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Colonel Parker's Quest for “A School in Which All Good Things Come Together”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Robert E. Tostberg
Robert E. Tostberg*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

If ever there was an opportunity, in the history of American education, to create “a school in which all good things come together,” it seemed to exist in Chicago in 1898. At least it seemed so to Colonel Francis W. Parker who, in that year, described his hopes for just such a school. Colonel Parker had, during the preceding twenty years, earned national recognition for his reforms in elementary education and teacher training in the Quincy, Massachusetts, public schools and the Cook County and Chicago normal schools. Sympathetic professional colleagues applauded his pedagogical innovations and looked to him for continued leadership in the “new education” movement. Others, however, judged his revolutionary ideas quite differently. Certain influential Chicago laymen, advocates of “economy and efficiency” in the public schools, regularly denounced both Parker and his practices and sought repeatedly for his dismissal. His national reputation, it appeared, was more secure than the future of “the work,” as he called it, to which he had dedicated himself. It was this mixture of commendation and condemnation, the chronic threat to his work coupled with his near-religious commitment to carry it forward, that prompted him to write of his hopes and fears to Mrs. Emmons Blaine.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Summer 1966 , pp. 22 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © 1966 History of Education Quarterly 

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References

Notes

1. There are numerous accounts of Parker's ideas and reform activities. Cassa Heffron, Ida, Francis Wayland Parker: An Interpretive Biography (Los Angeles: Ivan Deach, Jr., 1934), represents the several brief, eulogistic biographies. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., The New Departure in the Common Schools of Quincy (Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1879), provides a record of his successes at Quincy, Massachusetts. Parker's Talks on Pedagogics (New York: E. L. Kellogg and Company, 1894) and Course of Study of the Cook County Normal School (Chicago: J. M. W. Jones Stationery and Printing Company, 1895), give, respectively, a statement of his educational theories and a description and evaluation of his work at the Normal School. Cremin, Lawrence A., The Transformation of the School (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1961), places Parker in the general context of progressive education. Tostberg, Robert E., “Educational Ferment in Chicago, 1883–1904” (Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1960), discusses the careers of Parker, John Dewey, and Ella Flagg Young as leaders of educational reform during their concurrent years in Chicago.Google Scholar

2. Reports of complaints against Parker, accompanied by editorial comments, are to be found in the leading Chicago newspapers of the period. His personal views are revealed in his many letters contained in the papers of Mrs. Anita McCormick Blaine, part of the McCormick Collection, at the Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin. These papers will hereinafter be cited as “Blaine MSS.”Google Scholar

3. See Bruce White, William, “The Philanthropies of Anita McCormick Blaine” (Unpublished , University of Wisconsin, 1959), for a discussion of Mrs. Blaine's charitable activities, including some attention to her relationship with Colonel Parker.Google Scholar

4. Chicago Examiner, May 5, 1903; also Parker to Mrs. Blaine, 1894 [internal evidence suggests 1896 or later], in Parker, F. W., 1890–1899 folder, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

5. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, June 12, 1896, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

6. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, June 22, 1897, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

7. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, May 6, 1898; Mrs. Blaine to Parker, June 6, 1898, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

8. “If that work at the Normal School is crushed out the city will suffer,” she wrote to Trude. Mrs. Blaine to Trude, n.d. [probably June 6, 1898], Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

9. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, June 29, 1898, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

10. Butler to Parker, November 28, 1898, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

11. Hall to Mrs. Blaine, April 13, 1899, Blaine MSS. Perhaps even more important than these optimistic forecasts from his fellow reformers was the encouragement to go ahead with this plan given Parker by his wife. See Mrs. Blaine to Miss [Martha] Fleming, October 23, 1903, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

12. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 30, 1899. Most of Parker's original faculty resigned at the same time in order to go with him.Google Scholar

13. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, May 29, 1899, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

14. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 28, 1899; Chicago Times-Herald, May 29, 1899; The New York Times, June 20, 1899. It should be pointed out, in light of the newspapers’ earlier criticisms of Parker, that most of the laudatory comments in the press were centered on Mrs. Blaine's generosity and civic-mindedness in financing such an undertaking.Google Scholar

15. Mrs. Blaine to Mr. [O. F.] Aldis, September 5, 1899, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

16. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, June 29, 1898. Italics added. See also Parker, “General Purpose and Plan,” in Parker, F. W., January-May 1899 folder, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

17. Ibid. Google Scholar

18. Gamble Rogers, James, “The Mrs. Emmons Blaine Training School for Teachers,” in 1899–1901 folder, Blaine MSS. The subsequent discussion of the building is based on this document.Google Scholar

19. Parker's proposal for a junior college at this date may seem a “first,” since the date usually assigned the first junior college, in Joliet, Illinois, is 1902. Parker probably got the idea from President Harper at the University of Chicago, where the term had been used to designate the first two years’ study.Google Scholar

20. For the benefit of those students who would go on to college, the Institute included Greek and Latin in its secondary school curriculum. However, the way in which Parker suggested they be taught must have given the beleaguered classicists of the period small satisfaction. An unusual study that Parker wanted to offer to young ladies who did not intend to become teachers was a “Woman's Class” that would afford “preparation for motherhood.”Google Scholar

21. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, June 29, 1898, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

22. Ibid. Google Scholar

23. During the early discussions by the trustees, Jane Addams, of Hull House, and Graham Taylor, of Chicago Commons, were asked to give their views on the proposed slum school. Both applauded the idea, but there was no agreement reached as to the best location for such a school. See Minutes of Meetings of Chicago Institute Board of Trustees, July 23, 1899, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

24. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, June 29, 1898, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

25. Myers, George W., teacher of mathematics at the Chicago Institute, later reported that “the relation of his faculty to Colonel Parker was almost that of children to a parent.” See “Statement Made by Dr. George W. Myers,” January 18, 1927, in “Presidents’ Papers,” University of Chicago Archives. Hereinafter this collection will be cited as “University of Chicago MSS.”Google Scholar

26. Parker to Chicago Institute Board of Trustees, July 12, 1899, Blaine MSS. At the very time Parker was asking for raises for his faculty, the Chicago Board of Education was reducing the salaries of public school teachers.Google Scholar

27. Letters from Jackman, Rice, Baber, Payne, and others in Parker, F. W., January-May 1899 folder, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

28. Wist, Benjamin, “One Hundred Years of Public Education in Hawaii” (Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1937), pp. 336–37.Google Scholar

29. Parker, F. W., January-May 1899 folder, and Jackman to Parker, February 18, 1900, Blaine MSS. Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, who had recently resigned her position as Assistant Superintendent of public instruction, was suggested as a valuable addition to the Institute's staff. She had, however, already accepted an appointment in the Department of Pedagogy at the University of Chicago. See Lucy L. Flower to Mrs. Blaine, n.d. [about August 15, 1899], Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

30. Lane to Mrs. Blaine, March 15, 1900, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

31. Aldis to Mrs. Blaine, November 9, 1899, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

32. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, August 5, 1901, Blaine MSS. It is possible that Parker's closer attention to communicating with the trustees might have helped them to understand. Aldis and Bentley were continually displeased at his neglect and apparent unconcern with written reports on his plans and his activities; see Aldis to Parker, n.d. [about September 7], 1899, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

33. Ibid.; Aldis to Mrs. Blaine, September 7, 1899, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

34. Aldis to Mrs. Blaine, September 7, 1899, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

35. White, op. cit. Google Scholar

36. As the trustees’ concern over finances deepened, Cyrus Bentley argued that, “For a work which is supposed to be chiefly intellectual and moral, a comparatively modest building seems to me more appropriate.” Bentley, “Reasons for Voting for a Complete Change of Plans,” n.d. [1900], Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

37. Chicago American, October 1, 1900.Google Scholar

38. This recurrent theme is expressed in Minutes of Meetings of Chicago Institute Board of Trustees, Blaine MSS., passim. Google Scholar

39. Minutes of Meetings of Chicago Institute Board of Trustees, especially February 1, 1901, and February 15, 1901, Blaine MSS; also Board of Trustees, “The Union of Chicago Institute and the University of Chicago,” February 6, 1901, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

40. The University of Chicago's concern with these matters was represented by the work of its Department of Pedagogy and its Laboratory School, both headed by John Dewey. See Dewey's The School and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1899) and The Child and the Curriculum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1902); also Camp Mayhew, Katherine and Camp Edwards, Anna, The Dewey School (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1936), for firsthand accounts.Google Scholar

41. Bentley, , “Reasons for Voting for a Complete Change of Plan,” n.d. [1900], Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

42. Minutes of Meetings of Chicago Institute Board of Trustees, February 15, 1901, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

43. Ibid. It is not clear whether Bentley was more concerned with protecting Parker from the University or, in light of his earlier doubts about some of the Colonel's theories, protecting secondary education from Parker.Google Scholar

44. Ibid. Google Scholar

45. Parker to John Dewey, February 9, 1901, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

46. The theory of “Concentration” was central to Parker's pedagogy. This idea is discussed in his Talks on Pedagogics. Google Scholar

47. See Parker's earlier expression of dislike for departmentalization, in Course of Study, p. 35; also, “Statement Made by Dr. George W. Myers,” January 18, 1927, University of Chicago MSS, in which Myers points out that Parker confided to his faculty that “he could see only departmentalized routine in Dewey's plans.”Google Scholar

48. Parker to Dewey, February 9, 1901, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

49. Minutes of Meetings of Chicago Institute Board of Trustees, January 25, 1901, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

50. Ibid. Google Scholar

51. Ibid. Google Scholar

52. Ibid., February 1, 1901, and February 8, 1901.Google Scholar

53. Upon hearing Dewey present “My Pedagogic Creed,” in 1897, Parker is reported to have exclaimed, “This educational theory I have never been able to state satisfactorily. This is what I have been struggling all my life to put into action.” Quoted in Heffron, op. cit., p. 36.Google Scholar

54. The evidence available regarding these negotiations fails to show Dewey being greatly enthusiastic about the prospect of a union with the Chicago Institute. This raises the question of the personal relationship between Parker and Dewey, which has most often been described as close friendship. (See Merle Curti, The Social Ideas of American Educators (Patterson, N. J.: Littlefield, Adams and Company, 1959), p. 379; Charles H. Judd, “Francis Wayland Parker,” in Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934), XIV, 221.) There can be no doubt that Parker had immense respect for Dewey, and Dewey, at appropriate times, acknowledged Parker's contributions. Signs of close rapport, however, are conspicuous by their absence. It would seem unwarranted to explain the merging of their institutions primarily on the basis of their personal affinity.Google Scholar

55. Minutes of Meetings of Chicago Institute Board of Trustees, especially February 15, 1901, Blaine MSS. The entire negotiations for joining the Institute and the University point up the controlling position of financial considerations in educational reform undertakings, even in one based on such high-minded ideals and so unconcerned with material aims as Parker's. It would appear that the attractiveness of the merger, as seen by the trustees, increased in direct proportion to the economic difficulties of the Institute. The final decision, left to President Harper and the University of Chicago Trustees, hinged on the University's ability to raise $750,000 in order to match the resources brought to them by the Institute. (See White, op. cit., p. 45.)Google Scholar

56. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, February 15, 1901, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

57. Among those who wrote to Parker were Thomas C. Chamberlin, head of the Geology Department; Rollin D. Salisbury, professor in the same department; and Albion W. Small, professor of sociology. See Harper to Mr. [Frank F.] Abbott, February 14, 1901, and “Statement Made by Miss Zonia Baber,” January 18, 1927, University of Chicago MSS. Mrs. Blaine reported the incident to a friend in this manner: “[When] the University sent a delegation of letters and a professor to tell Colonel Parker how very much they wanted and needed him and his school and its help, we could hardly doubt the sincerity of such representation and hardly turn our backs on it on the ground of unsympathetic atmosphere—which had been our doubt. It was then Colonel Parker cast his word for going.” Mrs. Blaine to Hattie Hammond, March 3, 1901, Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

58. Parker to Mrs. Blaine, n.d. [probably February 18, 1901], Blaine MSS.Google Scholar

59. Goodspeed, Thomas W., A History of the University of Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1916), pp. 325–26.Google Scholar

60. President Harper was most eager to have this complete system come into being within his university. Like other leaders in higher education at this time, he was concerned over the problem of articulating the studies of the various levels of education. Bringing together these several schools offered the opportunity to work on this problem firsthand, and to provide a model for exhibiting significant results.Google Scholar

61. [Merger Agreement], April 15/16, 1901, Blaine MSS. This unwieldy arrangement, intended to placate everyone, probably satisfied no one. It was, at least partly, the root of administrative difficulties soon to erupt.Google Scholar

62. The most authentic continuation of the Parker “spirit” was probably in the Francis W. Parker School. This school was founded on Chicago's north side, at the time of the Chicago Institute—University of Chicago merger, at the request of parents whose children had been enrolled in the Institute at its temporary location. Mrs. Blaine provided the finances, and Flora Cooke served as principal. For discussions of the school's work, see its Yearbooks, especially “The Social Motive in School Work,” (1912); Rugg, Harold, “Curriculum-Making in Laboratory Schools,” National Society for the Study of Education, Twenty-Sixth Yearbook, Part I (Bloomington, Illinois: Public School Publishing Company, 1926), pp. 97–100, Rugg, Harold and Shumaker, Ann, The Child-Centered School (Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York: World Book Company, 1928).Google Scholar