Monographs on Education in the United States: Educational Organization and Administration

Excerpt from Monographs on Education in the United States: Educational Organization and Administration

The Dutch had gone farther than the English; they had just waged a long and dreadful and successful war for liberty, and with all its horrors war has uniformly sharpened the intelligence of a people. This war for civil and religious liberty had enlarged their freedom and quickened their activities; they had become the greatest sailors and the foremost manufacturers in the world; and they had established the government policy of maintaining not only colleges, but common schools for all.

The first permanent white settlers in the United States were English and Dutch. In the beginning they had no thought of ceasing to be Englishmen and loyal subjects of the English monarchy, or Dutchmen with permanent fellowship in the Dutch Republic. They each brought their national educational ideas with them. Each people was strongly influenced by religious feelings, and life in a new land intensified those feelings. The English in Massachusetts were at the beginning very like the English in England. The larger and wealthier and more truly English colony recognized class distinctions and followed the English educational policy. They first set up a college to train their aristocracy for places in the state and the church, and for a considerable time their ministers, either at the church or in the homes, taught the children enough to read the Bible and acquire the catechism. The Dutch, more democratic, with smaller numbers and less means, and more dependent upon their government over the sea, at once set up elementary schools at public cost and common to all. In a few years the English overthrew the little Dutch government and almost obliterated the elementary schools. For a century the English royal governors and the Dutch colonial legislatures struggled over the matter of common schools. The government was too strong for the humble people; little educational progress was made.

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