Study of education

Education, conceived as a social institution, is now being studied in the United States more widely and more energetically than ever before. The chairs of education in the great universities are the natural leaders in this movement. It is carried on also in normal schools, in teachers' training classes and in countless voluntary associations and clubs in every part of the country. Problems of organization and administration, of educational theory, of practical procedure in teaching, of child nature, of hygiene and sanitation, are engaging attention everywhere. Herein lies the promise of great advances in the future. Enthusiasm, earnestness and scientific method are all applied to the study of education in a way which makes it certain that the results will be fruitful. The future of democracy is bound up with the future of education.

The present work passes in review these and many other tendencies in American education. It describes the organization and influence of each type of formal school; it takes note of the more informal and popular organizations for popular education and instruction; it discusses the educational problems raised by the existence of special classes and of special needs, and sets forth how the United States has set about solving these problems. It may truly be said to be a cross-section view of education in the United States in 1900.

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

COLUMBIA UNIversity, New York

March 1, 1900

Professor of Philosophy and Education in Columbia University, New York

1

EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION

AND

ADMINISTRATION

BY

ANDREW SLOANE DRAPER

President of the University of Illinois

THIS MONOGRAPH IS CONTRIBUTED TO THE UNITED STATES EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT BY THE

STATE OF NEW YORK

EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND

ADMINISTRATION

INTRODUCTORY

Any treatment of the legal organization and the authoritative methods of administration by which the great public educational system of the United States is carried on must almost necessarily be opened by a statement of the salient points in the evolution of that system, for the form of organization and the laws governing the operations of the schools have not preceded, but followed and been determined by the educational movements of the people and the necessities of the case.

The first white settlers who came to America in the early part of the seventeenth century were from the European peoples, who were more advanced in civilization than any others in the world. Each of the nations first represented had already made some progress in the direction of popular education. Such educational ideals as these different peoples possessed had resulted from historic causes, and were very unlike. The influence more potent than any others in determining the character of American civic institutions were English and Dutch. The English government was a constitutional monarchy, but still a monarchy, and the constitutional limitations were neither so many nor so strong as later popular revolutions have made them. English thought accepted class distinctions among the people. The advantages of education were for the favored class, the nobility. The common people expected little. Colleges and fitting schools were maintained for the training of young men of. noble birth for places under the government and in the government church, but there were no common schools for all. The nobility were opposed to general education lest

the masses would come to recognize God-given rights and demand them, and the masses were yet too illiterate to understand and enforce the inalienable rights of human nature. 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. Near the close of that century the government