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Educational Revivals in Ante-Bellum New England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Extract
During the 1840s and 1850s the transformation of schoolkeepers into a professional corps of educators hinged more on the efficiency of contemporary revivalist strategies than on any conception of scholarship or systematic pedagogy. At best, theories and ideologies of instruction generally offered only supplementary argumentation to justify immediate practices and experiments. Little educational activity seems to have been inspired directly by any ideological treatises on learning, although professional schoolmen of the ante-bellum period freely invoked Pestalozzi, de Fellenberg, Rousseau, Lancaster, and the European educational systems as models of various educational practices. In New England the effective plan behind the call for professional educators came not from adaptations of foreign instruction, but rather from already proven measures which had been applied and perfected by religious evangelicals of the 1830s. The major institution for educational improvement in the ante-bellum period was the teachers' institute which operated as a kind of revival agency. The origin, spread, and eclipse of this institution for professional teachers, both in its conceptual and institutional features, illuminate the shifting contours of educational policy and practice in New England before the Civil War.
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- Copyright © 1971 History of Education Quarterly
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1. Some educators, like James, G. Carter in Lancaster, Massachusetts, and the Reverend Samuel Read Hall in Andover, Massachusetts, opened privately supported teacher training institutions during the 1820s and 1830s. While they prompted much discussion, such schools provided their most lasting contribution by their failures. Private support was insufficient basis for such enterprises. The second major model of teacher training was the department for this purpose annexed to flourishing academies, generally in New York. Like the private institutions devoted solely to teacher training, these departmental appendages seldom survived beyond the 1830s. The introduction of the state-supported normal school represented a qualitatively different level of professional aspiration but not an essentially different kind of institution from its earlier counterparts. The effectiveness of the aspiration in professional circles can be measured by the extent to which problems of teacher training distracted schoolmen from their original concern, the reform of the common school. In a sense, the emergence of professional institutions served to postpone for several decades the transformation of elementary instruction. See: Mattingly, Paul H., “Professional Strategies and New England Educators, 1825–1860” (Madison, Wis.: Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1968), especially Chapter II: see also: Ellsbree, Willard S., The American Teacher: Evolution of a Profession in a Democracy (New York: World Publishing Company, 1939); Merle Borrowman, The Liberal and Technical in Teacher Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1956); and Patterson Cubberley, Ellwood, Public Education in the United States (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press, 1919, rev. ed. 1962).Google Scholar
2. Mangun, Vernon, The American Normal School (Baltimore: Warwick & York, Inc., 1928), p. 135.Google Scholar
3. The origins of the teachers' institute remain disputed. Since the most authoritative work in educational history in this period is still Henry Barnard's American Journal of Education (32 vols.), I have merely followed the example of most writers on institutes and have assumed that Barnard's claims to have been the originator are genuine. The most thorough, historical account of the teachers' institute is: “Teachers' Institutes: Connecticut; New York; Rhode Island; Ohio; Massachusetts,” American Journal of Education, XV (September 1865), 387–414. Also extremely thorough but from the point of view of those who claim the institute originated in New York is: Sweet, Samuel N., Teachers' Institutes, or Temporary Normal Schools: Their Origin and Progress (Utica, N.Y.: H. H. Hawley & Company, 1848). Whatever the origin, the teachers' institute, like so many other educational institutions in this period, ultimately assumed the characteristics of the New England model. Even if Barnard was not the creator of the institute, he was the commanding figure in its development and influence.Google Scholar
4. “Teachers' Institutes: Connecticut,” American Journal of Education, XV (September 1865), 388.Google Scholar
5. Barnard, Henry (ed.), Normal Schools, and Other Institutions, Agencies and Means Designed for the Professional Education of Teachers (Hartford: Case, Tiffany and Company, 1851), p. 76.Google Scholar
6. In addition to previously mentioned works, see: Newell, M. A., “Contributions to the History of Normal Schools in the United States,” in Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1898–1899, II (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1900), p. 2295.Google Scholar
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8. Letter of Emma Willard to Sweet, S. R., November 19, 1847, in ibid., pp. 128–36.Google Scholar
9. “Teachers' Institutes: Connecticut,” American Journal of Education, XV (September 1865), 388.Google Scholar
10. Mann, Horace, Ninth Annual Report of the Secretary to the Board of Education of Massachusetts, 1845 (Boston, 1846), pp. 43–49.Google Scholar
11. Letter of Willard, Emma… November 19, 1847, in Sweet, Teachers' Institutes, p. 130.Google Scholar
12. See, for example: Smith, Wilson, Professors and Public Ethics: Studies of Northern Moral Philosophers before the Civil War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1956). The particular kind of moral character embodied in the president of the institution played a singular part in Barnard's own evaluation of schools. In a striking passage from his travel journal (actually letters to his brother, Chauncey), sometime between February and March 1833, Barnard described his visit to Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic institution of higher education in the United States. After an extensive tour of the library (15,000), which was extremely large for the period, and all its scientific facilities by the institution's president, Reverend Thomas F. Mulledy, Barnard could not help expressing approval. Nevertheless, the character of the institution, however scientific and extraordinary, did not derive from the technical facilities of the school. “The discipline of the college,” Barnard observed, “is very strict, and were it not for its Catholicism, would be a very eligible situation for a youth from 12 to 17. The situation of the college is delightful; I can't imagine anything finer.” This passage is taken from Henry Barnard, “The South Atlantic States in 1833, as Seen by a New Englander,” Steiner, Bernard (ed.) Maryland Historical Magazine, XIII (September 1918), 289.Google Scholar
13. Sweet, Teachers' Institutes, p. 129.Google Scholar
14. For a perceptive examination of the relation between poverty and piety in this period, see: David, F. Allmendinger, Jr., “Indigent Students and Their Institutions, 1800–1860” (Madison, Wis.: Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1968).Google Scholar
15. Sweet, Teachers' Institutes, p. 131.Google Scholar
16. Barnard, Henry, Report to the Regents of Normal Schools on the Teachers' Institutes, Held in Wisconsin in 1859 in Barnard, Henry (ed.), Papers for the Teacher (New York, 1860), p. 12.Google Scholar
17. For an excellent analysis of revivals in terms of their conceptual and institutional ramifications during this period, see: Donald M. Scott, “Watchmen on the Walls of Zion: Evangelicals and American Society, 1800–1860” (Madison, Wis.: Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1968). Also illuminating in this regard is: William, G. McLoughlin's Introduction to his edition of Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960).Google Scholar
18. Recently some of the most interesting history being written about educational problems tries to account for the lack of controversy in nineteenth-century discussions of common school reform. See: Messerli, Jonathan, “Controversy and Consensus in Common School Reform,” Teachers College Record (May 1965), pp. 749–58; Katz, Michael, The Irony of Early School Reform (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968); Fishlow, Albert, “The American Common School Revival: Fact or Fancy” in Rozofsky, Henry (ed.), Industrialization in Two Systems: Essays in Honor of Alexander Gerschenkron (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966). The basic omission in all these works, however, is the failure to account for the moral dynamic and religious underpinnings which set the context for all discussions of educational and social reform before the Civil War.Google Scholar
19. Russell, William, Suggestions on Teachers' Institutes (Manchester, N. H.: W. H. Fisk, 1852), p. 33.Google Scholar
20. Ibid. Google Scholar
21. Sweet, Teachers' Institutes, p. 131.Google Scholar
22. The very term, “institute,” assumed a special meaning and usage in the early nineteenth century. The peculiarity of this meaning suggests much about the concern at this time for effective, educational techniques. Until the nineteenth century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, an institute referred to a digest of the elements of a subject, perhaps like John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion or in America Noah Webster's Grammatical Institute. During the early decades of the nineteenth century an institute began to refer to the agency for systematizing and disseminating such a digest. In this transition, the word retained several of its former implications, namely, the delineation of a specific body of material or subject, the association with public service, and the intimation of transmitting practical rather than philosophical knowledge. The nineteenth-century version of the institute, especially in reference to mechanics' institutes, manual labor institutes, or scientific institutes, like the Franklin Institute (1842), Marietta Institute (1831), Oneida Institute (1827), and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1824) and most of all, the Smithsonian (1846), took on the added meaning of transmitting not only practical knowledge but also practical skills. Even among those institutes that did not teach practical skills, the designation connoted the immediate and constructive application of certain principles. This characteristic pertains especially to the major educational association of this period, the American Institute of Instruction (1830). At all points, too, an institute retained its etymological meaning of “founding,” “initiating,” and “originating”; it inevitably was applied to innovative or experimental efforts.Google Scholar
23. Professor Porter, Noah, Prize Essay on the Necessity and Means of Improving the Common Schools of Connecticut (Hartford: Case, Tiffany and Company, 1846). This essay was republished by Barnard as soon as he became editor of the Connecticut Common School Journal for the second time in 1850. The entire Connecticut Common School Journal can be found in the American Periodicals on Microfilm Series, Reels 789, 790, 791. The processor of this series is University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan. Wayland, Francis, “Progress of Education for the Last Twenty-Five Years,” Lectures and Proceedings of the American Institute of Instruction, XXV (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1855). Mann, Horace, Ninth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, 1845 (Boston, 1846), pp. 43–49. Lord, Nathan, quoted in “Teachers' Institutes: Ohio,” American Journal of Education, XV (September 1865), 403. See also: Barnard, Henry (ed.), “Progress of Education in Other States: Ohio: Teachers' Institutes,” Journal of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, I (April 1, 1846), Extra No. X, 133. Sweet, Teachers' Institutes, pp. 36ff and 78ff.Google Scholar
24. “Teachers Institutes: Connecticut,” American Journal of Education, XV (September 1865), 394. Barnas Sears was not specifically mentioned in this article, but since he was in 1848 the highest educational officer of the state, I have assumed the title “Superintendent” referred to him. Some confusion about this point has been added by a footnote on the page, asserting that Henry Barnard, though at the time head of the common school system of Rhode Island, actually wrote the reports of the Superintendent of Connecticut's school system between 1845 and 1849. During these years Barnas Sears was Superintendent of the School Fund of Connecticut. Between the elimination of the office of Commissioner of Connecticut Common Schools in 1842 and the creation of a state superintendency in 1850 (both offices held by Barnard, Henry) there was no state superintendent of common schools in the state.Google Scholar
25. Russell, , Suggestions on Teachers' Institutes p. 7.Google Scholar
26. Barnard, Henry, Report to the Regents of Normal Schools on the Teachers' Institutes. Held in Wisconsin in 1859 in Barnard, Henry (ed.), Papers for the Teachers, p. 12.Google Scholar
27. Teachers' associations had begun to be established in the late 1840s and a decade later nearly all the states that looked to New England as an educational guide had established them. They were distinguished from the institutes by their shorter meetings of one- or two-days duration, by holding their meetings in the cities where they maintained a central office and an official journal, and by the parliamentary rather than pedagogical nature of their proceedings. In addition, they were directed entirely by practicing teachers rather than by a mixture of educators and established, influential citizens of the state who often belonged to professions other than teaching. They were, much less than the institutes, arms of the educational policy of the state yet received substantial government subsidies for their operation.Google Scholar
28. For a more thorough discussion of this distinction and the significance of these changes, see especially Chapters 2 and 4 in my own dissertation, already mentioned. See also: Noble, Stuart G., “From ‘Lectures on School-Keeping’ to ‘Introduction to Education,’” School and Society, XXIII (June 26, 1926), 793–802.Google Scholar
29. Among other references, see: Cubberley, Public Education in United States, and Ellsbree, The American Teacher. Google Scholar
30. Nelson Camp, David, Report of the Superintendent of Common Schools to the General Assembly, May Session, 1857–1867 (Hartford and New Haven, 1858–1868). In addition to these state reports the appropriate portions of each issue, usually the section called “Miscellany,” in the Connecticut Common School Journal, and The Massachusetts Teacher, were consulted for the generalizations in this paragraph.Google Scholar
31. Woody, Thomas, “David Nelson Camp,” Dictionary of American Biography, III (New York, 1929), 441–43; Nelson Camp, David, Reminiscences of a Long and Active Life (New Britain, Conn., 1917). See also: Nelson Camp, David, “Reminiscences of Henry Barnard,” in Steiner, Bernard, Life of Henry Barnard, United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, No. 8 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1919), Appendix.Google Scholar
32. Curti, Merle, “Henry Barnard,” The Social Ideas of American Educators (Paterson, New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams, and Company, 1935, rev. ed. 1961), pp. 139–68.Google Scholar
33. Camp, Reminiscences, p. 10.Google Scholar
34. Barnard, Normal Schools, pp. 15–16.Google Scholar
35. “Teachers' Institutes,” American Journal of Education, XV (September 1865), 387–414; “Charles Northend,” Dictionary of American Biography, XIII, 564–54; “William Bently Fowle,” Dictionary of American Biography, VI, 561–62; Fowle's enthusiasm for the institutes took the form of a manual for institute organization and operation, The Teachers' Institute, Or Familiar Hints to Young Teachers (Boston: William B. Fowler, 1847), “James B. Thomson: President of the New York State Teachers' Association,” American Journal of Education, XV (September 1865), 487; “Asa Dearborn Lord: President of the Ohio State Teachers' Association,” American Journal of Education, XVI (March 1866), 607–8; for Baker, William S., see: Philbrick, John, “Henry Barnard,” Connecticut Common School Journal and Annals of Education, N.S. II (January 1855), 72, and “The Second Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction,” Journal of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, II (1847) 155–56.Google Scholar
36. Nelson Camp, David, Report of the Superintendent of Common Schools to the General Assembly, May Session, 1859 (New Haven, 1859) pp. 9–10. (Italics added.)Google Scholar
37. Nelson Camp, David, Report of the Superintendent of Common Schools to the General Assembly, May Session, 1860 (Hartford, 1860).Google Scholar
38. Nelson Camp, David, “Report of Lecturers and School Visitations,” p. 113ff., in the Sixth Annual Report of the Superintendent of Common Schools, May, 1851 (Hartford, 1851), Appendix.Google Scholar
39. Ibid. Google Scholar
40. Camp, Report of the Superintendent of Common Schools… 1860, p. 31.Google Scholar
41. Ibid. Google Scholar
42. Ibid., p. 26.Google Scholar
43. Mowry, William, Martha's Vineyard Summer Institute (Boston: R. H. Blodgett and Company, 1905), p. 23.Google Scholar
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