Rise in Education in America

When Christopher Columbus discovered America, a rush of people fled there to seek a better life. The Europeans wanted to travel to the New World for three reasons, religiously, for fame, and to be economically better. People wanted to spread Christianity to the Native Americans where missionaries would sail to the New World to convert the Native Americans to Christianity. Some went to the New World in search of new lands to conquer to be glorified back when they go to Europe.

While some went to the New World to look for a way to strike rich there. That caused the colonizations of the thirteen colonies where they started to expand and grow. Education of the people who came? Education was always a necessity where people started to take education into account.

1600-1699

The Boston Latin School was established in 1635, which is the oldest school in America. Reverend John Cotton wanted to create a school that was inspired by the Free Grammar school of Boston in England.

Thus, the Boston Latin School was created in Boston as something that was modeled after the Boston Grammar School that was made in England. There, the Boston Latin School taught the students Latin, Greek, and elementary subjects. When the school started out, the town had supported the school through funds. The Boston Latin School served as the first oldest public school to be made and running in America. That meant that children were able to get their education for free in the North. Although, the South had large plantations so it would be hard for people to set up schools there.

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Instead, they had tutors come to their houses and educate the children in the South. In 1638, the second oldest school opened up in Hartford Connecticut. The Hartford Public High School is the second oldest secondary school in the United States. It was also included in the Hartford Public Schools district.

Massachusetts had passed the Massachusetts Bay School Law in 1642. It wanted the children to “read the english tongue, and knowledge of the Capital Lawes,” (Massachusetts). If the children were not educated to read or know the laws, they were punished where they were to pay twenty shillings for each thing they didn’t want to learn. Families had to also teach their children the basis of their Religion. They taught their kids at least once a week where they would learn a short basis of their religion. The reasoning behind this would let the children of the next generation be educated enough to get better jobs in society. If the children do not abide by the law that was passed and they would be taken away where masters would strictly look after them until they decide to go by the law.

Massachusetts also passed a law in 1647 known as the Old Deluder Satan Act. They passed this act to keep away Satan. It was thought that Satan didn’t want the colonists to read the bible, so he kept it in a different language. The colonists then decided that it was necessary for people to be educated to be able to keep away Satan and be closer to God. The law caused schools in every town varying by how many families in each town. For example, if towns have fifty families living there, they would have elementary schools there. If they had more than a hundred, they were able to have secondary or Latin grammar schools. Before the Old Deluder Satan Act, education didn’t really have a foundation as their curriculum. With the law, it gave more of a definite theory of education where it was much better than the ones before.

John Locke had believed in “that the human mind is a tabula rasa, or blank slate, at birth and knowledge is derived through experience,” (American). This new way of thinking where you can shape how the child is educated since it is a blank slate. He explains this in his work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, his idea people having a blank slate or tabula rasa when they are born. With their blank slate, people are able to educate themselves and learn from their experiences. Locke also was a founder of empiricism. Empiricism is the view where everything started from experience and applied experiences for their reasoning. The book also attacked the idea of nativism, the idea of certain skills or traits were already there at birth. Locke’s ideas contradicted how people usually thought about the mind during that time.

In 1698, there was the first publicly supported library in Charles Town, South Carolina. The library was founded by Thomas Bray, an Episcopal clergyman who was an Episcopal clergyman during this time. Jonathan Amory was ordered to purchase more books for the library that they did not have. They were trying to stock up on books for the library so it would be beneficial for their town to use. People were able to read a wide variety of books since the library was spending money to buy more books they didn’t have. The General Assembly had passed a law to confirm that the library is officially established two years later. This is because books were sent to Carolina to be put in the library, so the law was passed to establish that the library is now public and open to people.

1700-1799

Christopher Dock, a Mennonite who taught in Skippack, Pennsylvania where he opened up a school there. Dock’s technique in teaching was to build character for the students and started up the controversy of physical punishment for education. He used positive peer pressure to help encourage his students to work to the best of their abilities. Dock advocated for gentleness in teaching where he encouraged teachers to not harsh but rather to be direct and understanding. Later on, he wrote and published a book on teaching called the Schul-Ordnung. It was first book about teaching that was printed there in America. He put all of his techniques and what he did in that book that he wrote.

The Ursuline Academy was established in 1727 in New Orleans. It is the oldest, school for girls that is still functioning to this day and also the oldest Catholic school in the United States. The academy believed that women needed to educate women to help further the develop a better society. They influenced culture and learning to provide education as much as possible for women there. The Academy included the first retreat center and the first free school for women and also had offered classes for African American slaves and Native Americans.

In 1734, Christian Wolff had thought that the human mind was something that was with powers or faculties. He called this belief Faculty Psychology. It was widely accepted concept of learning during the 1800s. He thought that Faculty Psychology, “holds that the mind can best be developed through ‘mental discipline’ or tedious drill and repetition of basic skills and the eventual study of abstract subjects such as classical, literature, and languages,” (American). His ideas had influenced American Educations all the way through the 19th century.

Benjamin Franklin help establish the American Philosophical Society where it helped bring ideas that the Enlightenment had. People were elected for their accomplishments in five criterias. Benjamin Franklin also formed a group of people called the Junto where they published a proposal in 1783 called, A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge Among the British Plantations in America. It caused the American Philosophical Society to be formed with both Thomas Hopkinson as the president and Benjamin Franklin was the secretary. Benjamin Franklin also helped establish the “first ‘english academy’ in Philadelphia with a curriculum that is both classical and modern” (American). They also learned other things like history or geography as well there. Later on, that academy had become the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1762, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had written and published a book about his views on education, Emile. Through his book, he explained his viewpoint on philosophy and practice of education. Emile was the most “significant book on education after Plato’s Republic and his other work had a profound impact on political theory and practice, romanticism and the development of the novel.” (Smith). Jean-Jacques Rousseau wants to emphasize the need for public education in his book Emile. It was able to spread and attract many people as a wide audience. He wanted to describe a system of education that stresses a concern and harmony for the learner.

Thomas Jefferson had presented, Bill 79 “A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge” in 1779. James Madison later also tried presenting it other times as well but it was not passed until 1796. The bill’s purpose was to provide a “comprehensive plan for public education at the primary and secondary levels,” (Levy). Jefferson’s plan was to create districts in a certain distance where each one would teach math, reading, and writing. Parents had to pay for the education for their children. There, the children would spend their time learning where every year, someone would elect the most intelligent boy in each district, that parent’s could not supply the income to keep learning, to be sent to one of the grammar schools to further his learning. That meant that people were able to pick out the smartest people that wasn’t financially stable to actually learn and become geniuses.

Through 1783 to 1785, Noah Webster was not content with the textbooks that was already published and used. He decided to write A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, that consisted of three main volumes, a spelling, grammar, and a reading book. It was a good method of education where it was both easy and concise to learn from. Many English schools started using this in America from the effectiveness of the books. Later on, the spelling book was then named The American Spelling Book in 1783 where it was very popular textbook to use with the children. The book taught people how to both spell and read but also included lessons inside them for example the principles of American government.

Georgia was able to become the first state to charter a state supported university. The University of Georgia was added into by the General Assembly in 1785. It meant that it was the first place that used the had a higher public education. States would also create their own state chartered universities and follow Georgia’s footsteps. People then would have more of a variety to pursue and achieve a higher education. Later on when the Bill of rights is passed, education isn’t mentioned in it, causing the state to control education rather than the government to control education.

The Northwest Ordinance had opened up westward expansion to states of Ohio or Indiana, causing many settlers to want to expand towards there. Even though they opened up the west, the Northwest Ordinance had put emphasis on education. It had stated “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged,” (America). They wanted a source of education there for the new states that were created. The reasoning behind this is because they thought that education would help better themselves a country.

1800-1899

Before the 1800s, schools would use individual slates made of wood that was coated with paint and grit where it was very inefficient to use. It was hard for teachers to do a problem in school since the teacher had to physically go to each student and write down that problem for them. James Pillians had developed a solution to make things much more efficient. He invented the first modern blackboard which was a large slate on the classroom’s wall. After this was known, people would then start to take Pillians’s invention and use it for themselves. The invention of the blackboard had spread throughout America through the use of trains and railroads, causing many schools to have a blackboard to use.

In Boston, the education there was just scattered grammar schools throughout the town except for the Boston Latin School that was founded back then. Later on, the Boston English High School was founded when the Boston School Committee had passed a resolution that let people build the public secondary school. Some people wanted to have more of a education to the English language. Later on, the Boston English High School had moved towards the Boston Latin School where they were both on the same street. The Boston English High School was one of the first public schools to open in America.

Catharine Beecher had founded a private school for only girls in Hartford, Connecticut called the Hartford Female Seminary. She was an advocate of equal rights in education for women. She wanted females to become teachers to help educate the children better than men. She also had written many books for example The Duty of American Women to Their Country, where she explained that a woman’s role was to help raise the next generation of people as both a mother and an educator. She also created the Woman’s Education Association, where she wanted teachers to move westward to build more schools to develop education further in the West. Elizabeth Blackwell also played a role in women’s education. She was the first woman to graduate from Geneva Medical College. She also helped pave the way for women’s education in medicine. There are also colleges tailored to women. For example, Matthew Vassar had founded Vassar College that was tailored to women. Women were able to get higher education but the college had become open for both genders later on. Vassar College is the first elite female colleges in America and is also one of the historic Seven Sisters.

Horace Mann, secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, thought that schools should be free. He had reformed the education system where schools were created just to train teachers. Horace Mann wanted to help and reform how the education system is then. Massachusetts also passed a law that forced towns that had 500 or more families had to have a public high school for them. Education is veering towards having free education rather than having education being paid by all grades. Massachusetts passed the compulsory attendance act of 1852, where it was trying to get children to go to school as a mandatory thing. It had mandatory attendance for eight to fourteen year old children to go to school at least three months a year. People were fined and were also prosecuted by the city if they did not decide to abide by the law. Local schools weren’t allowed to enforce those laws and the law didn’t really do anything, it still showed how people advocated on education.

The First Morrill Act, or the Land Grant College Act, was influential in trying to better the education system in America. The act let the government provide lands to the states so they would setup colleges to educate people in professions that people would do during that time. The act would help make education better in America. It had helped many people since there would be more schools in America for people to pursue a higher education. There was also a shift in what people were learning through this act. People now would learn about their profession or what they wanted to do. It would help the students become better well off when they finish their studies.

The Land Grant had also got the government involved in pushing education. Later on, the Second Morrill Act was enacted. The act wanted to give some of the lands and fund the colleges to better agriculture and mechanics portion of the curriculum. The government was the one who gave the states the land to use to build the schools for people. America created the Department of Education in 1867 to discover better teaching skills that could help the States create a better school system and collected information about those schools too. The Department of Education is still used to this day and provides the same purpose of gathering information about schools.

Also, the African Institute, also known as the Institute for Colored Youth, was the first institution that let African Americans have a higher education. It was established in 1837 and is now called the Cheyney University. Education is slowly widening and becoming equal for different races while also different genders. There was also Howard University which was in Washington D.C. to get African American people into professions like medicine or dentistry. They wanted to get rid of racial inequalities so it had become a “Black University” (Howard). It had given the prominent racism at that time and gave equality where African Americans would be the same as Whites. Later on, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1875 causing segregation to be banned anywhere in public. People wouldn’t be oppressed anymore by their color and could learn just like the others can.

There are also Supreme Court cases regarding education. For example, the Brown vs the Board of Education was because African Americans students weren’t allowed to be educated and was segregated by their race. It was taken to the Supreme Court because they thought it had violated the Fourteenth Amendment (Equal Protection Clause). The Equal Protection Clause was idea where the government couldn’t deny people the same protection of the same laws. The court ruled it as unconstitutional because separating the races but having the same facilities wasn’t actually equal so it was unconstitutional. It showed the how education of the different races would actually be different but having the same facilities would define the races had equal education or facilities.

The second woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Jane Addams had worked together with Ellen Gates Starr to create the Hull House. Their intent was to help the immigrants out in their areas. At first, it was a kindergarten but then had created a nursery and care center there. Later on, they were able to provide education of both secondary and college level classes. They even had classes on civic duties and civil rights. As the Hull House was gaining attraction, many people started to donate to them. That in return caused the Hull House to expand and become better in quality with clubs, a gym, housing, and even playgrounds for children.

1900-1999

In 1900, the Association of American Universities included many institutions which wanted use learning, new discoveries, and researching new things to help advance society. They helped shape the policy to have a higher education and push for better teaching practices for their educations. They wanted American universities to come to work together and promoted higher standards to do so. There was also the first community college in the U.S. called the Joliet Junior College in 1901. Barely anyone went to the college where they first started, the enrollment was only six students. Now there are more students who enroll there. Also, the Smith-Lever Act helped the rural areas an accessibility.