Ideal School System in America: the Common School Movement

Introduction

The Common School Movement began in colonial New England. However, its lasting impact has spread well past its origins. With its ideology promising equal job opportunity, as well as reduction of crime and poverty for all, the Common School Movement received support on almost all fronts. Although not completely without opposition, the Common School Movement has greatly impacted the American public school system we have today. Even after the movement ended, the impact of the Common School Movement can be seen throughout the public school system we use today.

Before the Common School Movement began, church, family, and community were at the center of Puritan life in New England. Until 1647 and the establishment of the Old Deluder Satan Act, education was not mandatory like it is today. With the enactment of the Deluder Law, towns were required to have one teacher when the town’s population reached above 50 households.

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The Birth of the Common School Movement

However, the law did not require that parents send their children to school, only that a school is established and parents ensure their child would receive some form of education. At the time, education was fully based on the Bible and available to all?as long as you were a white, rich male. The New England Primer and the Bible were the most common textbooks used. The Primer emphasized the importance of religion and taught basic reading and writing skills through Bible passages. Students were not taught reading and writing because it was believed everyone should have those basic skills; they were taught to read and write so they could then read the Bible and further their religious education. All life and education during this time revolved around the Bible and the importance of religion in everyday life. The landscape of education began to change in New England and across the United States once the Common School Movement began.

Horace Mann: The Father of the Common School

The movement was first made popular by Horace Mann, one of the most prominent figures at the time, who was considered the “Father of the Common School.” As the head of the State Board of Education in Massachusetts, Mann believed that education was the key to social and political conformity throughout the nation.

Because of this, Mann thought everyone had the right to be educated. He published several annual reports which outlined his goals for education at the time. Out of all the reports he published, the 10th and 12th were the most popular, as they were used to build support for the Common School Movement. The 10th Annual Report detailed that it was a right for everyone to be educated and that education was to be paid for by citizens through public taxation. Mann believed that more education in a community would increase the value of the community. Because of this, he thought the members of the community should pay for their education. By doing so, they were investing in themselves and bettering their own community.

The 12th Annual Report stated that the Common School would become the most effective force in the civilization, even more so than the church. He believed this for two main reasons. First, there was a universality to the Common School. It would have an impact on the entire next generation, as all children would have access to it. Second, children would be the main citizens impacted by the material and lessons taught in the Common School, and Mann believed children, at a young age, were the easiest to influence. Mann said, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Mann 47). Because of the school’s outreach and the age of most of the students, Mann believed the school could become more impactful in the day-to-day life of people than the church.

The Impact of the Common School Movement

The Common School ideal helped shape the movement and appealed to many for various reasons. First, it was the beginning of creating an equal playing field for everyone. Equal access to education meant equal work opportunities. Between the two most common social tracks, common and elite, there was now a bridge. It gave poorer families and children an opportunity to increase their family income and improve their social status. Second, a common education meant social improvement. Supporters of the Common School Movement believed that, through an education that emphasized Protestantism and moral values, there would be a decrease in crime because there would be less to disagree over due to the fact that everyone would have the same values. There would also be less poverty because, with more education, people would be able to find better-paying jobs. Another selling point of the Common School Movement was the promise of increased national identity among citizens. The material taught in the schools emphasized strong patriotic values. Children from all different backgrounds would enter the Common School; after being educated in the same place and having the same political and moral ideology ingrained in them, the children would all leave with the same beliefs. With this strategy, immigrant traditions and customs would be minimized, and patriotism would be increased across the United States, removing sources of conflict and creating a national identity. Life in a typical common schoolhouse varied across the nation. Some schools consisted of large, one-room schoolhouses. In these buildings, there were often up to two hundred children whose ages could vary from four to five years all the way to early teens. Because of the large age gap among the children, giving instruction was often difficult, and teachers relied on violence to maintain order. Instruction was generally given on an individual basis.

Students were given a lesson to memorize/learn from different textbooks. At the end of the day, students were expected to present what they had learned to the teacher. They would then be punished or rewarded for their work based on how well they performed. Rote memorization was emphasized over comprehension and understanding. Over time, the Lancasterian system of education was implemented in schoolhouses where there were too many students for the teacher to manage. With this system, teachers would teach lessons to older students, who were then responsible for teaching the material to younger students.

The Evolution of Common Schoolhouses

In other areas of the country, typically urban areas, graded classrooms were implemented. These classrooms are more representative of the system we have today. In these schoolhouses, students were divided into different rooms based on age. They were then taught material based on their grade level and previous understanding. The curriculum in these classrooms emphasized the Protestant way of life and was also patriotic and moral. While the curriculum was less religious than previous education, the Common School curriculum still supported Protestantism. Xenophobia was prominent at the time, and therefore the material taught was very patriotic and extremely anti-immigrant. With the influx of immigrants, school leaders wanted a pro-American education system that would strip immigrant students of their culture and unite the country. Education emphasized the “Three R’s,” which included reading, writing, and mathematics. At the beginning of the movement, the Webster Blue Back speller was the main textbook. Written by Noah Webster, the Blue Back Speller emphasized American English versus British English, again reinforcing the idea of creating a united nation and separating ourselves from other cultures. Webster, who believed foreign education was evil, said, “It is better for youth to have no education than to have a bad one, for it is more difficult to eradicate habits than it is to impress new ideas” (Webster 30).

In this situation, the “bad education” Webster is referring to is a foreign education. The Webster Speller was then replaced by the McGuffey Reader, which became the most successful textbook to have ever been published in the United States. The McGuffey Reader taught grammar, spelling, and morality. Over time, new versions of the text became less and less religious, showing the declining importance of religion in society. Education began to become more practical based on the location of the school. Farmers in the Midwest did not see the value in learning French when they would never use or need it. Education changed from school to school and region to region based on what was required from the citizens in the area. Because of this, it was required that teachers have an immense amount of knowledge in all subjects in order to best serve their students and the community. Teachers in the Common Schools started out as mostly males.

Opposition and Controversies

However, this changed over time. The ideal common school teacher was a female who could be paid less than a male. They were required to be morally upstanding citizens who were nurturing and kind. They needed to be loyal Americans who were willing to move across the country where and when they were needed. It was also important that they were religious and remained unmarried and pure, as they were setting an example for hundreds of students. While being kind, it was also important they were still able to manage the children and maintain order and discipline in the classroom. Women were thought to naturally possess most of these qualities and were the ideal choice for a teacher. Horace Mann, as mentioned before, and Catharine Beecher, another important figure in the movement, each played a large role in the professionalization of teachers and the use of female teachers in schools. Mann listed several qualities which he concluded were the ideal characteristics for teachers at the time.

They would need a perfect knowledge of all the subjects that were taught in the classroom; they must have an aptitude for teaching, the ability to manage and discipline a school room, and good behavior and morals. Mann, who believed teachers should have been as valued as lawyers and doctors, demanded better conditions for teachers, including higher wages. He worked to increase the professionalization among teachers, as a good teacher meant a good school, and a poor teacher meant a poor school. Catharine Beecher was also influential during the Common School Movement in promoting the use of female teachers. Beecher believed that women like her, white, middle class, and Protestant, would make the best teachers, as they were the “guardians of morality.”

The Legacy of the Common School Movement

In an essay she wrote on the education of females, Beecher said, “What are the most important and peculiar duties of the female sex? It is the physical, intellectual, and moral education of children. It is the care of health and the formation of the character of the future citizens of this great nation” (Beecher 51). Beecher demanded the movement of female teachers out West. As the population in the United States was rising, so was the population of uneducated citizens. The West at the time was seen as lawless and sinful; female teachers were needed immediately in order to prevent the ignorance and corruption that would take over if the population was not properly educated. Beecher’s push to move female teachers West was a huge moment for women; it gave them a respectable career and earned them a valuable place in society. In order to encourage more women to join the workforce and become teachers, letters from current teachers who had moved westward were published to persuade other women to move and pursue the same path. An excerpt from one of these letters stated, “I feel as if it was one of heaven’s best blessings, that I was sent here, where there can be no shrinking of labor – no release from responsibility and no lack of room to work in” (Unknown 85). Despite all of the hard work by Horace Mann, Catharine Beecher, and others, the Common School movement was not popular among everyone, including groups such as the rich, the Democratic Party, and Native Americans. Most rich people did not support the movement because it meant an increase in taxes. Horace Mann’s 10th Annual Report argued that the people should pay for public education because by doing so, they were improving their own community by improving the people in the community. The rich, however, who could already afford to educate their children outside of the Common School, saw it as a waste. They did not want to have to pay for other people’s children to attend school when they were already paying large amounts of money to send their own children to a private school or have their own children see a private tutor. T

he Democratic party at the time was also against the Common School movement. The Democratic party believed that there was too much government. They believed that the economy and the state should function without intervention from the state. Because of this, the Democratic party was not a fan of any movement that would mandate education or force kids into school because that meant an increase in state government control and power. Finally, Native Americans who became victims of the Common School Movement were not promoting it. Because patriotism was one of the main ideals that shaped the movement, as the movement headed West toward Native American territory, many Native Americans were forced from their homes and into alternative schools, which would rid them of their culture and “Americanize” them. “Brother, our seats were once large, and yours were very small; you have now become a great people, and we have scarcely a place left to spread our blankets; you have got our country but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us” (Seneca 92). The impact of the Common School Movement can still be seen throughout the public school system we have today. Implemented because of Mann’s 10th Annual Report, public taxation was used to fund the Common School system.

Reflection in Today’s Schools: Age-Graded Classrooms and the Influence of Past Ideals

Today, this system has continued; we use public funds to pay for our current public school system. Also established by Mann’s annual reports, the school has become more influential than the church. As times have changed and the prominence of other religions in the United States has increased, Protestantism’s emphasis has lessened in our daily lives. Today more children attend school than they do church, and because of that, the school has become more important than the church in our lives. Religion in public schools has also lessened since the Common School Movement. The movement began the be minimizing the role of religion in public schools as texts shifted from the Bible to the McGuffey Reader. Today, while we learn about religions in public schools, religion is no longer used to teach us all basic skills. Catharine Beecher and Horace Mann’s work can still be seen in the reflection of the teachers. The qualities Mann believed made the ideal teacher, including good morals and values, the ability to manage a classroom, etc., are still prominent qualities of teachers today. Beecher’s initiative to force women into the workforce as teachers can as still be seen today.

Conclusion

While not all, a majority of our teachers are still females. The age-graded classroom is another feature of the Common School which has carried into today’s public school system. While the movement began with large one-room schoolhouses, the age-graded schoolhouses where students were split by age and skill level are representative of the system we use today. The Common School movement changed the face of public education in the 1800s across the United States. From de-emphasizing religion and introducing female teachers to the work done by Horace Mann and Catharine Beecher, the effects of the movement ended the previous religious hold in education that was at the forefront of all life at the time. Today, as much of our public school education system is based on ideas or movements initiated during the time, we can still see the influence of the movement in our day-to-day lives.

References

1. Goldin, Claudia, and Katz, Lawrence F. The Race between Education and Technology. Harvard University Press, 2010.

2. Thelin, John R. A History of American Higher Education. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.

3. Rury, John L. Education and Social Change: Contours in the History of American Schooling. Routledge, 2019.

4. Schaeffer, Nellie. "The Common School Movement in America, 1830-1900." Peabody Journal of Education, vol. 31, no.

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