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Common Schools Before the “Common School Revival”: New York Schooling in the 1790's

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Carl F. Kaestle
Carl F. Kaestle*
Affiliation:
Educational Policy Studies and History at the University of Wisconsin
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Extract

In late colonial America schooling was plentiful but unorganized; schools were increasing in importance but still supplementary to the family, the church, and apprenticeship. Throughout the colonies schools provided training in rudiments for the many, classical training for the few, and some supplementary schooling in technical subjects for a growing number of town dwellers. Common schooling was not “neglected,” as historians of the public school system once asserted; rather, the legacy of the colonial period was a mode of schooling quite different in structure and operation from that to which we have been accustomed since the mid-nineteenth century. In coastal towns like New York, parents bought schooling as a commodity in an open market. Schoolmasters competing for students offered subjects ranging from the alphabet to astronomy, for children of all ages, at all times of the day. Schooling arrangements were haphazard and temporary; people in all ranks of society gained their education in a patchwork, rather than a pattern, of teachers and experiences.

Type
New Perspectives on the Common School
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , Winter 1972 , pp. 465 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © 1973 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. See also Bernard Bailyn, Education in the Forming of American Society (Chapel Hill, 1960), and Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607–1783 (New York, 1970).Google Scholar

2. Kaestle, , The Evolution of an Urban School System, chaps. 3–6; see also, Michael B. Katz, The Irony of Early School Reform: Educational Innovation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Massachusetts (Cambridge, Mass., 1968); Stanley K. Schultz, “The Education of Urban Americans: Boston, 1789–1860”, (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1969); Raymond A. Mohl, “Education as Social Control in New York City, 1784–1785,” New York History 61 (Spring 1970): 219–37.Google Scholar

3. New York Daily Advertiser, January 13, 1791, cited in Sidney I. Pomerantz, New York, an American City, 1783–1803, 2d ed. (New York, 1965), p. 216; on the economics of the 1780s, see E. Wilder Spaulding, New York in the Critical Period, 1783–1789 (New York, 1932), pp. 28–29.Google Scholar

4. Pomerantz, , New York, p. 216; Roberts, Kenneth and Roberts, Anna M., eds., Moreau de St. Mery's American Journey, 1793–1798 (New York, 1947), pp. 157–60. These sources imply that the wage increase represented increases in real income.Google Scholar

5. On commodity prices, see Moreau, Journey, pp. 157–60; on rents, see James G. Wilson, The Memorial History of the City of New York (New York, 1893), 2:21, and Pomerantz, New York, pp. 169, 227–28. The best proof that workingmen could afford school tuition is that so many of them in fact appear in the pay school lists analyzed below.Google Scholar

6. See Douglass, Paul H., American Apprenticeship and Industrial Education (New York, 1921); Samuel McKee, Jr., Labor in Colonial New York (New York, 1935); Richard B. Morris, Government and Labor in Early America (New York, 1946). Douglass wrote that apprenticeship was unchanged after the Revolution and began to decline with industrialization after the War of 1812, while McKee (p. 62f.) saw signs of decline before the Revolution, and Morris (p. 200) says the system began to decline at the close of the Revolution. There are no figures available to document any of these contentions, but impressionistic evidence, such as is presented here, indicates that while apprenticeship may have begun to “deline,” it had not, by any means, “declined.”Google Scholar

7. New York City Almshouse Commissioners, Apprentice Indentures, 1792–1794, New-York Historical Society (hereafter cited as NYHS). By 1850, in contrast, there was less demand for craft apprentices in the city and a trend toward exporting the children. In 1850–1851, 58 of 108 poor children were sent away to become farmers, and 21 more were bound to craftsmen outside New York City. New York City Apprentice Indentures, Boys, 1850–1853, NYHS.Google Scholar

8. The assumption that city directories underrepresent common laborers and especially mariners is probably correct, although the directories of the late 1790s seem to be more inclusive than the first efforts of the 1780s or the later nineteenth-century directories. Low's Directory for 1796 contains approximately 10,100 entries, of which approximately 1,900 are female household heads or redundant firm names, leaving 8,200 male adult entries. The estimated population for 1795 is 46,397 (see note 27 below), of which about 25 percent, or 11,579, were white males over 16. This would yield an inclusion percentage of 70.8 percent. However, the male adult figure (based on the percentage in the 1800 Census, 25.3 percent) is for whites, whereas the Directory included some black household heads. This would make the inclusion figure too high, perhaps by 5 percent. On the other hand, and more importantly, many men between 16 and 21, or even older, were apprentices or still lived with their families and thus would not appear in the Directory as heads of households. This would more than compensate for the omission of blacks in the population estimate. Thus (granting that the total population figure is hypothetical), Low's Directory seems to have included over 70 percent of the city's male adults. Furthermore, we must not assume that those omitted were all common laborers or mariners; indeed, in this case we can disprove it. Fortunately, a competing directory for the same year survives, Longworth's New York Directory for 1796, which includes well over 1,000 names of male adults not found in Low's Directory. The occupations of the first ten nonduplicated names are as follows: tobacconist, cartman, mason, ropemaker, carpenter, laborer, goldbeater, mason, cartman, mariner. Therefore, while Table 1 may somewhat underrepresent laborers and mariners, it is not a great exaggeration.Google Scholar

9. See Harlow, Alvin F., Old Bowery Days (New York, 1931), p. 90; Elinor Barnes, “The First Federal City, New York in 1789,” New York History 21 (April 1940): 160; Alfred Young, “The Mechanics and the Jeffersonians, New York, 1787–1801,” Labor History 5 (Fall 1964): 260–61.Google Scholar

10. Noah Webster to William Currie, December 20, 1797, in Letters of Noah Webster ed. Warfel, Harry N. (New York, 1953), pp. 168–69; Moreau, Journey, pp. 156, 166; Alfred Young, The Democratic Republicans of New York (Chapel Hill, 1967), pp. 471–74.Google Scholar

11. The higher concentration of renters in some wards and owners in others was increasing and is emphasized in Young, Demoocratic Republicans, e.g., p. 474. The remark of Young and Lynd, however, that “the suffrage bottle may be viewed as half full or half empty,” applies to residential segregation as well; it is a matter of emphasis (Staughton Lynd and Alfred Young, “After Carl Becker; The Mechanics and New York City Politics, 1774–1806,” Labor History 5 [Fall 1964]: 223). The description of Harlem is from John Bernard, Retrospections of America (New York, 1887), p. 50.Google Scholar

12. Harlow, , Bowery, p. 91; see also Kenneth D. Miller, The People Are the City: 150 Years of Social and Religious Concern in New York City (New York, 1962), p. 25. For a similar assessment of Boston in this period, see Schultz, “Education of Urban Americans,” p. 47, and Oscar Handlin, Boston's Immigrants, 1790–1880, rev. ed. (Boston, 1959), p. 15.Google Scholar

13. Allen, Stephen, Letters, typescript, NYHS, p. 22.Google Scholar

14. Purcell, Richard J., “Immigration to the Canal Era,“ in History of the State of New York, ed. Flick, Hugh M., 10 vols. (New York, 1934–1937), 7:7, 12f.; Wilson, History, 3:71; Young, “Mechanics and Jeffersonians,” p. 264 and passim.Google Scholar

15. Pomerantz, , New York, pp. 334, 337–38; I. N. Phelps Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan Island, 6 vols. (New York, 1895–1928), May 22, 1794 [dates refer to his “Chronology”]; New York Argus, September 3, 1795; Webster to Theodore Sedgwick, January 2, 1795, in Warfel, Letters, p. 124; the Gaine quotation is found in Pomerantz, New York, p. 203.Google Scholar

16. Wilson, , History, 3: 84; New York Argus, June 11, 1795.Google Scholar

17. Report, Almshouse, in Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1784–1831, ed. Peterson, Arthur E., 21 vols. (New York, 1917, 1930), 2:125.Google Scholar

18. American Magazine 1 (1788): 215, 226.Google Scholar

19. [Low's] New York Directory … 1796 (New York, 1796). The Directory lists 97 teachers for 1796; four others have been added from other sources. When the Columbia professors and the dancing and music teachers are eliminated, the number is reduced to 91 teachers engaged in precollegiate academic schooling. The figure is probably low because some wives who were not listed separately probably taught, and some ministers, like the Reverend Christopher Peter of the United Brethren Church, were also schoolmasters. See Christopher Peter to Common Council, May 18, 1796, New York Municipal Archives (hereafter cited as NYMA). The Rev. Staughton advertised for grammar scholars in 1795, and his wife opened a full school for girls. See The New York Argus, August 14, 1795. Instructors such as these tend not to appear in directories as teachers.Google Scholar

20. The group for whom no tax listing was found is ambiguous. Some were rated at less than £20 and thus paid no taxes; for example, teacher Jeremiah Connor was listed, probably by error, then rated at £0. Others, however, had simply moved between the time the Directory was prepared and the property assessments were made; for example, teacher Samuel Rudd was not listed in the tax rolls at the address given for him in the Directory, but at a different address in the tax lists, rated at £25. It was not possible to check the entire tax list for all names. Sources: 1796 Directory; New York City Tax Lists, 1796, NYHS; Teachers’ Reports to the Common Council, New York City Clerk, Filed Papers, Box 6459, NYMA.Google Scholar

21. Income reported, April 1, 1795–April 1, 1796, in eighteen of the teacher reports, ibid. There is no systematic study of wages and occupations to provide context for this figure. In lieu of such information, the occupation and tax assessments of teacher Benjamin Romaine's neighbors will provide a sketchy comparison. The first twenty-five names on Partition Street, Fourth Ward, whose occupations are known, were chosen (these are not annual incomes but tax evaluations, real and personal combined): 5 house-carpenters (£20, £305, £390, £550, and £1,000); 5 cartmen (£20, £20, £20, £20, and £390); 2 lawyers (£250 and £450); 2 blacksmiths (£20 and £1250); others, one each: painter glazier (£80), weighmaster (£400), customs weigher (£50), minister (£800), block and pump maker (£20) surgeon-dentist (£50), coachmaker (£20), dry good seller (£500), and deputy sheriff (£50).Google Scholar

22. Of the 31 women, none was assessed at even £20 except the wealthy widow Henshaw who owned and operated a “young ladies academy.” Thirteen were listed as widows, eight as “Mrs.” (some of whom, like Mrs. Henshaw, were widows), one as “Miss,” and nine whose marital status was not given.Google Scholar

23. Teachers’ Reports, NYMA.Google Scholar

24. See Fishlow, Albert, “The American Common School Revival: Fact or Fancy?“ in Industrialization in Two Systems, ed. Rosovsky, H. (New York, 1966), pp. 41, 46.Google Scholar

25. The 64 children whose parents were not found in the Directory may have included a higher proportion of poorer families because the Directory probably omitted more poor men than others. Student names were matched with parents in several ways. The most secure are those matched through baptisms. Except with very common names, these identifications are fairly certain. Second, children with the same family name, especially if listed next to each other, were generally assumed to be siblings, so some baptismal identifications led to further matching of brothers or sisters with parents. Third, in the case of the Dutch charity school, the parents’ names and addresses were recorded on the register and are reprinted in Dunshee, Dutch Church. These three means of identification provided the parents’ names for about half of the final sample. The others were identified from wills, or, with less certainty, by the general combination of probability factors, that is, whether the name was less than common, whether there was only one such adult listed in the Directory, whether that adult lived close to school, and whether the family structure of that household head (as recorded in the federal Census of 1790) allowed the possibility of a child of the right sex and age. These factors were combined in judgments that yielded probable, if not positive, identifications. Many possible matches were discarded. The materials used, in addition to the Teachers’ Reports, Low's 1796 Directory and the 1790 Census, Heads of Families … (Washington, 1908), included: First Presbyterian Church (12 West 12th Street), Baptisms, MS, Vol. I (1728–1790), Vol. II (1791–1802); Trinity Church, Baptisms, transcript, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, Vol. I (1749–1813); Methodist Episcopal Church Records, Vol. 233, Baptisms, NYPL; Wright, Tobias A., ed., Records of the Reformed Dutch Church … Baptisms, 1731–1800 (New York, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, 1902; reprinted, Gregg Press, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 1968); Rev. James H. McGean, “The Earliest Baptismal Register of St. Peter's Church, New York City,” Historical Records and Studies 1 (Part I, 1899, Part II, 1900): 97–107, 387–99; and New York City Wills, New York Surrogate's Court, Room 402.Google Scholar

26. The estimated population in 1795, on the basis of a simple arithmetic increase between the 1790 and 1800 federal census returns (which tends to overestimate the 1795 population, and therefore to underestimate percentage of school attenders) is 46,397. The percentage of children 0 to 15 (i.e., under 16) was estimated to be 41 percent on the basis of the following known figures: the ratio of such children to total population was 40.1 percent for whites in 1786, 39.9 percent for whites in 1790, 42.2 percent for whites in 1800; 42.9 percent for blacks in 1747, 35.7 percent for blacks in 1771. Using this 41 percent figure, children 0–15 are estimated at 17,023 in 1795. The ratio of children 5 to 15 is estimated to be 59 percent of the 0–15 figure on the basis of the slightly strained analogy that 61 percent of children 0–14 were 5–14 in 1850 and 57 percent in 1855, the closest relevant figures available. The estimated school age population for 1795, then, is 59 percent x 17,023, or 10,043. The estimated enrollment, 5,249 children, is 52.2 percent of the estimated school age population.Google Scholar

27. Pomerantz, See, New York, p. 430; for seaman's wages, see Stanley Lebergott, Manpower in Economic Growth; The American Record Since 1800 (New York, 1964), p. 531.Google Scholar

28. Society of Associated Teachers of New York City, MS, New York State Library, Albany, published in full in the 37th Annual Report of the State Superintendent for the School Year … 1889–90 (Albany, Department of Public Instruction, 1891), to which page references cited here refer. On the Republican complexion of the Associated Teachers, see Young, Democratic Republicans, p. 406.Google Scholar

29. Teachers, Associated, Minutes, pp. 253, 256, 267, 287.Google Scholar

30. Stokes, , Iconography, May 10, 1794; Associated Teachers, Minutes, p. 290.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., pp. 282, 288.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., pp. 300, 274.Google Scholar

33. Fisk, Jonathan, “On Education,“ Anniversary Oration to the Society of Associated Teachers of the City of New York, May 19, 1798, MS, NYHS, pp. 21, 30–31.Google Scholar

34. New York Argus, May 21, 1796.Google Scholar

35. New York Argus, May 21, 1796; on Campbell, see ibid., June 2, 1795; Associated Teachers, Minutes, p. 279.Google Scholar

36. Clinton, George, speech to the legislature, 1795, in State of New York, Messages from the Governors …, ed. Lincoln, Charles Z., (Albany, 1909), 2:350; Samuel S. Randall, History of the Common School System of the State of New York … (New York, 1871), pp. 7–10; New York Laws, 1795, chap. 75.Google Scholar

37. Minutes of the Common Council, 2:154; Associated Teachers, Minutes, pp. 273–79; Minutes of the Common Council, 2:237.Google Scholar

38. Petition of the Teachers of the City of New York to the Commissioners of Schools in and for the City and County of New York, September 12, 1796, Box 6415, NYMA; Minutes of the Common Council, 2:154.Google Scholar

39. On the charity schools see Henry W. Dunshee, History of the School of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in New York …, (New York, 2d ed., 1883); William W. Kemp, The Support of Schools in Colonial New York by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (New York, 1913); David and Tamar de Sola Pool, An Old Truth in the New World; Portrait of Shearith Israel, 165–1954 (New York, 1955); Charles C. Andrews, The History of the New York African Free School (New York, 1830).Google Scholar

40. Minutes of the Common Council, 2:281.Google Scholar

41. Trustees of the Bloomingdale School to the Common Council, November 30, 1797, Box 6415, NYMA; Minutes of the Common Council, 2:410.Google Scholar

42. Minutes of the Common Council, 2:281; Report of the Committee on the Distribution of Monies to the Charity Schools, October 24, 1796, Box 6459, NYMA.Google Scholar

43. Minutes of the Common Council, 2:281; Memorial of the Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of New York to the Legislature of the State of New York, October 24, 1796, draft, Box 6459, NYMA.Google Scholar

44. Hobson, Elsie G., Educational Legislation and Administration in the State of New York, 177–1850 (Chicago, 1918), p. 83.Google Scholar

45. Ibid., p. 29; Randall, Common School System, pp. 9–11; see also Robert F. Seybolt, The Act of 1795 for the Encouragement of Schools and the Practice in Westchester County, New York State Local History Service Leaflets (Albany, 1919).Google Scholar

46. Minutes of the Common Council, 2:309; 2:628; 3:12.Google Scholar

47. The extant required reports on these grants are found in Box 2990, NYMA.Google Scholar