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“Holding High the Standard”: The Influence of the American Education Society in Ante-Bellum Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Natalie A. Naylor
Natalie A. Naylor*
Affiliation:
School of Education of Hofstra University
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Extract

For the self-preservation of the nation, Eliphalet Pearson warned in 1815, “an immediate and universal effort must be made to provide religious instruction.” Pearson, a former professor at Harvard College and president of the board of trustees of Phillips Academy and Andover Seminary, was preaching at the organizational meeting of the American Society for the Education of Pious Youth for the Gospel Ministry. To Pearson, America seemed to be plagued by a “common degeneracy in religion and morals” with hundreds of thousands bereft of religious instruction. Religion and education were to be the means of salvation for both the individual and the nation. Pearson exhorted, “Schools are to be multiplied, Bibles distributed; and, above all, thousands of pious young men must be educated for the ministry; and this speedily.” Thus, the American Education Society (AES) was formed in Boston as part of a Protestant crusade to save the nation.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , Winter 1984 , pp. 479 - 497
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

1. Pearson, Eliphalet, Sermon “Faith Cometh by Hearing and Hearing by the Word of God,” delivered before the American Society for Educating Pious Youth for the Gospel Ministry [hereafter abbreviated ASEPYGM], October 26, 1815 (Andover, 1815), pp. 19–21. The ASEPYGM changed its name in 1820 to the American Education Society.Google Scholar

2. The AES records were not available when earlier histories of the benevolent societies were written, e.g. Foster, Charles I., An Errand of Mercy: The Evangelical United Front, 1790–1837 (Chapel Hill, 1960); and Griffin, Clifford S., Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States, 1800–1865 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1960).Google Scholar

3. Taylor, Natalie Ann, “Raising a Learned Ministry: The American Education Society, 1815–1860,” (Unpublished Ed.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1971); and Allmendinger, David F. Jr., “The Strangeness of the American Education Society: Indigent Students and the New Charity, 1815–1840,” History of Education Quarterly 11 (Spring, 1971):3–22. See also Findlay, James, “The Congregationalists and American Education,” History of Education Quarterly 17 (Winter, 1977):449–454.Google Scholar

4. [Barnard, Henry], “The American Education Society,” American Journal of Education 14 (1864):367–382.Google Scholar

5. Allmendinger, David F. Jr. discusses the “little education societies” in Paupers and Scholars: The Transformation of Student Life in Nineteenth-Century New England (New York, 1975), pp. 54–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Storrs, Harriot Mrs. to Cogswell, William, January 30, 1834, American Education Society correspondence, Congregational Library, Boston. (All manuscript materials cited, unless otherwise indicated, are in the Congregational Library in Boston.) Google Scholar

7. “Second Report,” ASEPYGM, 1817 in “Appendix” to Chickering, Joseph, Sermon preached in Boston before the ASEPYGM, October 15, 1817 (Dedham, Mass., 1817), p. 25; Minutes of the third annual meeting, ASEPYGM, September 29, 1819, in MS “Minutes of the Meetings”; and Constitution of the American Society for Educating Pious Youth for the Gospel Ministry, August 29, 1815.Google Scholar

8. See Foster, , An Errand of Mercy; Griffin, , Their Brothers' Keepers; and Bodo, John R., The Protestant Clergy and Public Issues, 1812–1848 (Princeton, 1954).Google Scholar

9. The Congregationalists and Presbyterians in their 1801 Plan of Union had established a precedent for cooperation in the westward expansion. The Plan of Union is printed in Shelton Smith, H., Handy, Robert T., and Loetscher, Lefferts A., American Christianity: An Historical Interpretation with Representative Documents (New York, 1960), vol 1, p. 546. See also Pearson, Samuel C. Jr., “From Church to Denomination: American Congregationalism in the Nineteenth Century,” Church History 38 (March, 1969): 67–87; and Smith, Elwyn A., “The Forming of a Modern American Denomination,” Church History 31 (March, 1962):74–99.Google Scholar

10. “Address” of Secretary William Cogswell at Twentieth Annual Meeting, AES, Twentieth Annual Report, AES (Boston, 1836), p. 68. In the early decades, geographical jealousies seemed more important than denominational differences. See Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 94–98.Google Scholar

11. Originally, both were called the “Education Society of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.” Google Scholar

12. Besides “rival institutionalism,” other theological differences and the slavery issue also were important factors in the schism of Old School and New School Presbyterians. See Armstrong, Maurice W., Loetscher, Lefferts A., and Anderson, Charles A., eds. The Presbyterian Enterprise: Sources of American Presbyterian History (Philadelphia, 1956), pp. 146–171; Marsden, George M., The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience (New Haven, 1970), pp. 250–251; Smith, , Handy, , and Loetscher, , American Christianity, vol 2, pp. 66–74, 88–92; and Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 102–127.Google Scholar

13. Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 141–157; and Pearson, Samuel Campbell Jr. “The Growth of Denominational Self-Consciousness Among American Congregationalists, 1801–1852,” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago Divinity School, 1964). The Society later became the Division of Christian Education and is now under the Board of Homeland Ministries of the United Church of Christ. Today responsibility for aiding ministerial candidates is under the United Church Council on Church and Ministry.Google Scholar

14. Efforts to merge the AES and the College Society [SPCTEW] in 1848–1854 were unsuccessful. See Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 77, 354–357. On the College Society see Findlay, James, “The SPCTEW and Western Colleges: Religion and Higher Education in Mid-Nineteenth Century America,” History of Education Quarterly 17 (Spring, 1977):31–62; and Findlay, James, “Agency, Denominations and the Western Colleges, 1830–1860: Some Connections between Evangelicalism and American Higher Education,” Church History 50 (1981):64–80.Google Scholar

15. Fiftieth Annual Report, AES (Boston, 1866), p. 11; and Baird, Robert, Religion in America, rev. ed. (New York, 1856), p. 321.Google Scholar

16. Quarterly Register and Journal of the American Education Society [hereafter Quarterly Register, although the title varied slightly over the years, becoming, for example, the American Quarterly Register from 1831–1842], vol 2 (May, 1830):238; Thirty-first Annual Report, AES (Boston, 1847), p. 6; and Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 349–351.Google Scholar

17. Eighteenth Annual Report, AES (Boston, 1834), pp. 81–83; and Twenty-first Annual Report, AES (Boston, 1837), pp. 44–45.Google Scholar

18. Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 193, 333–334; and McLachlan, James, American Boarding Schools: An Historical Study (New York, 1970), pp. 33, 303–304.Google Scholar

19. Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 193–194.Google Scholar

20. Twenty-second Annual Report, AES (Boston, 1838), p. 59. The AES exaggerated its impact which only affected those institutions enrolling significant numbers of AES beneficiaries; see Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 348–350. Probably less than 1 percent of AES beneficiaries attended colleges that are not on Donald Tewksbury's list of permanent colleges founded before the Civil War. This estimate is based on an examination of colleges attended by AES students in 1830, 1832, 1834, 1837, 1847, and 1857, i.e. years when such data is available, and Tewksbury, Donald G., The Founding of American Colleges and Universities Before the Civil War (New York, 1932), pp. 32–54; cf. Naylor, Natalie A., “The Ante-Bellum College Movement: A Reappraisal of Tewksbury's The Founding of American Colleges and Universities,” History of Education Quarterly 13 (Fall, 1973):261–74; and Burke, Colin B., American Collegiate Populations: A Test of the Traditional View (New York, 1982), pp. 299–318.Google Scholar

21. Naylor, Natalie A., “The Theological Seminary in the Configuration of American Higher Education: The Ante-Bellum Years,” History of Education Quarterly 17 (Spring, 1977):17–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Eighteenth Annual Report, AES, 1834, pp. 38–39. The AES sometimes recommended a shorter course for men who began their study of Latin at age 24 or older and occasionally granted assistance to such students. See Nineteenth Annual Report, AES (Boston, 1835) p. 53; and Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 218–221.Google Scholar

23. Quarterly Register vol 3 (May, 1831):298–299; on college costs see also Schmidt, George P., The Liberal Arts College: A Chapter in American Cultural History (New Brunswick, N.J., 1957), pp. 77, 275. For the number of students assisted annually by the AES, see graph above and Fifth Annual Report, AES, 1866, p. 11.Google Scholar

24. Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 310–326. The loan policy became a controversial issue; see also Allmendinger, , Paupers and Scholars, pp. 64–78, though he slights the religious context of the debate.Google Scholar

25. Schmidt erred, however, in claiming that the AES was “dominated by Yale.” Schmidt, , The Liberal Arts College, p. 39; and Cremin, Lawrence A., American Education, The National Experience, 1783–1876 (New York, 1980), p. 61.Google Scholar

26. Rev. Jackson, William, Dorset, Vermont, to Cornelius, Elias, March 27, 1830; Cornelius, Elias [to Rev. William Jackson and the Trustees of Burr Seminary], April 8, 1830, quoted by Edwards, B. B., Memoir of the Rev. Elias Cornelius, 2d. ed. (Boston, 1834), pp. 283–285.Google Scholar

27. Smith, John Prof. to Cornelius, Elias, May 17, 1827, quoting Cornelius's letter of February 23, 1827; Pond, Enoch, “Historical Sketch of the Theological Seminary at Bangor,” Quarterly Register 14 (August, 1841):30. See also Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 202–207.Google Scholar

28. [Carnahan, James], “Remarks of the Editors on the Foregoing Strictures,” Biblical Repertory, N.S. 1 (October, 1829):620; and Minutes of meeting of August 9, 1830, AES Executive Committee, MS “Records of the Executive Committee,” p. 15. For the context of the Carnahan quotation, see Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 108–123; Allmendinger, David Frederick Jr., “Indigent Students and Their Institutions, 1800–1860,” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1968), pp. 2–25; and Allmendinger, , Paupers and Scholars, pp. 72–76.Google Scholar

29. Riddell, S., AES Secretary, to Rev. Blood, Daniel C., Secretary, Western Reserve Branch, June 11, 1841, AES Letter Book, vol. 3, and Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 285–294.Google Scholar

30. Stuart, Moses, “Classical Education Defended,” Quarterly Register 1 (July, 1828):85–98; [Cornelius, Elias], “Review of Reports on the course of instruction in Yale College by a Committee of the Corporation, and the Academical Faculty,” Quarterly Register 1 (April, 1829).204–209. (The AES review of the Yale Report commended experiments with modern foreign languages for those not planning to enter the ministry or other professions.) Google Scholar

31. Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 265–268. The AES initially required applicants to have studied Latin a minimum of three months; this was increased to six months in 1833, and to one year in 1841. When the Society discontinued aid to academy students in 1842, only those attending institutions providing a three-year course were eligible in their final year. (Such students sometimes received advanced standing in college.) Google Scholar

32. Pres. Griffin, Williams College, to Cleveland, Aaron, Esq., October 27, 1827 (in treasurer's correspondence); and Cornelius, E. to President Nott, Union College, January 21, 1828, AES Letter Book, vol. 1.Google Scholar

33. [Barnard, ], “The American Education Society,” pp. 375–376; and Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 269–270.Google Scholar

34. Nineteenth Annual Report, AES, 1834, p. 80; minutes of meetings of January, 1835, May 18, 1835, September, 1835, and December, 1835, Presbyterian Education Society, MS Minutes, pp. 122, 132ff, 144, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia; and Cogswell, W., AES Secretary, to Rev. Savage, A. et. al., Committee of Oneida Presbytery, January 18, 1836, AES Letter Book, vol. 2, p. 231. The Presbyterian Education Society had jurisdiction in the “territorial limits of the Presbyterian Church,” i.e. outside New England.Google Scholar

35. Fletcher, Robert Samuel, A History of Oberlin College: From Its Foundation Through the Civil War (Oberlin, 1943), vol. 2, pp. 365–367; Finney, Charles Grandison, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 1835; ed. by McLoughlin, William C. (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), pp. 185–191 (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), pp. 185–191.Google Scholar

36. “Extracts from Report, Western Reserve Branch,” 1836 Report, Clark, Ansel R., secretary, Quarterly Register 9 (February, 1837):287.Google Scholar

37. Minutes of meetings of December 27, 1836, March 28, 1837, and June 27, 1837, Presbyterian Education Society, MS Minutes, II:166, 172, 181, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia; Oberlin Evangelist 1 (April 10, 1839):69; Fletcher, , History of Oberlin College, vol. 2, p. 367; and Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” p. 143.Google Scholar

38. Oberlin Evangelist 1 (April 10, 1839):69–70; Fletcher, , History of Oberlin College, vol. 2, pp. 366–372, 435–436, 488; and Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 276–285.Google Scholar

39. Cogswell, William to Professors Pond and Bond, Bangor Seminary, January 1833, AES Letter Book, vol. 2, p. 46.Google Scholar

40. Cornelius began the journal in 1827 and hired Edwards as AES Assistant Secretary in 1828, to edit the Quarterly Register. The AES Journal continued for three years (1843–1846) after the Quarterly Register suspended publication.Google Scholar

41. “Beta [sic] Bates Edwards,” American Journal of Education 14 (1864):381. Most of the volumes of the Quarterly Register range between 300 and 500 pages, with issues gradually increasing in size over the years. See Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 236–242.Google Scholar

42. “Plan of Exercise Recently Adopted in the Theological Seminary at Andover,” Quarterly Register 1 (October, 1827):17–20; and “An Experiment in Providing Exercise for Students,” Quarterly Register 1 (October, 1828): 123–124. Edwards, Bela B. credited AES Secretary, Cornelius, Elias, with being the founder of the manual labor movement and responsible for the origin of the association at Andover, which served as a model for others. See Edwards, , Memoir of Cornelius, p. 260; and also First Annual Report of the Society for Promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institutions (New York, 1833).Google Scholar

43. Thirteenth Annual Report, AES (Boston, 1829), p. 9; Quarterly Register 1 (January, 1829):153–154; Cornelius, Elias, “Union of Study With Useful Labor,” Quarterly Register vol. 2, (November, 1829):57–70, 107–117; Eighteenth Annual Report, AES, 1834, p. 39; and Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 242–243, 249–257.Google Scholar

44. Edwards, B. B., “Education and Literary Institutions,” Quarterly Register 5 (May, 1833):274; Cogswell, William, “Manual Labor Schools,” Quarterly Register 6 (August, 1833):31–33; Cogswell, William, Address,” Quarterly Register 6 (February, 1834):221; and Cogswell, William to Rev. Church, John H., Pelham, N.H., August 31, 1833, AES Letter Book, vol. 2, p. 84.Google Scholar

45. Forty-first Annual Report, AES (Boston, 1857), p. 17.Google Scholar

46. Quarterly Register 6 (May 1834):299.Google Scholar

47. Kimball and Cummings are no. 2 and no. 4 in the AES Account Book; biographical information from General Catalog of the Theological Seminary, Andover, Massachusetts, 1808–1908(Boston, 1909). Brigham was no. 49; Anderson, no. 100; Badger, no. 301; Beckwith no. 108; and Tarbox, no. 2484 in the AES Account Book.Google Scholar

48. King was no. 6 and Richards no. 48 in the AES Account Book; biographical information from Andover Catalog. Google Scholar

49. [Tuttle, Sarah], The History of the American Education Society, Written for the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, & Revised by the Committee of Publication (Boston, 1835), p. 23; Sixteenth Annual Report, AES (Boston, 1832), p. 23. In the AES Account Book, Sturtevant was no. 385; Woods, no 660; and Tappan, no. 275. See also Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 341–347 for other former AES beneficiaries who became college professors and presidents.Google Scholar