
To make him study, let him learn he must.
CONDITIONS SURROUNDING CHILDHOOD. It is difficult for us of today to re-
create in imagination the pitiful life-conditions which surrounded
children a century and a half ago. Often the lot of the children of the
poor, who then constituted the great bulk of all children, was little less
than slavery. Wretchedly poor, dirty, unkempt, hard-worked, beaten about,
knowing strong drink early, illiterate, often vicious--their lot was a sad
one. For the children of the poor there were few, if any, educational
opportunities. Writing on the subject David Salmon says: [24]
The imagination of the twentieth century cannot fathom the poverty of
the eighteenth. The great development of mines and manufactures, which
has brought ease and independence within the reach of industrious
labour everywhere, had hardly begun; employment was so scarce and
intermittent, and wages were so low, that the working classes lived in
hovels, dressed in rags, and were familiar with the pangs of hunger;
while those who were forced to look to the rates for hovels, rags, and
food sufficient to maintain a miserable life numbered a sixth of the
whole population.
In the towns children were apprenticed out early in life, and for long
hours of daily labor. Child welfare was almost entirely neglected,
children were cuffed about and beaten at their work, juvenile delinquency
was a common condition, child mortality was heavy, and ignorance was the
rule. Schools generally were pay institutions or a charity, and not a
birthright, and usually existed only for the middle and lower-middle
classes in the population who were attendants at the churches and could
afford to pay a little for the schooling given. Reading and religion were
usually the only free subjects. Only in the New England Colonies, where
the beginnings of town and colony school systems were evident, and in a
few of the German States where state control was beginning to be
exercised, was a better condition to be found.
[Illustration: FIG. 143. CHILDREN AS MINIATURE ADULTS
Children leaving school, from an eighteenth-century drawing by Saint
Aubin.]
Among the middle and upper social classes, particularly on the continent
of Europe, a stiff artificiality everywhere prevailed. Children were
dressed and treated as miniature adults, the normal activities of
childhood were suppressed, and the natural interests and emotions of
children found little opportunity for expression. Wearing powdered and
braided hair, long gold-braided coats, embroidered waistcoats, cockaded
hats, and swords, boys were treated more as adults than as children.
Girls, too, with their long dresses, hoops, powdered hair, rouged faces,
and demure manner, were trained in a, for children, most unnatural manner.
[25]
The dancing master for their manners and graces, and the religious
instructor to develop in them the ability to read and to go through a
largely meaningless ceremonial, were the chief guides for the period of
their childhood.
SCHOOL SUPPORT. No uniform plan, in any country, had as yet been evolved
for even the meager support which the schools of the time received. The
Latin grammar schools were in nearly all cases supported by the income
from old "foundations" and from students' fees, with here and there some
state aid. The new elementary vernacular schools, though, had had assigned
to them few old foundations upon which to draw for maintenance, and in
consequence support for elementary schools had to be built up from new
sources, and this required time.
In England the Act of Conformity of 1662 (R. 166), it will be remembered
(p. 324), had laid a heavy hand on the schools by driving all Dissenters
from positions in them, and the Five Mile Act of 1665 had borne even more
severely on the teachers in the schools of the Dissenters. Fortunately for
elementary education in England, however, the English courts, in 1670, had
decided in a test case that the teacher in an elementary school could not
be deprived of his position by failure of the bishop to license him, if he
were a nominee of the founder or the lay patron of the school. The result
of this decision was that, between 1660 and 1730, 905 endowed elementary
schools were founded in England, and 72 others previously founded had
their endowments increased. The number continued to increase throughout
the eighteenth century, and by 1842 had reached a total of 2194. These new
foundations probably gave the best schooling of the time, and tended to
stir the Established Church to action. Accordingly we find that during the
eighteenth century the vestries of the different church parishes began the
creation of parish elementary schools for the children of the poor of the
parish, supporting a teacher for them out of the parish rates, and without
specific legal authorization to do so. These new parish schools also
contributed somewhat to the provision of elementary education, and mark
the beginning of the church "voluntary schools" which were such a
characteristic feature of nineteenth-century English education. We thus
have, in England, endowed elementary schools, parish schools, dame
schools, private-adventure schools of many types, and charity-schools, all
existing side by side, and drawing such support as they could from
endowment funds, parish rates, church tithes, subscriptions, and tuition
fees. The support of schools by subscription lists (R. 240) was a very
common proceeding. Education in England, more than in any other Protestant
land, early came to be regarded as a benevolence which the State was under
no obligation to support. Only workhouse schools were provided for by the
general taxation of all property.
In the Netherlands and in German lands church funds, town funds, and
tuition fees were the chief means of support, though here and there some
prince had provided for something approaching state support for the
schools of his little principality. Frederick the Great had ordered
schools established generally (1763) and had decreed the compulsory
attendance of children (R. 274), but he had depended largely on church
funds and tuition fees (sec 7) for maintenance, with a proviso that the
tuition of poor and orphaned children should be paid from "any funds of
the church or town, that the schoolmaster may get his income" (sec 8). In
Scotland the church parish school was the prevailing type. In France the
religious societies (p. 345) provided nearly all the elementary vernacular
religious education that was obtainable.
In the Dutch Provinces, in the New England Colonies, and in some of the
minor German States, we find the clearest examples of the beginnings of
state control and maintenance of elementary schools--something destined to
grow rapidly and in the nineteenth century take over the school from the
Church and maintain it as a function of the State. The Prussian kings
early made grants of land and money for endowment funds and support, and
state aid was ordered granted by Maria Theresa for Austria (R. 274 a), in
1774. In the New England Colonies the separation of the school from the
Church, and the beginnings of state support and control of education,
found perhaps their earliest and clearest exemplification. In the other
Colonies the lottery was much used (R. 246) to raise funds for schools,
while church tithes, subscription lists, and school societies after the
English pattern also helped in many places to start and support a school
or schools.
Only by some such means was it possible in the eighteenth century that the
children of the poor could ever enjoy any opportunities for education. The
parents of the poor children, themselves uneducated, could hardly be
expected to provide what they had never come to appreciate themselves. On
the other hand, few of the well-to-do classes felt under any obligation to
provide education for children not their own. There was as yet no
realization that the diffusion of education contributed to the welfare of
the State, or that the ignorance of the masses might be in any way a
public peril. This attitude is well shown for England by the fact that not
a single law relating to the education of the people, aside from workhouse
schools, was enacted by Parliament during the whole of the eighteenth
century. The same was true of France until the coming of the Revolution.
It is to a few of the German States and to the American Colonies that we
must turn for the beginnings of legislation directing school support. This
we shall describe more in detail in later chapters.
THE LATIN SECONDARY SCHOOL. The great progress made in education during
the eighteenth century, nevertheless, was in elementary education.
Concerning the secondary schools and the universities there is little to
add to what has previously been said. During this century the secondary
school, outside of German lands, remained largely stationary. Having
become formal and lifeless in its teaching (p. 283), and in England and
France crushed by religious-uniformity legislation, the Latin grammar
school of England and the surviving colleges in France practically ceased
to exert any influence on the national life. The Jesuit schools, which
once had afforded the best secondary education in Europe, had so declined
in usefulness everywhere that they were about to be driven from all lands.
The Act of Conformity of 1662 (R. 166) had dealt the grammar schools of
England a heavy blow, and the eighteenth century found them in a most
wretched condition, with few scholars, and their endowments shamefully
abused. The Law of 1662, says Montmorency, "involved such a peering into
the lives of schoolmasters, such a course of inquisitorial folly, that the
position became intolerable. Men would not become schoolmasters....
Education had no meaning when none but political and religious hypocrites
were allowed to teach.... National education was destroyed." and the
grammar schools of England were "practically withdrawn during more than
two centuries (1662-1870) from the national life." [26]
In German lands the old Latin schools continued largely unchanged until
near the middle of the eighteenth century, with Latin, taught as it had
been for a century or more, as the chief subject of study. Shortly after
the coming of Frederick the Great to the throne (1740) the Latin schools
of Prussia, and after them the Latin schools in other German States, were
reorganized and given a new life. The influence of Francke's school at
Halle (p. 418), and the new types of teaching developed there and by his
followers elsewhere, began to be felt. German, French, and mathematics
were given recognition, and some science work was here and there
introduced. Above all, though, Greek now attained to the place of first
importance in the reorganized Latin schools.
It was not until after 1740 that the German people awakened to the
possibility of an independent national life. Then, under the new impulse
toward nationality, French influence and manners were thrown off, German
literature attained its Golden Age, the _Ritterakademieen_ (p. 405) were
discarded, and a number of the German Principalities and States revised
their school regulations and erected, out of the old Latin schools, a
series of humanistic _gymnasia_ in which the study of Greek life and
culture occupied the foremost place. New methods in classical study were
thought out and applied, and a new pedagogical purpose--culture and
discipline--was given to the regenerated Latin schools. A new Renaissance,
in a way, took place in German lands, [27] and a knowledge of Greek was
proclaimed by German university and gymnasial teachers as indispensable to
a liberal education with an earnestness of conviction not exceeded by
Battista Guarino (p. 268) four centuries before. To know Greek and to have
some familiarity with Greek literature and history now came to be regarded
as necessary to the highest culture, [28] and a pedagogical theory for
such study was erected, based on the discipline of the mind, [29] which
dominated the German classical school throughout the entire nineteenth
century. It was in the eighteenth century also that the German States
began the development of the scientific secondary school (_Realschule_),
see p. 420, as described in a preceding chapter.
[Illustration: FIG. 144. A PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY
York Academy, York, Pennsylvania, founded by the Protestant Episcopal
Church, in 1787.]
RISE OF THE ACADEMY IN AMERICA. As we have seen (p. 361), the English
Latin grammar school was early (1635) carried to New England, and set up
there and elsewhere in the Colonies, but after the close of the
seventeenth century its continued maintenance was something of a struggle.
Particularly in the central and southern colonies, where commercial
demands early made themselves felt, the tendency was to teach more
practical subjects. This tendency led to the evolution, about the middle
of the eighteenth century, of the distinctively American Academy, with a
more practical curriculum, and by the close of the century it was rapidly
superseding the older Latin grammar school. Franklin's Academy at
Philadelphia, which began instruction in 1751, and which later evolved
into the University of Pennsylvania, was probably the first American
Academy. The first in Massachusetts was founded in 1761, and by 1800 there
were seventeen in Massachusetts alone. The great period of academy
development was the first half of the nineteenth century. The Phillips
Academy, at Andover, Massachusetts, founded in 1788, reveals clearly the
newer purpose of these American secondary schools. The foundation grant of
this school gives the purpose to be:
to lay the foundation of a public free school or ACADEMY for the
purposes of instructing Youth, not only in English and Latin Grammar,
Writing, Arithmetic, and those Sciences wherein they are commonly
taught; but more especially to learn them the GREAT END AND REAL
BUSINESS OF LIVING ... it is again declared that the _first_ and
_principle_ object of this Institution is the promotion of TRUE
PIETY and VIRTUE; the _second_, instruction in the English,
Latin, and Greek Languages, together with Writing, Arithmetic, Music,
and the Art of Speaking; the _third_, practical Geometry,
Logic, and Geography; and the _fourth_, such other liberal Arts
and Sciences or Languages, as opportunity and ability may hereafter
admit, and as the TRUSTEES shall direct.
Though still deeply religious, these new schools usually were free from
denominationalism. Though retaining the study of Latin, they made most of
new subjects of more practical value. A study of real things rather than
words about things, and a new emphasis on native English and on science
were prominent features of their work. They were also usually open to
girls, as well as boys,--an innovation in secondary education before
almost wholly unknown. Many were organized later for girls only. These
institutions were the precursors of the American public high school,
itself a type of the most democratic institution for secondary education
the world has ever known.
THE UNIVERSITIES. The condition of the universities by the middle of the
eighteenth century we traced in the preceding chapter. They had lost their
earlier importance as institutions of learning, but in a few places the
sciences were slowly gaining a foothold, and in German lands we noted the
appearance of the first two modern universities--institutions destined
deeply to influence subsequent university development, as we shall point
out in a later chapter.
END OF THE TRANSITION PERIOD. We have now reached, in our study of the
history of educational progress, the end of the transition period which
marked the change in thinking from mediaeval to modern attitudes. The
period was ushered in with the beginnings of the Revival of Learning in
Italy in the fourteenth century, and it may fittingly close about the
middle of the eighteenth.
We now stand on the threshold of a new era in world history. The same
questioning spirit that animated the scholars of the Revival of Learning,
now full-grown and become bold and self-confident, is about to be applied
to affairs of politics and government, and we are soon to see absolutism
and mediaeval attitudes in both Church and State questioned and
overthrown. New political theories are to be advanced, and the divine
right of the people is to be asserted and established in England, the
American Colonies, and in France, and ultimately, early in the twentieth
century, we are to witness the final overthrow of the divine-right-of-
kings idea and a world-wide sweep of the democratic spirit. A new human
and political theory as to education is to be evolved; the school is to be
taken over from the Church, vastly expanded in scope, and made a
constructive instrument of the State; and the wonderful nineteenth century
is to witness a degree of human, scientific, political, and educational
progress not seen before in all the days from the time of the Crusades to
the opening of the nineteenth century. It is to this wonderful new era in
world history that we now turn.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Contrast a religious elementary school, with the Catechism as its chief
textbook, with a modern public elementary school.
2. Contrast the elementary schools of Mulcaster and Comenius.
3. To what extent did the religious teachings of the time support Locke's
ideas as to the disciplinary conception of education?
4. Do we to-day place as much emphasis on habit formation as did Locke? On
character? On good breeding?
5. State some of the reasons for the noticeable weakening of the hold of
the old religious theory as to education, in Protestant lands, by the
middle of the eighteenth century.
6. How do you explain the slow evolution of the elementary teacher into a
position of some importance? Is the evolution still in process?
Illustrate.
7. What were the motives behind the organization of the religious charity-
schools?
8. Show how tax-supported workhouse schools represented, for England, the
first step in public-school maintenance.
9. Show that teaching under the individual method of instruction was
school keeping, rather than school teaching.
10. How do you explain the general prevalence of harsh discipline well
into the nineteenth century?
11. Did any other country have, in the eighteenth century, so mixed a type
of elementary education as did England? Why was it so badly mixed there?
12. Show how the English Act of Conformity, of 1662, stifled the English
Latin grammar schools.
13. What reasons were there for the development of the more practical
Academy in America, rather than in England?
14. Compare the American Academy with the German _Realschule_.
SELECTED READINGS
In the accompanying _Book of Readings_ the following selections,
illustrative of the contents of this chapter, are reproduced:
226. Mulcaster: Table of Contents of his _Positions_.
227. Locke: On the Teaching of Latin.
228. Locke: On the Bible as a Reading Book.
229. Coote-Dilworth: Two early "Spelling Books."
230. Webster: Description of Pre-Revolutionary Schools.
231. Raumer: Teachers in Gotha in 1741.
232. Raumer: An 18th Century Swedish People's School.
233. Raumer: Schools of Frankfurt-am-Main during the Eighteenth Century.
234. Kruesi: A Swiss Teacher's Examination in 1793.
235. Crabbe; White; Shenstone: The English Dame School described.
236. Newburgh: A Parochial-School Teacher's Agreement.
237. Saint Anne: Beginnings of an English Charity School.
238. Regulations: Charity-School Organization and Instruction.
(a) Qualifications for the Master.
(b) Purpose and Instruction.
239. Allen and McClure: Textbooks used in English Charity-Schools.
240. England: A Charity-School Subscription Form.
241. Southwark: The Charity-School of Saint John's Parish.
242. Gorsham: An Eighteenth-Century Indenture of Apprenticeship.
243. Indenture: Learning the Trade of a Schoolmaster.
244. Diesterweg: The Schools of Germany before Pestalozzi.
245. England: Free School Rules, 1734.
246. Murray: A New Jersey School Lottery.
QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS
1. State the main points in Mulcaster's scheme (226) for education.
2. Characterize Locke's criticism (227) on the teaching of Latin.
3. State Locke's ideas as to the use of the Bible (228).
4. Characterize the nature and contents of the so-called "Spellers" by
Coote and Dilworth (229).
5. Compare the Connecticut common school, as described by Webster (230),
with an English charity-school (238 b), or a Swedish popular school (232)
of the time.
6. Just what state of vernacular education in Teutonic lands is indicated
by the three selections (231, 232, 233)?
7. Compare the proprietary right of the teachers at Frankfort (233) with
the right of control claimed over song schools by the Precentor of a
mediaeval cathedral (83).
8. Do such conditions as Kruesi describes (234) exist anywhere to day?
9. Characterize the Dame School of England, as to instruction and control,
from the descriptions given in the selections (235) reproduced.
10. State the relationship of teacher and minister at Newburgh (236), and
indicate the nature and probable extent of his income.
11. State the purpose of the founders of Saint Anne of Soho (237), and
characterize the type of school they created.
12. What does the qualification for a charity-school teacher (238 a)
indicate as to the nature of the teacher's calling in such schools?
Outline the instruction (238 b) in such a school.
13. What instruction did the textbooks as printed (239) provide for?
14. Show the voluntary and benevolent character of the charity-school by
comparing the subscription form (240) with some voluntary subscription
form used to day.
15. How did the school in Saint John's parish (241) differ from
apprenticeship training?
16. What changes do you note between the mediaeval Indenture of
Apprenticeship (99) and the eighteenth-century English form (242)?
17. Compare Readings 201 and 242 on apprenticeship.
18. Compare conditions described in 244 with 231-233.
19. What do the Free School Rules of 1734 (245) indicate as to duties and
discipline?
20. What does the use of the lottery for school support (246) indicate as
to the conception and scope of education at the time?
SUPPLEMENTARY REFERENCES
Allen, W. O. B., and McClure, E. _Two Hundred Years; History of the
S.P.C.K., 1698-1808_.
Barnard, Henry. _English Pedagogy_, Part II, The Teacher in English
Literature.
* Birchenough, C. _History of Elementary Education in England and
Wales_.
Brown, E. E. _The Making of our Middle Schools_.
Cardwell, J. F. _The Story of a Charity School_.
Davidson, Thos. _Rousseau_.
* Earle, Alice M. _Child Life in Colonial Days_.
Field, Mrs. E. M. _The Child and his Book_.
Ford, Paul L. _The New England Primer_.
Godfrey, Elizabeth. _English Children in the Olden Time_.
* Johnson, Clifton. _Old Time Schools and School Books_.
* Kemp, W. W. _The Support of Schools in Colonial New York by the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts_.
Kilpatrick, Wm. H. _Dutch Schools of New Netherlands and Colonial New
York_.
Locke, John. _Some Thoughts Concerning Education_ (1693).
* Montmorency, J. E. G. de. _Progress of Education in England_.
Montmorency, J. E. G. de. _State Intervention in English
Education_.
Mulcaster, Richard. _Positions_. (London, 1581.)
* Paulsen, Friedrich. _German Education, Past and Present_.
* Salmon, David. "The Education of the Poor in the Eighteenth Century";
reprinted from the _Educational Record_. (London, 1908.)
* Scott, J. F. _Historic Essays on Apprenticeship and Vocational
Education_. (Ann Arbor, 1914.)
PART IV
MODERN TIMES
THE ABOLITION OF PRIVILEGE
THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY
A NEW THEORY FOR EDUCATION EVOLVED
THE STATE TAKES OVER THE SCHOOL
CHAPTER XIX
THE EIGHTEENTH A TRANSITION CENTURY
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A TURNING-POINT. The eighteenth century, in human
thinking and progress, marks for most western nations the end of
mediaevalism and the ushering-in of modern forms of intellectual liberty.
The indifference to the old religious problems, which was clearly manifest
in all countries at the beginning of the century, steadily grew and
culminated in a revolt against ecclesiastical control over human affairs.
This change in attitude toward the old problems permitted the rise of new
types of intellectual inquiry, a rapid development of scientific thinking
and discovery, the growth of a consciousness of national problems and
national welfare, and the bringing to the front of secular interests to a
degree practically unknown since the days of ancient Rome. In a sense the
general rise of these new interests in the eighteenth century was but a
culmination of a long series of movements looking toward greater
intellectual freedom and needed human progress which had been under way
since the days when _studia generalia_ and guilds first arose in western
Europe. The rise of the universities in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, the Revival of Learning in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, the Protestant Revolts in the sixteenth, the rise of modern
scientific inquiry in the sixteenth and seventeenth, and Puritanism in
England and Pietism in Germany in the seventeenth, had all been in the
nature of protests against the mediaeval tendency to confine and limit and
enslave the intellect. In the eighteenth century the culmination of this
rising tide of protest came in a general and determined revolt against
despotism in either Church or State, which, at the close of the century,
swept away ancient privileges, abuses, and barriers, and prepared the way
for the marked intellectual and human and political progress which
characterized the nineteenth century.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHANGE IN ATTITUDE. The new spirit and interests and
attitudes which came to characterize the eighteenth century in the more
progressive western nations meant the ultimate overthrow of the tyranny of
mediaeval supernatural theology, the evolution of a new theory as to moral
action which should be independent of theology, the freeing of the new
scientific spirit from the fetters of church control, the substituting of
new philosophical and scientific and economic interests for the old
theological problems which had for so long dominated human thinking, the
substitution of natural political organization for the older
ecclesiastical foundations of the State, the destruction of what remained
of the old feudal political system, the freeing of the serf and the
evolution of the citizen, and the rise of a modern society interested in
problems of national welfare--government in the interest of the governed,
commerce, industry, science, economics, education, and social welfare. The
evolution of such modern-type governments inevitably meant the creation of
entirely new demands for the education of the people and for far-reaching
political and social reforms.
This new eighteenth-century spirit, which so characterized the mid-
eighteenth century that it is often spoken of as the "Period of the
Enlightenment," [1] expressed itself in many new directions, a few of the
more important of which will be considered here as of fundamental concern
for the student of the history of educational progress. In a very real
sense the development of state educational systems, in both European and
American States, has been an outgrowth of the great liberalizing forces
which first made themselves felt in a really determined way during this
important transition century. In this chapter we shall consider briefly
five important phases of this new eighteenth-century liberalism, as
follows:
1. The work of the benevolent despots of continental Europe in trying
to shape their governments to harmonize them with the new spirit of
the century.
2. The unsatisfied demand for reform in France.
3. The rise of democratic government and liberalism in England.
4. The institution of constitutional government and religious freedom
in America.
5. The sweeping away of mediaeval abuses in the great Revolution in
France.
I. WORK OF THE BENEVOLENT DESPOTS OF CONTINENTAL EUROPE
THE NEW NATIONALISM LEADS TO INTERESTED GOVERNMENT. In England, as we
shall trace a little further on, a democratic form of government had for
long been developing, but this democratic life had made but little headway
on the continent of Europe. There, instead, the democratic tendencies
which showed some slight signs of development during the sixteenth century
had been stamped out in the period of warfare and the ensuing hatreds of
the seventeenth, and in the eighteenth century we find autocratic
government at its height. National governments to succeed the earlier
government of the Church had developed and grown strong, the kingly power
had everywhere been consolidated, Church and State were in close working
alliance, and the new spirit of nationality--in government, foreign
policy, languages, literature, and culture--was being energetically
developed by those responsible for the welfare of the States. Everywhere,
almost, on the continent of Europe, the theory of the divine right of
kings to rule and the divine duty of subjects to obey seemed to have
become fixed, and this theory of government the Church now most
assiduously supported. Unlike in England and the American Colonies, the
people of the larger countries of continental Europe had not as yet
advanced far enough in personal liberty or political thinking to make any
demand of consequence for the right to govern themselves. The new spirit
of nationality abroad in Europe, though, as well as the new humanitarian
ideas beginning to stir thinking men, alike tended to awaken a new
interest on the part of many rulers in the welfare of the people they
governed. In consequence, during the eighteenth century, we find a number
of nations in which the rulers, putting themselves in harmony with the new
spirit of the time, made earnest attempts to improve the condition of
their peoples as a means of advancing the national welfare. We shall here
mention the four nations in which the most conspicuous reform work was
attempted.
THE RULERS OF PRUSSIA. Three kings, to whom the nineteenth-century
greatness of Prussia was largely due, ruled the country during nearly the
whole of the eighteenth century. They were fully as despotic as the kings
of France, but, unlike the French kings, they were keenly alive to the
needs of the people, anxious to advance the welfare of the State, tolerant
in religion, and in sympathy with the new scientific studies. The first,
Frederick William I (1713-40), labored earnestly to develop the resources
of the country, trained a large army, ordered elementary education made
compulsory, and made the beginnings in the royal provinces of the
transformation of the schools from the control of the Church to the
control of the State. His son, known to history as Frederick the Great,
ruled from 1740 to 1786. During his long reign he labored continually to
curtail ancient privileges, abolish old abuses, and improve the condition
of his people. During the first week of his reign he abolished torture in
trials, made the administration of law more equitable, instituted a
limited freedom for the press, [2] and extended religious toleration. [3]
He also partially abolished serfdom on the royal domains, and tried to
uplift the peasantry and citizen classes, but in this he met with bitter
opposition from the nobles of his realm. He built roads, canals, and
bridges, encouraged skilled artisans to settle in his dominions, developed
agriculture and industry, encouraged scientific workers, extended an
asylum to thousands of Huguenots fleeing from religious persecution in
France, [4] and did more than any previous ruler to provide common schools
throughout his kingdom. By the general regulation of education in his
kingdom (chapter xxii) he laid the foundations upon which the nineteenth-
century Prussian school system was later built.
[Illustration: Fig 145 FREDERICK THE GREAT]
His rule, though, was thoroughly autocratic. "Every thing for the people,
but nothing by the people", was the keynote of his policies. He had no
confidence in the ability of the people to rule, and gave them no
opportunity to learn the art. He employed the strong army his father built
up to wage wars of conquest, seize territory that did not belong to him,
and in consequence made himself a great German hero. [5] He may be said to
have laid the foundations of modern militarized, socialized, obediently
educated, and subject Germany, and also to have begun the "grand-larceny"
and "scrap-of-paper" policy which has characterized Prussian international
relationships ever since. Frederick William II, who reigned from 1786 to
1797, continued in large measure the enlightened policies of his uncle,
reformed the tax system, lightened the burdens of his people, encouraged
trade, emphasized the German tongue, quickened the national spirit,
actively encouraged schools and universities, and began that
centralization of authority over the developing educational system which
resulted in the creation in Prussia of the first modern state school
system in Europe. The educational work of these three Prussian kings was
indeed important, and we shall study it more in detail in a later chapter
(Chapter XXII).
THE AUSTRIAN REFORMERS. Two notably benevolent rulers occupied the
Austrian throne for half a century, and did much to improve the condition
of the Austrian people. A very remarkable woman, Maria Theresa, came to
the throne in 1740, and was followed by her son, Joseph II, in 1780. He
ruled until 1790. To Maria Theresa the Austria of the nineteenth century
owed most of its development and power. She worked with seemingly tireless
energy for the advancement of the welfare of her subjects, and toward the
close of her reign laid, as we shall see in a later chapter, the
beginnings of Austrian school reform.
Joseph II carried still further his mother's benevolent work, and strove
to introduce "enlightenment and reason" into the administration of his
realm. A student of the writings of the eighteenth-century reform
philosophers, and deeply imbued with the reform spirit of his time, he
attempted to abolish ancient privileges, establish a uniform code of
justice, encourage education, free the serfs, abolish feudal tenure, grant
religious toleration, curb the power of the Pope and the Church, break the
power of the local Diets, centralize the State, and "introduce a uniform
level of democratic simplicity under his own absolute sway." He attempted
to alter the organization of the Church, abolished six hundred
monasteries, [6] and reduced the number of monastic persons in his
dominion from 63,000 to 27,000. Attempting too much, he brought down upon
his head the wrath of both priest and noble and died a disappointed man.
The abolition of feudal tenure and serfdom on the distinctively Austrian
lands, of all his attempted reforms, alone was permanent. His work stands
as an interesting commentary on the temporary character of the results
which follow attempts rapidly to improve the conditions surrounding the
lives of people, without at the same time educating the people to improve
themselves.
THE SPANISH REFORMERS. A very similar result attended the reform efforts
of a succession of benevolent rulers thrust upon Spain, during the
eighteenth century, by the complications of foreign politics. Over a
period of nearly ninety years, extending from the accession of Philip V
(1700) to the death of Charles III (1788), remarkable political progress
was imposed by a succession of able ministers and with the consent of the
kings. [7] The power of the Church, always the crying evil of Spain, was
restricted in many ways; the Inquisition was curbed; the Jesuits were
driven from the kingdom; the burning of heretics was stopped; prosecution
for heresy was reduced and discouraged; the monastic orders were taught to
fear the law and curb their passions; evils in public administration were
removed; national grievances were redressed; the civil service was
improved; science and literature were encouraged, in place of barren
theological speculations; and an earnest effort was made to regenerate the
national life and improve the lot of the common people.
All these reforms, though, were imposed from above, and no attempt was
made to introduce schools or to educate the people in the arts of self-
government. The result was that the reforms never went beneath the
surface, and the national life of the people remained largely untouched.
Within five years of the death of Charles III all had been lost. Under a
native Spanish king, thoroughly orthodox, devout, and lacking in any broad
national outlook, the Church easily restored itself to power, the priests
resumed their earlier importance, the nobles again began to exact their
full toll, free discussion was forbidden, scientific studies were
abandoned, the universities were ordered to discontinue the study of moral
philosophy, and the political and social reforms which had required three
generations to build up were lost in half a decade. Not meeting any well-
expressed need of the people, and with no schools provided to show to the
people the desirable nature of the reforms introduced, it was easy to
sweep them aside. In this relapse to mediaevalism, the chance for Spain--
a country rich in possibilities and natural resources--to evolve early
into a progressive modern nation was lost. So Spain has remained ever
since, and only in the last quarter of a century has reform from within
begun to be evident in this until recently priest-ridden and benighted
land.
THE INTELLIGENT DESPOTS OF RUSSIA. The greatest of these were Peter the
Great, who ruled from 1689 to 1725, and Catherine II, who ruled from 1762
to 1796. Catching something of the new eighteenth-century western spirit,
these rulers tried to introduce some western enlightenment into their as
yet almost barbarous land. Each tried earnestly to lift their people to a
higher level of living, and to start them on the road toward civilization
and learning. By a series of edicts, despotically enforced, Peter tried to
introduce the civilization of the western world into his country. He
brought in numbers of skilled artisans, doctors, merchants, teachers,
printers, and soldiers; introduced many western skills and trades; and
made the beginnings of western secondary education for the governing
classes by the establishment in the cities of a number of German-type
_gymnasia_. [8] Later Catherine II had the French philosopher Diderot (p.
482) draw up a plan for her for the organization of a state system of
higher schools, but the plan was never put into effect. The beginnings of
Russian higher civilization really date from this eighteenth-century work.
The power of the formidable Greek or Eastern Church remained, however,
untouched, and this continued, until after the Russian revolution of 1917,
as one of the most serious obstacles to Russian intellectual and
educational progress. The serfs, too, remained serfs--tied to the land,
ignorant, superstitious, and obedient.
By the close of the eighteenth century Russia, largely under Prussian
training, had become a very formidable military power, and by the close of
the nineteenth century was beginning to make some progress of importance
in the arts of peace. Just at present Russia is going through a stage of
national evolution quite comparable to that which took place in France a
century and a quarter ago, and the educational importance of this great
people, as we shall point out further on, lies in their future evolution
rather than in any contribution they have as yet made to western
development.
II. THE UNSATISFIED DEMAND FOR REFORM IN FRANCE
THE SETTING OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE. Eighteenth-century France, on
the contrary, developed no benevolent despot to mitigate abuses, reform
the laws, abolish privileges, temper the rule of the Church, [9] (R. 247),
curb the monastic orders, develop the natural resources, begin the
establishment of schools, and alleviate the hard lot of the serf and the
peasant. There, instead, absolute monarchy in Europe reached its most
complete triumph during the long reigns of Louis XIV (1643-1715) and Louis
XV (1715-74), and the splendor of the court life of France captivated all
Europe and served to hide the misery which made the splendor possible.
There the power of the nobles had been completely broken, and the power of
the parliaments completely destroyed. "I am the State," exclaimed Louis
XIV, and the almost unlimited despotism of the King and his ministers and
favorites fully supported the statement. Local liberties had been
suppressed, and the lot of the common people--ignorant, hard-working,
downtrodden, but intensely patriotic--was wretched in the extreme.
Approximately 140,000 nobles [10] and 130,000 monks, nuns, and clergy
owned two fifths of the landed property of France, and controlled the
destinies of a nation of approximately 25,000,000 people. Agriculture was
the great industry of the time, but this was so taxed by the agents of
King and Church that over one half of the net profits from farming were
taken for taxation.
CHURCH AND STATE WERE IN CLOSE WORKING ALLIANCE. The higher offices of the
Church were commonly held by appointed noblemen, who drew large incomes
[11] led worldly lives, and neglected their priestly functions much as the
Italian appointees in German lands had done before the Reformation.
Between the nobles and upper clergy on the one hand and the peasant-born
lower clergy and the masses of the people on the other a great gulf
existed. The real brains of France were to be found among a small
bourgeois class of bankers, merchants, shopkeepers, minor officials,
lawyers, and skilled artisans, who lived in the cities and who, ambitious
and discontented, did much to stimulate the increasing unrest and demand
for reform which in time pervaded the whole nation. A king, constantly in
need of increasing sums of money; an idle, selfish, corrupt, and
discredited nobility and upper clergy, incapable of aiding the king, many
of whom, too, had been influenced by the new philosophic and scientific
thinking and were willing to help destroy their own orders; an aggressive,
discontented, and patriotic bourgeoisie, full of new political and social
ideas, and patriotically anxious to reform France; and a vast unorganized
peasantry and city rabble, suffering much and resisting little, but
capable of a terrible fury and senseless destruction, once they were
aroused and their suppressed rage let loose;--these were the main elements
in the setting of eighteenth-century France.
THE FRENCH REFORM PHILOSOPHERS. During the middle decades of the
eighteenth century a small but very influential group of reform
philosophers in France attacked with their pens the ancient abuses in
Church and State, and did much to pave the way for genuine political and
religious reform. In a series of widely read articles and books,
characterized for the most part by clear reasoning and telling arguments,
these political philosophers attacked the power of the absolute monarchy
on the one hand, and the existing privileges of the nobles and clergy on
the other, as both unjust and inimical to the welfare of society (R. 248).
The leaders in the reform movement were Montesquieu (1689-1755), Turgot
(1727-81), Voltaire (1694-1778), Diderot (1713-84), and Rousseau (1712-
78).
[Illustration: FIG. 147. MONTESQUIEU(1689-1755)]
_Montesquieu_. In 1748 appeared Montesquieu's famous book, the _Spirit of
Laws_. In this he pointed out the many excellent features of the
constitutional government which the English had developed, and compared
English conditions with the many abuses to which the French people were
subject. He argued that laws should be expressive of the wishes and needs
of the people governed, and that the education of a people "ought to be
relative to the principles of good government." Montesquieu also stands,
with Turgot as the founder of the sciences of comparative politics [12]
and the philosophy of history--new studies which helped to shape the
political thinking of eighteenth-century France.
_Turgot_. Two years after the publication of Montesquieu's book, Turgot
delivered (1750) a series of lectures at the Sorbonne, in Paris, in which
he virtually created the science of history. Looking at human history
comprehensively, seeing clearly that there had been a hitherto
unrecognized regularity of march amid the confusion of the past, and that
it was possible to grasp the history of the progress of man as a whole, he
saw and stated the possibility of society to improve itself through
intelligent government, and the need for wise laws and general education
to enable it to do so. [13]
[Illustration: FIG. 148. TURGOT (1727-81)]
[Illustration: FIG. 149. VOLTAIRE (1694-1778)]
In 1774 Turgot was appointed Minister of Finance by the new King, Louis
XVI, and during the two years before he was removed from office he
attempted to carry out many needed political and social reforms. Duruy
[14] has summarized his suggested reforms as follows:
1. Gradual introduction of a complete system of local self-government.
2. Imposition of a land tax on nobility and clergy.
3. Suppression of the greater part of the monasteries.
4. Amelioration of the condition of the minor clergy.
5. Equalization of the burdens of taxation.
6. Liberty of conscience, and the recall of the Protestants to France.
7. A uniform system of weights and measures.
8. Freedom for commerce and industry.
9. A single and uniform code of laws.
10. A vast plan for the organization of a system of public instruction
throughout France.
This list is indicative of the reform philosophy in the light of which he
worked. Arousing the natural hostility of the nobility and higher clergy,
he was soon dismissed, and the reforms he had proposed were abandoned by
the King.
_Voltaire._ The keenest and most unsparing critic of the old order was
Voltaire. In clear and forceful French he exposed existing conditions in
society and government, and particularly the control of affairs exercised
by the most ancient and most powerful organization of his day--the Church.
For this he was execrated and hated by the clergy, and in return he made
it the chief task of his life to destroy the reign of the priest. Having
lived for a time in England, he appreciated the vast difference between
the English and French forms of government. With a keen and unsparing pen
he exposed the scholasticism, despotism, dogmatism, superstition,
hypocrisy, servility, and deep injustice of his age, and poured out the
vials of his scorn upon the grubbing pedantry of the Academicians who
doted upon the past because ignorant of the present. In particular he
stood for the abolition of that relic of feudalism--serfdom--which still
seriously oppressed the peasantry of France; for liberty in thought and
action for the individual; for curbing the powers and privileges of both
State and Church; for an equalization of the burdens of taxation between
the different classes in French society; and for the organization of a
system of public education throughout the nation. He died before the
outbreak of the Revolution he had done so much to bring about, but by the
time he died the "Ancient Regime" of privilege and corruption and
oppression was already tottering to its fall. His conception of the
relations that should exist between Church and State are well set forth in
a short article from his pen on the subject (R. 248) reprinted from the
_Encyclopaedia_ of Diderot.
[Illustration: FIG. 150. DIDEROT (1713-84)]
_Diderot._ Another able thinker and writer was Diderot. Besides other
works of importance, he gave twenty years of his life (1751-72) to the
editing (with D'Alembert) of an _Encyclopaedia_ of seventeen volumes of
text and eleven of plates. Many of the articles were written by himself,
and were expressive of his ideas as to reform. Many were frankly critical
of existing privileges, abuses, and pretensions. Many interpreted to the
French the science of Newton and the discoveries of the age, and awakened
a new interest in scientific study. Because of its reform ideas the
publication was suppressed, in 1759, after the publication of the seventh
volume, and had to be carried on surreptitiously thereafter. Viscount
Morley, writing recently on Diderot, summarizes the nature and influence
of the _Encyclopaedia_ in the following words:
The ecclesiastical party detested the _Encyclopaedia_, in which
they saw a rising stronghold for their philosophical enemies. To any
one who turns over the pages of these redoubtable volumes now, it
seems surprising that their doctrine should have stirred such
portentous alarm. There is no atheism, no overt attack on any of the
cardinal mysteries of the faith, no direct denunciation even of the
notorious abuses of the Church. Yet we feel that the atmosphere of the
book may well have been displeasing to authorities who had not yet
learnt to encounter the modern spirit on equal terms. The
_Encyclopaedia_ takes for granted the justice of religious
toleration and speculative freedom. It asserts in distinct tones the
democratic doctrine that it is the common people in a nation whose lot
ought to be the chief concern of the nation's government. From
beginning to end it is one unbroken process of exaltation of
scientific knowledge on the one hand, and pacific industry on the
other. All these things were odious to the old governing classes of
France. [15]
_Rousseau._ The fifth reform writer mentioned as exercising a large
influence was Rousseau. In 1749 the Academy at Dijon offered a prize for
the best essay on the subject: _Has the progress of the sciences and arts
contributed to corrupt or to purify morals?_ Rousseau took the negative
side and won the prize. His essay attracted widespread attention. In 1753
he competed for a second prize on _The Origin of Inequality among Men_, in
which he took the same negative attitude. In 1762 appeared both his
_Social Contract_ and _Emile_. In the former he contended that early men
had given to selected leaders the right to conduct their government for
them, and that these had in time become autocratic and had virtually
enslaved the people (R. 249 a). He held that men were not bound to submit
to government against their wills, and to remedy existing abuses he
advocated the overthrow of the usurping government and the establishment
of a republic, with universal suffrage based on "liberty, fraternity, and
equality." The ideal State lay in a society controlled by the people,
where artificiality and aristocracy and the tyranny of society over man
did not exist. Nor could Rousseau distinguish between political and
ecclesiastical tyranny, holding that the former inevitably followed from
the latter (R. 249 b).
Crude as were his theories, and impractical as were many of his ideas, to
an age tired of absurdities and pretensions and injustice, and suffering
deeply from the abuses of both Church and State, his attractively written
book seemed almost inspired. The _Social Contract_ virtually became the
Bible of the French Revolutionists. In the _Emile_, a book which will be
referred to more at length in chapter XXI, Rousseau held that we should
revert, in education, to a state of nature to secure the needed
educational reforms, and that education to prepare for life in the
existing society was both wrong and useless.
A REVOLUTION IN FRENCH THINKING. These five men--Montesquieu, Turgot,
Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau--and many other less influential
followers, portrayed the abuses of the time in Church and State and
pointed out the lines of political and ecclesiastical reform. Those who
read their writings understood better why the existing privileges of the
nobility and clergy were no longer right, and the need for reform in
matters of taxation and government. Their writings added to the spirit of
unrest of the century, and were deeply influential, not only in France,
but in the American Colonies as well. Though the attack was at first
against the evils in Church and State, the new critical philosophy soon
led to intellectual developments of importance in many other directions.
At the death of Louis XIV (1715) France was intellectually prostrate.
Great as was his long reign from the point of view of the splendor of his
court, and large as was the quantity of literature produced, his age was
nevertheless an age of misery, religious intolerance, political
oppression, and intellectual decline. It was a reign of centralized and
highly personal government. Men no longer dared to think for themselves,
or to discuss with any freedom questions either of politics or religion.
"There was no popular liberty; there were no great men; there was no
science; there was no literature; there were no arts. The largest
intellects lost their energy; the national spirit died away." Between the
death of Louis XIV and the outbreak of the French Revolution (1789) an
intellectual revolution took place in France, and for this revolution
English political progress and political and scientific thinking were
largely responsible.
GREAT ENGLISH INFLUENCE ON FRANCE. In 1715 the English language was almost
unspoken in France, English science and political progress were unknown
there, and the English were looked down upon and hated. Half a century
later English was spoken everywhere by the scholars of the time; the
English were looked upon as the political and scientific leaders of
Europe; and the scholars of France visited England to study English
political, economic, and scientific progress. Locke, an uncompromising
advocate of political and religious liberty; Hobbes, the speculative moral
philosopher; and the great scientist Newton were the teachers of Voltaire.
More than any other single man, Voltaire moulded and redirected
eighteenth-century thought in France. [16] Numerous French writers of
importance--Helvetius, Diderot, Morellet, Voltaire, Rousseau, to mention
but a few--drew their inspiration from English writers. In the eighteenth
century England became the school for political liberty for France. [17]
The effect of the work of Isaac Newton (p. 388), as popularized by the
writings of Voltaire, was revolutionary on a people who had been so
tyrannized over by the clergy as had the French during the reign of Louis
XIV. An interest in scientific studies before unknown in France now flamed
up, and a new generation of French scientists arose. Physics, chemistry,
zooelogy, and anatomy received a great new impetus, while botany, geology,
and mineralogy were raised to the rank of sciences. Popular scientific
lectures became very common. The classics were almost abandoned for the
new studies.
Economic questions now also began to be discussed, such as questions of
money, food, finance, and government expenditure. In 1776 the Englishman,
Adam Smith, laid the foundations of the new science of political economy
by the publication of his _Wealth of Nations_, and this was at once
translated into French and eagerly read. In 1781 a French banker by the
name of Necker published his _Compte Rendu_, a statistical report on the
finances of France. So feverishly eager were men to study problems of
government that six thousand copies were sold the day it was published,
and eighty thousand had to be printed before the demand for it was
satisfied. A half-century earlier it would have been read scarcely at all.
In the meantime taxes piled up, reforms were refused, the power and
arrogance of the clergy and nobility showed no signs of diminution, the
nation was burdened with debt, commerce and agriculture declined, the lot
of the common people became ever more hard to bear, and the masses grew
increasingly resentful and rebellious. As national affairs continued to
drift from bad to worse in France, a series of important happenings on the
American continent helped to bring matters more rapidly to a crisis.
Before describing these events, however, we wish to sketch briefly the
rise of government by the people and the extension of liberalism in
England--the first great democratic nation of the western world.
III. ENGLAND THE FIRST DEMOCRATIC NATION
EARLY BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LIBERTY. The first western nation created from
the wreck of the Roman Empire to achieve a measurement of self-government
was England. Better civilized than most of the other wandering tribes, at
the time of their coming to English shores, the invading Angles, Saxons,
and Jutes early accepted Christianity (p. 120) and settled down to an
agricultural life. On English shores they soon built up a for-the-time
substantial civilization. This was later largely destroyed by the
pillaging Danes, but with characteristic energy the English set to work to
assimilate the newcomers and build up civilization anew. The work of
Alfred (p. 146) in reestablishing law and order, at a time when law and
order scarcely existed anywhere in western Europe, will long remain
famous. Later on, and at a time when German and Hun and Slav had only
recently accepted Christianity in name and had begun to settle down into
rude tribal governments, and when the Prussians in their original home
along the eastern Baltic were still offering human sacrifices to their
heathen gods (p. 120), the English barons were extorting _Magna Charta_
from King John and laying the firm foundations of English constitutional
liberty. In the meadow at Runnymede, on that justly celebrated June day,
in 1215, government under law and based on the consent of the governed
began to shape itself once more in the western world. Of the sixty-three
articles of this Charter of Liberties, three possess imperishable value.
These provided:
1. That no free man shall be imprisoned or proceeded against except
by his peers, or the law of the land, which secured trial by jury.
2. That justice should neither be sold, denied, nor delayed.
3. That dues from the people to the king could be imposed only with
the consent of the National Council (after 1246 known as
Parliament).
So important was this charter to such a liberty-loving people as the
English have always been, and so bitterly did kings resent its hampering
provisions, that within the next two centuries kings had been forced to
confirm it no less than thirty-seven times.
By 1295 the first complete Parliament, representative of the three orders
of society--Lords, Clergy, and Commons--assembled, and in 1333 the Commons
gained the right to sit by itself. From that time to the present the
Commons, representing the people, has gradually broadened its powers,
working, as Tennyson has said, [18] "from precedent to precedent," until
to-day it rules the English nation. In 1376 the Commons gained the right
to impeach the King's ministers, and in 1407 the exclusive right to make
grants of money for any governmental purpose. Centuries ahead of other
nations, this insured an almost continual meeting of the national assembly
and a close scrutiny of the acts of both kings and ministers.
In 1604 King James I, imitating continental European precedents,
proclaimed his theory as to the "divine right of kings" to rule, [19] and
a struggle at once set in which carried the English into Civil War (1642-
49); led to the beheading of Charles I (1649); the overthrow and
banishment of James II (1688); and the ultimate firm establishment,
instead, of the "divine right of the common people." [20] In an age when
the autocratic power and the divine right of kings to rule was almost
unquestioned elsewhere in Europe, the English people compelled their king
to recognize that he could rule over them only when he ruled in their
interests and as they wished him to do. Though there was a period of
struggle later on with the German Georges (I, II, and III), and especially
with the honest but stupid George III, England has, since 1688, been a
government of and by the people. [21] France did not rid itself of the
"divine-right" conception until the French Revolution (1789), and Germany,
Austria, and Russia not until 1918.
GROWTH OF TOLERANCE AMONG THE ENGLISH. The results of the long struggle of
the English for liberty under law showed itself in many ways in the growth
of tolerance among the people of the English nation. At a time when other
nations were bound down in blind obedience to king and priest, and when
dissenting minorities were driven from the land, the English people had
become accustomed to the idea of individual liberty, regulated by law, and
to the toleration of opinions with which they did not agree. These
characteristically English conceptions of liberty under law and of the
toleration of minorities have found expression in many important ways in
the life and government of the people (R. 250), and have been elements of
great strength in England's colonial policy. One of the important ways in
which this growth of tolerance among the English showed itself was in the
extension of a larger freedom to those unable to subscribe to the state
religion.
Though the Reformation movement had stirred up bitter hatreds in England,
as on the Continent, the English were among the first of European peoples
to show tolerance of opposition in religious matters. The high English
State Church, which had succeeded the Roman, had made but small appeal to
many Englishmen. The Puritans had early struggled to secure a
simplification of the church service and the introduction of more
preaching (p. 359), and in the seventeenth century the organization of
three additional dissenting sects, which became known as Unitarians,
Baptists, and Quakers, took place. These sects divided off rather quietly,
and their separation resulted only in the enactment of new laws regarding
conformity, prayers, and teaching.
During the latter half of the seventeenth century, after the execution of
Charles I (1649), the Puritans had temporarily risen to power, and during
their control of affairs had imposed their strict Calvinistic standards as
to Sabbath observance and piety on the nation. This was very distasteful
to many, and from such strict observances the people in time rebelled. The
standards of the English in personal morality, temperance, amusements, and
manners at the beginning of the eighteenth century were not especially
high, and in the reaction from Puritan control and strict religious
observances the great mass of the people degenerated into positive
irreligion and gross immorality. Drunkenness, rowdyism, robbery,
blasphemy, brutality, lewdness, and prostitution became very common. This
moral decline of the people the Church of England seemed powerless to
arrest.
[Illustration: FIG. 151. JOHN WESLEY (1707-82)
Founder of Methodism.]
About 1730 a reform movement was begun under the able leadership of a
young Oxford student by the name of John Wesley, ably seconded by George
Whitefield (1714-70), with a view to reaching the classes so completely
untouched by the high State Church. By traveling over the country and
preaching a gospel of repentance, personal faith, and better living, these
two young men made a deep emotional appeal, and soon gained a strong hold
on the poorer and more ignorant classes of the people. Forbidden to preach
in Anglican churches, and at times threatened with personal violence,
these two men were in time forced into open rebellion against the
Established Church. Finally they founded a new Church, which became known
as the Methodist. [22] This new organization bore the same relation to the
Church of England that the Anglican Church two hundred years before had
borne to the Church of Rome. Thus was accomplished a second spiritual
reformation in England, and one destined in time to spread to the colonies
and deeply affect the lives of a large portion of the English people. [23]
That such a well-organized sect could arise, such a moral reformation be
preached, and the power of the Established Church be challenged so openly
and without serious persecution, speaks much for the growth of religious
tolerance among the English people since the days of the great Elizabeth.
In 1778 the Roman Catholic Relief Act was adopted, and in 1779 dissenting
ministers and schoolmasters were relieved from the disabilities under
which they had so long remained. These acts indicate a further marked
growth in religious tolerance on the part of the English nation. [24]
NEW EMANCIPATING AND EDUCATIVE INFLUENCES. In 1662 the first regular
newspaper outside of Italy was established in England, and in 1702 the
first daily paper. Small in size, printed on but one side of the sheet,
and dealing wholly with local matters, these nevertheless marked the
beginnings of that daily expression of popular opinion with which we are
now so familiar. [25] After about 1705 the cheap political pamphlet made
its appearance, and after 1710, instead of merely communicating news, the
papers began the discussion of political questions.
By 1735 a revolution had been effected in England, and papers and presses
began to be established in the chief cities and towns outside of London;
the freedom of the press was in a large way completed, and newspapers, for
the first time in the history of the world, were made the exponents of
public opinion. The press in England in consequence became an educative
force of great intellectual and political importance, and did much to
compensate for the lack of a general system of schools for the people. In
1772 the right to publish the debates in Parliament was finally won, over
the strenuous objections [26] of George III. In 1780 the first Sunday
newspaper appeared, "on the only day the lower orders had time to read a
paper at all," and, despite the efforts of religious bodies to suppress
it, the Sunday paper has continued to the present and has contributed its
quota to the education and enlightenment of mankind. In 1785 the famous
London _Times_ began to appear. In the middle of the eighteenth century
debating societies for the consideration of public questions arose, and in
1769 "the first public meeting ever assembled in England, in which it was
attempted to enlighten Englishmen respecting their political rights" was
held, and such meetings soon became of almost daily occurrence. All these
influences stimulated political thinking to a high degree, and contributed
not only to a desire for still larger political freedom but for the more
general diffusion of the ability to read as well (R. 250).
Still other important new influences arose during the early part of the
eighteenth century, each of which tended to awaken new desires for schools
and learning. In 1678 the first modern printed story to appeal to the
masses, Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, appeared from the press. Written,
as it had been, by a man of the people, its simple narrative form, its
passionate religious feeling, its picture of the journey of a pilgrim
through a world of sin and temptation and trial, and its Biblical language
with which the common people had now become familiar--all these elements
combined to make it a book that appealed strongly to all who read or heard
it read, and stimulated among the masses a desire to read comparable to
that awakened by the chaining of the English Bible in the churches a
century before (R. 170). In 1719 the first great English novel, Defoe's
_Robinson Crusoe_, and in 1726 _Gulliver's Travels_, added new stimulus to
the desires awakened by Bunyan's book. All three were books of the common
people, whereas the dramas, plays, essays, and scholarly works previously
produced had appealed only to a small educated class. In 1751 what was
probably the first circulating library of modern times was opened at
Birmingham, and soon thereafter similar institutions were established in
other English cities.
SCIENCE AND MANUFACTURING; THE NEW ERA. England, too, from the first,
showed an interest in and a tolerance toward the new scientific thinking
scarcely found in any other land. This in itself is indicative of the
great intellectual progress which the English people had by this time
made. [27] At a time when Galileo, in Italy, was fighting, almost alone,
for the right to think along the lines of the new scientific method and
being imprisoned for his pains, Englishmen were reading with deep interest
the epoch-making scientific writings of Lord Francis Bacon, Earlier than
in other lands, too, the Newtonian philosophy found a place in the
instruction of the national universities, and English scholars began to
employ the new scientific method in their search for new truths. The
British Royal (Scientific) Society [28] had begun to meet as early as
1645, and ever since has published in its proceedings the best of English
scientific thinking. By the reign of George I (1714-27) scientific work
began to be popularized, and the first little booklets on scientific
subjects began to appear. These popular presentations of what had been
worked out were sold at the book stalls and by peddlers and were eagerly
read; by the beginning of the reign of George III (1760) they had become
very common. In 1704-10 the first "Dictionary of Arts and Sciences" was
printed, and in 1768-71 the first edition (three volumes) of the now
famous _Encyclopedia Britannica_ appeared. In 1755 the famous British
Museum was founded.
As early as 1698 a rude form of steam engine had been patented in England,
and by 1712 this had been perfected sufficiently to be used in pumping
water from the coal mines. In 1765 James Watt made the real beginning of
the application of steam to industry by patenting his steam engine; in
1760 Wedgwood established the pottery industry in England; in 1767
Hargreaves devised the spinning-jenny, which banished the spindle and
distaff and the old spinning-wheel; in 1769 Arkwright evolved his
spinning-frame; and in 1785 Cartwright completed the process by inventing
the power loom for weaving. In 1784 a great improvement in the smelting of
iron ores (puddling) was worked out. These inventions, all English, were
revolutionary in their effect on manufacturing. They meant the
displacement of hand power by machine labor, the breakdown of home
industry through the concentration of labor in factories, the rise of
great manufacturing cities, [29] and the ultimate collapse of the age-old
apprenticeship system of training, where the master workman with a few
apprentices in his shop prepared goods for sale. They also meant the
ultimate transformation of England from an agricultural into a great
manufacturing and exporting nation, whose manufactured products would be
sold in every corner of the globe.
By 1750 a change in attitude toward all the old intellectual problems had
become marked in England, and by 1775 attention before unknown was being
given there to social, political, economic, and educational questions.
Religious intolerance was dying out, the harsh laws of earlier days had
begun to be modified, new social and political interests [30] were
everywhere attracting attention, and the great commercial expansion of
England was rapidly taking shape. With England and France leading in the
new scientific studies; England in the van in the development of
manufacturing and the French to the fore in social influences and polite
literature; England and the new American Colonies setting new standards in
government by the people; the French theorists and economists giving the
world new ideas as to the function of the State; enlightened despots on
the thrones of Prussia, Austria, Spain, and Russia; and the hatreds of the
hundred years of religious warfare dying out; the world seemed to many,
about 1775, as on the verge of some great and far-reaching change in
methods of living and in government, and about ready to enter a new era
and make rapid advances in nearly all lines of human activity. The change
came, but not in quite the manner expected.
IV. INSTITUTION OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN
AMERICA
[Illustration: FIG. 152. NATIONALITY OF THE WHITE POPULATION, AS SHOWN BY
THE FAMILY NAMES IN THE CENSUS OF 1790.]
ENGLISHMEN IN AMERICA ESTABLISH A REPUBLIC. Though the early settlement of
America, as was pointed out in chapter xv, was made from among those
people and from those lands which had embraced some form of the Protestant
faith, and represented a number of nationalities and several religious
sects, the thirteen colonies, nevertheless, were essentially English in
origin, speech, habits, observances, and political and religious
conceptions. This is well shown for the white population by the results of
the first Federal census, taken in 1790, as given in the adjoining figure.
This shows that of all the people in the thirteen original States, 83.5
per cent possessed names indicating pure English origin, and that 91.8 per
cent had names which pointed to their having come from the British Isles.
The largest non-British name nationality was the German, with 5.6 per cent
of the whole, and these were found chiefly in Pennsylvania where they
constituted 26.1 per cent of the State's population. Next were those
having Dutch names, who constituted but 2 per cent of the total
population, and but 16.1 per cent of the population of New York. No other
name-nationality constituted over one half of one per cent of the total.
The New England States were almost as English as England itself, 93 to 96
per cent of the names being pure English, and 98.5 to 99.8 per cent being
from the British Isles.
We thus see that it was from England, the nation which had done most in
the development of individual and religious liberty, that the great bulk
of the early settlers of America came, and in the New World the English
traditions as to constitutional government and liberty under law were
early and firmly established. The centuries of struggle for representative
government in England at once bore fruit here. Colony charters, charters
of rights and liberties, public discussion, legislative assemblies, and
liberty under law were from the first made the foundation stones upon
which self-government in America was built up.
From an early date the American Colonies showed an independence to which
even Englishmen were scarcely accustomed, and when the home government
attempted to make the colonists pay some of the expenses of the Seven
Years' War, and a larger share of the expenses of colonial administration,
there was determined opposition. Having no representation in Parliament
and no voice in levying the tax, the colonists declared that taxation
without representation was tyranny, and refused to pay the taxes assessed.
Standing squarely on their rights as Englishmen, the colonists were
gradually forced into open rebellion. In 1765, and again in 1774,
Declarations of Rights were drawn up and adopted by representatives from
the Colonies, and were forwarded to the King. In 1774 the first
Continental Congress met and formed a union of the Colonies; in 1776 the
Colonies declared their independence. This was confirmed, in 1783, by the
Treaty of Paris; in 1787, the Constitution of the United States was
drafted; and in 1789, the American government began. In the preamble to
the twenty-seven charges of tyranny and oppression made against the King
in the Declaration of Independence, we find a statement of political
philosophy [31] which is a combination of the results of the long English
struggle for liberty and the French eighteenth-century reform philosophy
and revolutionary demands. [32] This preamble declared:
We hold these truths to be self-evident--that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
AMERICAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO WORLD HISTORY. The American Revolution and its
results were fraught with great importance for the future political and
educational progress of mankind. Before the close of the eighteenth
century the new American government had made at least four important
contributions to world liberty and progress which were certain to be of
large political and educational value for the future.
In the first place, the people of the Colonies had erected independent
governments and had shown the possibility of the self-government of
peoples on a large scale, and not merely in little city-states or
communities, as had previously been the case where self-government had
been tried. Democratic government was here worked out and applied to large
areas, and to peoples of diverse nationalities and embracing different
religious faiths. The possibility of States selecting their rulers and
successfully governing themselves was demonstrated.
In the second place, the new American government which was formed did
something new in world history when it united thirteen independent and
autonomous States into a single federated Nation, and without destroying
the independence of the States. What was formed was not a league, or
confederacy, as had existed at different times among differing groups of
the Greek City-States, and from time to time in the case of later Swiss
and temporary European national groupings, but the union into a
substantial and permanent Federal State of a number of separate States
which still retained their independence, and with provision for the
expansion of this national Union by the addition of new States. This
federal principle in government is probably the greatest political
contribution of the American Union to world development. In the twentieth-
century conception of a League of Nations it has borne still further
fruit.
In the third place, the different American States changed their old
Colonial Charters into definite written Constitutions, each of which
contained a Preamble or Bill of Rights which affirmed the fundamental
principles of democratic liberty (R. 251). These now became the
fundamental law for each of the separate States, and the same idea was
later worked out in the Constitution of the United States. These were the
first written constitutions of history, and have since served as a type
for the creation of constitutional government throughout the world. In
such documents to-day free peoples everywhere define the rights and duties
and obligations which they regard as necessary to their safety and
happiness and welfare.
Finally, the Federal Constitution provided for the inestimable boon of
religious liberty, and in a way that was both revolutionary and wholesome.
At the beginning of the War for Independence the Anglican (Episcopal)
faith had been declared "the established religion" in seven of the
Colonies, and the Congregational was the established religion in three of
the New England Colonies, while but three Colonies had declared for
religious freedom and refused to give a preference to any special creed.
This religious problem had to be met by the Constitutional Convention, and
this body handled it in the only way it could have been intelligently
handled in a nation composed of so many different religious sects as was
ours. It simply incorporated into the Federal Constitution provisions
which guaranteed the free exercise of their religious faith to all, and
forbade the establishment by Congress of any state religion, or the
requirement of any religious test as a prerequisite to holding any office
under the control of the Federal Government. The American people thus took
a stand for religious liberty at a time when the hatreds of the
Reformation still burned fiercely, and when tolerance in religious matters
was as yet but little known.
IMPORTANCE OF THE RELIGIOUS-LIBERTY CONTRIBUTION. The solution of the
religious question arrived at was only second in importance for us to the
establishment of the Federal Union, and the far-reaching significance to
our future national life of the sane and for-the-time extraordinary
provisions incorporated into our National Constitution can hardly be
overestimated. This action led to the early abandonment of state
religions, religious tests, and public taxation for religion in the old
States, and to the prohibition of these in the new. The importance of this
solution of the religious question for the future of popular education in
the United States was great, for it laid the foundations upon which our
systems of free, common, public, tax-supported, non-sectarian schools have
since been built up. How we could have erected a common public-school
system on a religious basis, with the many religious sects among us, it is
impossible to conceive. Instead, we should have had a series of feeble,
jealous, antagonistic, and utterly inefficient church-school systems,
chiefly confined to elementary education, and each largely intent on
teaching its peculiar church doctrines and struggling for an increasing
share of public funds.
How much the American people owe to the Fathers of the Republic for this
most enlightened and intelligent provision, few who have not thought
carefully on the matter can appreciate. To it we must trace not only the
great blessing of religious liberty, which we have so long enjoyed, but
also the final establishment of our common, free, public-school systems.
The beginning of the new state motive for education, which was soon to
supersede the religious motive, dates from the establishment with us of
republican governments; and the beginning of the emancipation of education
from church domination goes back to this wise provision inserted in our
National Constitution.
This national attitude was later copied in the state constitutions, and as
a preamble to practically all we find a Bill of Rights, which in almost
every case included a provision for freedom of religious worship (Rs. 251,
260). After the middle of the nineteenth century a further provision
prohibiting sectarian teaching or state aid to sectarian schools was
everywhere added.
V. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION SWEEPS AWAY ANCIENT ABUSES
NEW DEMANDS FOR REFORM THAT COULD NOT BE RESISTED. More than in any other
continental European country France had, by 1783, become a united nation,
conscious of a modern national feeling. Yet in France mediaeval abuses in
both State and Church had survived, as we have seen, to as great an extent
almost as in any European nation. So determined were the clergy and
nobility to retain their old powers, not only in France but throughout the
continent of Europe as well, that progressive reform seemed well-nigh
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