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Science, Education, and Antebellum Reform: The Case of Alexander Dallas Bache

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Hugh R. Slotten
Hugh R. Slotten*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
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Extract

As primary civilizing forces, science and formal education have achieved a position of dominance and prestige in modern society. In the United States, efforts to institutionalize these two cultural commitments became especially strong during the decades preceding the Civil War. Historians of science, such as Robert Bruce, have argued that the antebellum period saw the “launching” of American science. During the years before the Civil War, many institutional forms were established, patterns of patronage were begun, and the scientific community was organized around professional ideals. Writing about the same period, historians of education have stressed the origins of government-supported common school systems, the rise of educational professionals and professional societies, and the growth of specialized training in higher education. Despite these parallel concerns, there has been little exploration of the place of science in educational reforms of this period or of the importance of education in efforts to upgrade the antebellum scientific community.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , Fall 1991 , pp. 323 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1. Bruce, Robert V., The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876 (New York, 1988). Also see, for example, Daniels, George H., ed., Nineteenth-Century American Science: A Reappraisal (Evanston, Ill., 1972); Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory, The Formation of the American Scientific Community: The American Association for the Advancement of Science (Urbana, Ill., 1976); Reingold, Nathan, Science in Nineteenth-Century America: A Documentary History (Chicago, 1964); Guralnick, Stanley M., Science and the Ante-bellum American College (Philadelphia, 1975); Daniels, George H., American Science in the Age of Jackson (New York, 1968).Google Scholar

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3. Notwithstanding his historical importance, Bache has received very little scholarly treatment. Moreover, those who have analyzed Bache's role in antebellum America have not sufficiently acknowledged the interrelationship of Bache's work as both a scientist and an educator. See Reingold, Nathan, “Alexander Dallas Bache: Science and Technology in the American Idiom,” Technology and Culture 11 (Apr. 1970): 163–77; Odgers, Merle M., Alexander Dallas Bache: Scientist and Educator, 1807–1867 (Philadelphia, 1947); Beach, Mark, “Was There a Scientific Lazzaroni?” in Nineteenth-Century American Science: A Reappraisal, ed. Daniels, , 115–32; Post, Robert C., “Science, Public Policy, and Popular Precepts: Alexander Dallas Bache and Alfred Beach as Symbolic Adversaries,” in The Sciences in the American Context: New Perspectives, ed. Reingold, Nathan (Washington, D.C., 1979), 77–98; Fagan, George V., “Alexander Dallas Bache, Educator,” The Barnwell Bulletin 18 (Apr. 1941): 9–46; Sinclair, Bruce, Philadelphia's Philosopher Mechanics: A History of the Franklin Institute, 1824–1865 (Baltimore, 1975); Bruce, , Launching of Modern American Science; Kohlstedt, , The American Association for the Advancement of Science.Google Scholar

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9. On Girard College, see Herrick, Cheesman A., History of Girard College (Philadelphia, 1927). Labaree, is quoted from his Making of an American High School, 10, 12. On Bache's educational work, also see Bache, Alexander Dallas, Report to the Controllers of the Public Schools, on the Reorganization of the Central High School of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1839); Bache, Alexander Dallas, Address of Prof. A. D. Bache, before the Alumni Association of the Central High School, Delivered February 10, 1859 (Philadelphia, 1859); the Twenty-second through the Twenty-fourth Annual Reports of the Controllers of the Public Schools of the City and County of Philadelphia, Composing the First School District of Pennsylvania, with their Accounts (Philadelphia, 1840–42); Sinclair, , Franklin Institute, 108–34; fames Mulhern, , A History of Secondary Education in Pennsylvania (New York, 1969), 493–500, 518, 556–57.Google Scholar

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15. Digby Baltzell, E., Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class (New Brunswick, N.J., 1989), 244. Bache supported the evangelical branch of the church. See his letters to Alonzo Potter, bishop of Philadelphia: Bache, to Potter, Alonzo, 2 June 1845 and 21 Aug. 1843, Bache folder, Gratz Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Also see Manross, William Wilson, A History of the American Episcopal Church (New York, 1935), 213–46, 279–81. On republicanism, see, for example, Shalhope, Robert E., “Republicanism and Early American Historiography,” William and Mary Quarterly 39 (Apr. 1982): 334–56; and Watson, Harry, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York, 1990). Bache, , Report to the Controllers of the Public Schools, on the Reorganization of the Central High School of Philadelphia, 4.Google Scholar

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17. Bache, to Frazer, , 23 Feb. 1848, Frazer Papers. On Bache arguing that Greek and Latin had no place in his educational plans for the Central High School, see Bache, , Report to the Controllers of the Public Schools, on the Reorganization of the Central High-School of Philadelphia, 23–24.Google Scholar

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24. Labaree, , Making of art American High School, 16–23.Google Scholar

25. Commentator on education quoted by Howe, Daniel Walker, The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805–1861 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 257. On Bache's involvement with educational reform after joining the Coast Survey, see Bache, to Deloutte, J. A., 24 Sep. 1849, Bache folder, Gratz Collection.Google Scholar

26. “Report on the Survey of the Coast of the United States,” Journal of the Franklin Institute 47 (Mar. 1849): 213. “Report of a Committee of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia on the Coast Survey,” reprinted in Speech of Mr. Jefferson Davis, of Miss., on the Subject of the Coast Survey of the United States: Delivered in Senate of the U.S., Monday, Feb. 19, 1849 (Washington, D.C., 1849), 31; “Notice of the Visit of the American Association for the Advancement of Education to the Coast Survey Office,” American Journal of Education 1 (Aug. 1855): 103.Google Scholar

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28. Franklin Spencer Edmonds, History of the Central High School of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1902), 78. Davidson quoted in ibid., 80.Google Scholar

29. Kaestle, , Pillars of the Republic, 76–77. On the role of ideology in educational reform, see Kaestle, Carl F., “Ideology and American Educational History,” History of Education Quarterly 22 (Summer 1982): 123–37. For the science side, see, for example, Morrell, Jack and Thackray, Arnold, Gentlemen of Science: Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1981), 223–96; Rosenberg, Charles E., No Other Gods: On Science and American Social Thought (Baltimore, Md., 1976); Slotten, Hugh R., “Humane Chemistry or Scientific Barbarism? American Responses to World War I Poison Gas, 1915–1930,” Journal of American History 11 (Sep. 1990): 476–98.Google Scholar

30. See, for example, Veysey, Laurence R., The Emergence of the American University (Chicago, 1965), 133–49.Google Scholar

31. See, for example, Labaree, , Making of an American High School, 20–23.Google Scholar

32. See, for example, Thackray, Arnold, “Natural Knowledge in Cultural Context: The Manchester Model,” American Historical Review 79 (June 1974): 672–709.Google Scholar

33. Quoted by Herrick, , History of Girard College, 171–72.Google Scholar

34. Quoted by Odgers, , Alexander Dallas Bache, 70. On the call for another “scientist” to do for education what Bacon had done for natural science, also see Potter, , “Proceedings of the Association [Presidential Address],” 9.Google Scholar

35. Bache, to Henry, Joseph, 28 May 1839, Joseph Henry Papers, RU 7001, Smithsonian Institution Archives.Google Scholar

36. Quoted by Odgers, , Alexander Dallas Bache, 80. Also see “Address of President Mahan,” Proceedings of the First Session of the American Association for the Advancement of Education, 49.Google Scholar

37. Quoted by Odgers, , Alexander Dallas Bache, 85.Google Scholar

38. Bache, to Barnard, , 27 June 1844, Barnard Papers. Bache's interest in avoiding denominational preferences in schools was shared by other educational reformers, most notably Henry Barnard. See, for example, the prospectus to the first volume of Absalom Peters and Henry Barnard's American Journal of Education and College Review 1 (1856): vi.Google Scholar

39. Bache, , Report to the Controllers of the Public Schools, on the Reorganization of the Central High-School of Philadelphia, 22.Google Scholar

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43. Bache, , Report to the Controllers of the Public Schools, 22–23. On the disciplinary function of scientific instruction, also see “Address of President Mahan,” Proceedings of the First Session of the American Association for the Advancement of Education, 44, 48. Potter, , “Proceedings of the Association [Presidential Address],” 10. “American Association for the Advancement of Science,” American Journal of Education 3 (Mar. 1857): 152. On the moral value of nineteenth-century science, also see Hollinger, David A., “Inquiry and Uplift: Late Nineteenth-Century American Academics and the Moral Efficacy of Scientific Practice,” in The Authority of Experts: Studies in History and Theory, ed. Haskell, Thomas L. (Bloomington, Ind., 1984), 142–56; Servos, John, “Mathematics and the Physical Sciences in America, 1880–1930,” Isis 77 (Dec. 1986): 614.Google Scholar

44. Bache, to Richards, Benjamin W., 7 July 1847, roll 19, Bache Correspondence, Coast and Geodetic Survey Records. On grading at the Central High School, see Labaree, , Making of an American High School, 17. For the parent's remarks, see David, Edward W. to Bache, , 12 Aug. 1857, roll 172, Bache Correspondence, Coast and Geodetic Survey Records. Many scientists were anxious to have their sons work on the Coast Survey, viewing it as an ideal place to combine a scientific and a moral education. See, for instance, Locke, John to Bache, Alexander Dallas, [1846?], roll 9, Bache Correspondence, Coast and Geodetic Survey Records.Google Scholar

45. Bache, , Report on Education in Europe, 322.Google Scholar

46. Ibid., 267.Google Scholar

47. Henry quoted in Reingold, , ed., The Papers of Joseph Henry, 5: xiii.Google Scholar

48. Higham, John, “Hanging Together: Divergent Unities in American History,” Journal of American History 61 (June 1974): 5–28. Labaree, , Making of an American High School, 64.Google Scholar

49. Tyack, and Hansot, , Managers of Virtue, 100; Tyack, , The One Best System.Google Scholar

50. Higham, , “Hanging Together,” 19.Google Scholar

51. Tyack, and Hansot, , Managers of Virtue, esp. 119–54.Google Scholar

52. Ibid., 120.Google Scholar

53. On vocational education, see Kantor, Harvey, “Vocationalism in American Education: The Economic and Political Context, 1880–1930,” in Work, Youth, and Schooling: Historical Perspectives on Vocationalism in American Education, eds. Kantor, Harvey and Tyack, David B. (Stanford, Calif., 1982). Labaree, , Making of an American High School, 177.Google Scholar

54. Tyack, and Hansot, , Managers of Virtue, 116.Google Scholar