The History Of Education by Ellwood P. Cubberley (epub e reader .txt) 📖

III. THE BATTLE TO MAKE THE SCHOOLS ENTIRELY FREE

THE SCHOOLS NOT YET FREE. The rate-bill, as we have previously stated, was an old institution, also brought over from England, as the term “rate”

signifies. It was a charge levied upon the parent to supplement the school revenues and prolong the school term, and was assessed in proportion to the number of children sent by each parent to the school. In some States, as for example Massachusetts and Connecticut, its use went back to colonial times; in others it was added as the cost for education increased, and it was seen that the income from permanent funds and authorized taxation was not sufficient to maintain the school the necessary length of time. The deficiency in revenue was charged against the parents sending children to school, pro rata, and collected as ordinary tax-bills (R. 321). The charge was small, but it was sufficient to keep many poor children away from the schools.

The rising cities, with their new social problems, could not and would not tolerate the rate-bill system, and one by one they secured special laws from legislatures which enabled them to organize a city school system, separate from city-council control, and under a local “board of education.” One of the provisions of these special laws nearly always was the right to levy a city tax for schools sufficient to provide free education for the children of the city.

[Illustration: FIG. 202. THE NEW YORK REFERENDUM OF 1850

Total vote: For free schools, 17 counties and 209,346 voters; against free schools, 42 counties and 184,308 voters.]

THE FIGHT AGAINST THE RATE-BILL IN NEW YORK. The attempt to abolish the rate-bill and make the schools wholly free was most vigorously contested in New York State, and the contest there is most easily described. From 1828 to 1868, this tax on the parents produced an average annual sum of $410,685.66, or about one half of the sum paid all the teachers of the State for salary. While the wealthy districts were securing special legislation and taxing themselves to provide free schools for their children, the poorer and less populous districts were left to struggle to maintain their schools the four months each year necessary to secure state aid. Finally, after much agitation, and a number of appeals to the legislature to assume the rate-bill charges in the form of general state taxation, and thus make the schools entirely free, the legislature, in 1849, referred the matter back to the people to be voted on at the elections that autumn. The legislature was to be thus advised by the people as to what action it should take. The result was a state-wide campaign for free, public, tax-supported schools, as against partially free, rate-bill schools.

The result of the 1849 election was a vote of 249,872 in favor of making “the property of the State educate the children of the State,” and 91,952

against it. This only seemed to stir the opponents of free schools to renewed action, and they induced the next legislature to resubmit the question for another vote, in the autumn of 1850.

The result of the referendum of 1850 is shown on the map on page 685. The opponents of tax-supported schools now mustered their full strength, doubling their vote in 1849, while the majority for free schools was materially cut down. The interesting thing shown on this map was the clear and unmistakable voice of the cities. They would not tolerate the rate-bill, and, despite their larger property interests, they favored tax-supported free schools. The rural districts, on the other hand, opposed the idea.

THE RATE-BILL IN OTHER STATES. These two referenda virtually settled the question in New York, though for a time a compromise was adopted. The state appropriation for schools was very materially increased, the rate-bill was retained, and the organization of “union districts” to provide free schools by local taxation where people desired them was authorized.

Many of these “union free districts” now arose in the more progressive communities of the State, and finally, in 1867, after rural and other forms of opposition had largely subsided, and after almost all the older States had abandoned the plan, the New York legislature finally abolished the rate-bill and made the schools of New York entirely free.

The dates for the abolition of the rate-bill in the other older Northern States were:

1834. Pennsylvania. 1867. New York.

1852. Indiana. 1868. Connecticut.

1853. Ohio. 1868. Rhode Island.

1855. Illinois. 1869. Michigan.

1864. Vermont. 1871. New Jersey.

The New York fight of 1849 and 1850 was the pivotal fight; in the other States it was abandoned by legislative act, and without a serious contest.

In the Southern States free education came with the educational reorganizations following the close of the Civil War.

IV. THE BATTLE TO ESTABLISH SCHOOL SUPERVISION

BEGINNINGS OF STATE CONTROL. The great battle for state schools was not only for taxation to stimulate their development where none existed, but was also indirectly a battle for some form of state control of the local systems which had already grown up. The establishment of permanent state school funds by the older States, to supplement any other aid which might be granted, also tended toward the establishment of some form of state supervision and control of the local school systems. The first step was the establishment of some form of state aid; the next was the imposing of conditions necessary to secure this state aid.

State oversight and control, however, does not exercise itself, and it soon became evident that the States must elect or appoint some officer to represent the State and enforce the observance of its demands. It would be primarily his duty to see that the laws relating to schools were carried out, that statistics as to existing conditions were collected and printed, and that communities were properly advised as to their duties and the legislature as to the needs of the State. We find now the creation of a series of school officers to represent the State, the enactment of new laws extending control, and a struggle to integrate, subordinate, and reduce to some semblance of a state school system the hundreds of little community school systems which had grown up.

THE FIRST STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS. The first American State to create a state officer to exercise supervision over its schools was New York, in 1812. In enacting the new law [8] providing for state aid for schools the first State Superintendent of Common Schools in the United States was created. So far as is known this was a distinctively American creation, uninfluenced by the practice in any other land. It was to be the duty of this officer to look after the establishment and maintenance of the schools throughout the State. [9] Maryland created the office in 1826, but two years later abolished it and did not recreate it until 1864. Illinois directed its Secretary of State to act, ex officio, as Superintendent of Schools in 1825, as did also Vermont in 1827, Louisiana in 1833, Pennsylvania in 1834, and Tennessee in 1835. Illinois did not create a real State Superintendent of Schools, though, until 1854, Vermont until 1845, Louisiana until 1847, Pennsylvania until 1857, or Tennessee until 1867. The first States to create separate school officials who have been continued to the present time were Michigan and Kentucky, both in 1837.

Often quite a legislative struggle took place to secure the establishment of the office, and later on to prevent its abolition.

[Illustration: FIG. 203. STATUS OF SCHOOL SUPERVISION IN THE UNITED STATES

BY 1861

For a list of the 28 City Superintendencies established up to 1870, see Cubberley’s Public School Administration, p. 58. For the history of the state educational office in each State see Cubberley and Elliott, State and County School Administration, Source Book, pp. 283-87.]

By 1850 there were ex-officio state school officers in nine and regular school officers in seven of the then thirty-one States, and by 1861 there were ex-officio officers in nine and regular officers in nineteen of the then thirty-four States, as well as one of each in two of the organized Territories. The above map shows the growth of supervisory oversight by 1861—forty-nine years from the time the first American state school officer was created. The map also shows the ten of the thirty-four States which had, by 1861, also created the office of County Superintendent of Schools, as well as the twenty-five cities which had, by 1861, created the office of City Superintendent of Schools. Only three more cities—Albany, Washington, and Kansas City—were added before 1870, making a total of twenty-eight, but since that date the number of city superintendents has increased to something like fourteen hundred to-day.

THE FIRST STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION. Another important form for state control which was created a little later was the State Board of Education, with an appointed Secretary, who exercised about the same functions as a State Superintendent of Schools. This form of organization first arose in Massachusetts, in 1837, in an effort to subordinate the district schools and reduce them to a semblance of an organized system. In 1826 each town (township) had been required to appoint a School Committee (School Board) to exercise general supervision over its schools, in 1834 the state permanent school fund was created, and in 1837 the reform movement reached its culmination in the creation of the first real State Board of Education in the United States. Instead of following the usual American practice of the time, and providing for an elected State School Superintendent, Massachusetts provided for a small appointed State Board of Education which in turn was to select a Secretary, who was to act in the capacity of a state school officer and report to the Board, and through it to the legislature and the people. Neither the Board nor the Secretary were given any powers of compulsion, their work being to investigate conditions, report facts, expose defects, and make recommendations as to action to the legislature. The permanence and influence of the Board thus depended very largely on the character of the Secretary it selected.

HORACE MANN THE FIRST SECRETARY. A prominent Brown University graduate and lawyer in the State Senate, by the name of Horace Mann (1796-1859), who as president of the Senate had been of much assistance in securing passage of the bill creating the State Board of Education, was finally induced by the Governor and the Board to accept the position of Secretary. Mr. Mann now began a most memorable work of educating public opinion, and soon became the acknowledged leader in school organization in the United States. State after State called upon him for advice and counsel, while his twelve annual Reports to the State Board of Education will always remain memorable documents. Public men of all classes—lawyers, clergymen, college professors, literary men, teachers—were laid under tribute and sent forth over the State explaining to the people the need for a reawakening of educational interest in Massachusetts. Every year Mr. Mann organized a “campaign,” to explain to the people the meaning and importance of general education. So successful was he, and so ripe was the time for such a movement, that he not only started a great common school revival in Massachusetts which led to the regeneration of the schools there, but one which was felt and which influenced development in every Northern State.

His twelve carefully written Reports on the condition of education in Massachusetts and elsewhere, with his intelligent discussion of the aims and purposes of public education, occupy a commanding place in the history of American education, while he will always be regarded as perhaps the greatest of the “founders” of our American system of free public schools.