678
EDUCATION
[UNITED STATES.
of these Acts of 1642 and 1647 is that they foreshadow ment. Early in the 19th century there arose a wellthe whole American system of education, including ele- defined demand for public secondary schools—high schools, mentary schools, secondary schools, and colleges, and that as they are popularly known. They were the direct outthey indicate the principles upon which that system rests. growth of the elementary school system. Boston, PhilaThese principles as summarized by George H. Martin in delphia, Baltimore, and New York were the first of the his Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School System large cities to establish schools of this type, and they are the following :—(1) The universal education of youth is spread rapidly. These public secondary schools met with essential to the well-being of the State. (2) The obligation opposition, however, springing partly from the friends of to furnish this education rests primarily upon the parent. the academies, and partly from those who held that govern(3) The State has a right to enforce this obligation. (4) The mental agency should be restricted to the field of elementary State may fix a standard which shall determine the kind education. The legal questions raised were settled by a of education and the minimum amount. (5) Public money decision of the Supreme Court of Michigan, which contained raised by general tax may be used to provide such educa- these words: “Neither in our State policy, in our constitution as the State requires. The tax may be general, though tion, nor in our laws do we find the primary school the school attendance is not. (6) Education higher than districts restricted in the branches of knowledge which the rudiments may be supplied by the State. Opportunity their officers may cause to be taught, or the grade of must be provided at the public expense for youths who instruction that may be given, if their voters consent, wish to be fitted for college. These principles have now in regular form, to bear the expense and raise the taxes found expression in the public Acts of every State, and for the purpose.” This decision gave marked impetus to the development of public secondary, or high schools, and upon them education in the United States is founded. Despite the praiseworthy attempts made in New York, they have increased rapidly in number. The academies New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to develop schools and have relatively declined, and in the Western States are school systems, very little was accomplished in almost unknown. Develop- those colonies which was permanent. The sentiMeanwhile the elementary school system had grown meat ' ment in the more southern colonies was, as a rapidly. The school district, the smallest civil division, rule, unfriendly to free schools, and nothing of import- was created in Connecticut in 1701, in Rhode Island about ance was attempted in that section of the country until 1750, and in Massachusetts in 1789. From the point of the time of Thomas Jefferson. Through religious zeal or view of efficient, well-supported schools, it has been felt philanthropy colleges were founded as far south as Virginia, since the time of Horace Mann that the substitution of the and no fewer than ten of these institutions were in opera- small school district for the town as the unit oi school tion in 1776. Their present names and the dates of their administration was a mistake. Yet the school district has foundation are : Harvard University, Massachusetts (1636) ; exercised a profound influence for good upon the American College of William and Mary, Virginia (1693); Yale people. In New York State, for example, there were in University, Connecticut (1701); Princeton University, New 1900 over eleven thousand school districts, and in Illinois Jersey (1746); Washington and Lee University, Virginia over twelve thousand. The districts are small in extent (1749); University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania (1751); and often sparsely settled. Their government is as demoColumbia University, New York (1754) ; Brown University, cratic as possible. The resident legal voters, often including Rhode Island (1764); Rutgers College, New Jersey (1766); women, hold a meeting at least once a year. They elect and Dartmouth College, New Hampshire (1770). Li the trustees to represent them in the employment of the teacher colleges the ecclesiastical spirit was at first almost uniformly and the management of the school. They determine dominant. The greater number of their students were whether a new schoolhouse shall be built, whether repairs preparing for the ministry in some one of the branches of shall be made, and what sum of money shall be raised for the Protestant Church. These facts caused the grammar school purposes. In the rural districts this system has schools to take on more and more the character of college- often been itself a school in patriotism and in the conduct preparatory schools; and when this was brought about of public affairs. Recently the tendency is to merge the they supplied the educational needs of but one portion of school districts into the township, in order that larger and the community. As time passed, the interdependence of better schools may be maintained, and that educational governmental and ecclesiastical interests began to weaken advantages may be distributed more evenly among the in the colonies, and there arose among those who represented people. Most of the Southern states have the county the new secularizing tendency a distrust of the colleges and system of school administration. This is because, the their influence. This gave rise to a new and influential county, rather than the township, has been, the political type of school, the academy, which took its name from the unit in the South from the beginning. Special laws have secondary schools established in England by the dissenting been made for the school system in cities, and the. form of religious bodies during the latter part of the seventeenth these laws differs very much. In nearly every city there century at the suggestion of Milton. These academies were is a separate board of education, sometimes chosen by the intended to give an education which was thought to be voters, sometimes appointed by the mayor or other official, more practical than that offered by the colleges, and they which board has full control of the schools. The city board drew their students from the so-called middle classes of of education has as its executive officer a superintendent society. The older academies were usually endowed insti- of schools, who has become a most important factor in tutions, organized under the control of religious organiza- American educational administration. He exerts , great tions or of self-perpetuating boards of trustees. Their influence in the selection of teachers, in the choice. of programme of studies was less restricted than that of the text-books, in the arrangement of the programme of studies, grammar schools, and they gave new emphasis to the study and in‘the determination of questions of policy. Someof the English language and its literature, of mathematics times he is charged by law with the initiative in. some or and of the new sciences of nature. For two generations all of these matters. He is usually a trained administrator the academies were a most beneficent factor in American as well as an experienced teacher. The first superintenden education, and they supplied a large number of the better- was appointed in 1837 at Buffalo. Providence folio we m prepared teachers for work in other schools. These schools 1839, New Orleans in 1841, Cleveland in 1844, Baltimore were in a sense public in that they were chartered, but in 1849, Cincinnati in 1850, Boston in 1851, New Yor , they were not directly under public control in their manage- San Francisco, and Jersey City in 1852, Newark anc
