Part 15

The object of the school, as held by the founders, is well described by a Boston citizen, who writes thus in 1643 to some of his friends: “After we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for worship, and settled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and to perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust. And as we were thinking and consulting how to effect this great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Howard (a godly gentleman and a lover of learning, then living among us) to give the one half of his estate ... toward the erecting of a College, and all his library.”

In the contemplation of a college by those noble men, the uppermost thought was _how to gain an educated ministry_. This object was lost sight of.

“It must be remembered,” writes Boone, “that for sixty years the institution was little more than a _training-school for ministers_, managed as a theological seminary, having religion, of a more or less well-defined type, as its basis and chief object. Yet, as Professor Emerson has put it, ‘It is one of the most remarkable things in the history of Harvard, that, in all the constitutions of the college there is _nothing illiberal or sectarian_; _nothing to check the freest pursuit of truth in theological opinions, and in everything else_; and this, too, while the founders of the college were severely and strictly orthodox, often exclusive in their own opinions, and while their object was unquestionably to provide for the thorough education of ministers of the gospel in like views with themselves.’” “The very foundation idea of the college,” says Boone, in another paragraph, “was the theological want.”

“The presidents and members of the corporation were generally the prominent scholars, the theologians, and the political leaders of the community and time. The college easily came to be the arena upon which, or the interest about which, were fought those terrible logomachies of dogma and doctrine. These required, as they had, the best learning, the shrewdest insight, the most politic minds of the day.”

This perhaps explains that former statement, that the education of ministers by Harvard had more than anything else to do with the overthrow of the theocracy established about Boston.

[Sidenote: A manifest spirit of democracy]

It is interesting, also, to note the spirit of democracy which this institution fostered. In speaking of the raising of the fund for erecting the building, Boone says: “The colony caught his [Mr. Harvard’s] spirit, ... and all did something, even the indigent. One subscribed a number of sheep; another, nine shillings’ worth of cloth; one, a ten-shilling pewter flagon; others, a fruit-dish, a sugar-spoon, a silver-tipped jug, etc.... No rank, no class of men, is unrepresented. The school was of the people.”[161] “It was nursed by democracy,” and it in turn nursed democracy. Surely the Spirit of God was pleading with men so to arrange their leading educational institution that the principles of the Reformation might be perpetuated.

[Sidenote: Early course of study in Harvard]

The course of study for this ministers’ school, as described by Emerson, was remarkably free from sectarianism, and liberal in thought. “The Bible was systematically studied for the entire three years, Ezra, Daniel, and the New Testament being specified. A year was given to catechetical divinity.”[162] Students were required to attend worship twice daily, when the Scriptures were read in Hebrew or Greek, and they were required to translate the selection. History received some attention, but the sciences were practically unknown, and “all profane literature was excluded.”

Through all this is discernible the attempt to educate for the cause of Christ. With this beginning, what might have been accomplished had the plan, with truth unadulterated, been followed! The work done in later days by the schools, under the direction of the State, is but an indication of the broad field which lay ahead of Harvard and similar institutions, _had the church remained in her province as the educator of her own children_.

[Sidenote: Indications of papal principles]

From the very foundation of Harvard may be seen indications that there was alongside of these principles of Christian education somewhat of medieval teaching, which, unless discovered and banished would act as leaven, permeating the whole loaf. For instance, when the college was less than twenty years old, we find this requirement for admission announced: “When any scholar is able to read Tully or any like classical Latin author, _ex tempore_, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose, and define perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, then may he be admitted to the College; nor shall any claim admission before such qualifications.” This, of course, was patterning after the European universities, and theirs was a papal system.

This was the Harvard of colonial times. As we enter the Revolutionary period, we may look for changes as the result of both the correct and the incorrect principles harbored. Is Harvard, with all her wonderful facilities, training as many for gospel service to-day as she did of old? Yale, the second Congregational school, followed closely the plans and object of Harvard.

[Sidenote: Education in Virginia monarchical]

William and Mary, the second college in the United States, was founded under different circumstances. It was born in the midst of wealth, and was befriended by cavaliers and courtiers. “The roots,” says Boone, “were deep in the great English ecclesiastical system,” and yet the avowed object was “that the college, when established, should be a ‘seminary for the breeding of good ministers.’” Notwithstanding good intentions, it mixed scholastic teachings; for it stood for “the Oxford order of humanities; the _abstract_ as the foundation of the concrete; everything for discipline; the ancient languages before the modern.” Jefferson was a graduate of this school, and later it will be seen how this man, whose mind comprehended so clearly the principles of religious liberty, strove to break away from this mixture in education, and advocated a decidedly secular education in schools which were supported by the State, thereby avoiding in such institutions the mixture of secular and religious training.

So far, we see the Episcopal school, William and Mary, deeply rooted in the English ecclesiastical system, and unable to receive the Reformation principles of education pure and simple. The two Congregational schools, Harvard and Yale, approached more nearly the Protestant ideal, but being unable to break wholly the bond of scholasticism, they made much of preparatory work in the classics.

[Sidenote: Education problems of Colonial days]

Some or the educational problems with which our Colonial Fathers had to wrestle were “parental responsibility, the general viciousness of indolence, the educative office of labor, the State’s relation to individual need, compulsory employment and schooling, the state ownership of child-life,” and above all, and including all, the relation the church sustained to the schools, how far secular education could be offered in Christian schools, and how far the church could ask aid of the state in the conduct of church schools. They were weighty questions upon which hung, and still hangs, the destiny of a nation.

No sharp dividing line can be drawn between the Colonial and the Revolutionary periods. The work begun in the Colonial period prepared men to act a noble part in the Revolutionary period. The _truth_ of the educational system would bear fruit, but the error which we have already noticed was in great danger of gaining strength enough to choke the pure principles. Mere accusations amount to but little. Let it suffice to follow the history of educational progress through the next century. Results speak for themselves.

II. THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.

[Sidenote: Founding preparatory schools]

In addition to the instruction given by pious Puritan parents to the flock in their own homes, a limited number of common or church schools was established in the Colonial period. The position of academies, as they develop in the Revolutionary period, is significant. We find that “alongside each of the first colleges, frequently antedating them, sometimes forming part of the organization, was a grammar-school.”

Such schools, attached to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, William and Mary’s, and others, prepared for the universities, and supplemented the work of the elementary or common schools. Herein lay a vital point. They had home schools, elementary schools, and colleges. It was impossible for these elementary schools to fit students for university life when such schools required for entrance that the student should “read Tully or any like classical Latin author _ex tempore_, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose, and decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue,” as has already been quoted from an early Harvard announcement.

[Sidenote: The universities demanded classics]

The universities founded by the church were, then, forming a course of study for these grammar schools, or academies, as they were soon called; and since the demand was for a classical preparatory school, naturally their courses were “fitted to the time-sanctioned curriculum of the college. They taught much Latin and Greek, an extended course in mathematics, and were strong generally on the side of the humanities.” This was a modeling after Rugby, Eton, and other noted English schools, or the classical drill-schools of Germany, which, as we have before seen, were schools bearing decided marks of Jesuit teaching.

Should a young man care to pursue his studies beyond the elementary school, his only opportunity to do so was in one of the academies, where the classics formed the sum and substance of the instruction. The tendency to revert to the established forms of European education, or the papal system, is plainly visible.

[Sidenote: Footprints of the papal education]

The first colleges had been planted to give a Christian training, and doubtless had a start which might have resulted in the greatest strength to the church, and to the nation in a secondary way; but the introduction of these grammar schools or academies, with a course of study in the _classics_ made necessary by the universities, threw the majority of the young people into a _classical instead of a practical line of instruction_. Looking at it from one standpoint, no wiser move could have been made to turn the tide of educational reform again toward papal education. Can we here trace the footprints of the Jesuits, whose policy since the days of Loyola had been to overthrow Protestantism by a false system of education?

[Sidenote: Protestantism and republicanism weakened]

The effect of the mixture of the pure and the impure methods, traceable in indistinct lines at the very beginning, now assumed more definite proportions. The growth of academies was remarkably rapid, and when attention is called to such men as Franklin, the Adamses, John Hancock, and the generation of “’76,” who received most of their education in these schools, it may seem like sheer presumption to condemn their work. The results, however, as seen in later years, warrant the charge that at that time was taken a long step from the principles of the Reformation, which meant to this country a weakening both in Protestantism and republicanism.

[Sidenote: Union of Christian and papal systems]

These academies were denominational, it is true; still they offered this prescribed course of instruction. Almost immediately appear signs of the result of this union of Christian education with scholasticism. For instance, we read that “Brown University, though founded as a Baptist institution, was nevertheless one of the first schools of the period to emphasize the growing sentiment for a thoroughly undenominational collegiate training.” Why should a denominational college give an undenominational course of instruction, and why, above all denominations, should the Baptists do so, to whom such a flood of light had come, and who always with pride pointed back to Roger Williams and the State of Rhode Island as the ancestors and embodiment of all that is Protestant and republican? But this is not the only indication of this decline from early principles.

[Sidenote: Harvard loses sight of original object]

About 1793 Harvard assumed the name of university. Boone says, “Signs of Catholicity also appear, in that students were no longer required to attend the divinity lectures, except they were preparing for the ministry.... Literary societies, voluntary associations for social and general culture, were multiplied.”

[Sidenote: Decline in other schools]

“The first Greek fraternity,—the Phi Beta Kappa,—the parent of both secret and open college fraternity organizations of America,” was formed at William and Mary in 1776. This is another indication of the stealthy introduction of principles opposed to democracy, and which tend to break existing prejudice against the secret organizations of the papacy.

Again, “Yale, also, though nominally on a Congregational foundation, received aid (1792) from the state, and gave place in her corporation to state representatives.” Educational apostasy was beginning; religious decline must follow.

[Sidenote: Schools ask state support]

Boone gives another paragraph, which, in a few words, tells a story of much significance, more, perhaps, than the author realized; for he was merely chronicling the history of education, not searching for the philosophy thereof. He says, “The college, once an appendage to the church, was seen, in view of imminent state dangers, to have an equal value to the Commonwealth.” This, of course, is true, because the Commonwealth depended for support, for very existence, upon the educational ideas propagated in its schools. But the writer continues: “First encouraged because it provided an educated ministry, there was coming to be recognized an opinion, despite the deficiencies in culture, that education is something more—that it has a value in itself; that schools might well be maintained apart from the church as an organization, and in no way lessen their usefulness.”[163] Here was the challenge.

[Sidenote: Education belongs to the church]

God has placed in the hands of his church the right and privilege to educate the young. In doing this, he has done more; for in educating the youth, the church stands at God’s right hand to guide the nation into paths of rectitude. Not by joining hands can this be done, for _church and state must, in order each to be free, be forever separate_. Still the pillar upon which the nation must stand, the only one upon which it _can_ stand, is _a true system of education_, and this is a divine gift to the church, which was born of the Reformation.

[Sidenote: Church fails in educational work]

To the Lutheran Church the message of education was preached by Luther. The Episcopal Church received this “word and grace of God,” as Luther expresses it; but it passed from them, and they returned to scholasticism. Oxford, Cambridge, Eton, Rugby, all English schools testify to this. The message passed on to the Congregational Church, and Harvard, Yale, and others started on the right road, but through the glories of the world lost sight of their original object. Harvard, founded to educate ministers, sent forth in the year 1896, out of a class of four hundred graduates only six ministers. The Presbyterian Church had its opportunity, and likewise the Baptist and the Methodist. Rapidly education, the scepter with which America was to be ruled, was slipping from the churches. “Of the four colleges established during the war, two were non-sectarian, as were three fourths of the sixteen colleges founded in the twenty years after 1776.”

A momentous time was reached. Not only were the colonies to organize a government which would astonish the world, but the people of these colonies were on the verge of an educational precipice, and mighty interests were hanging in the balance.

[Sidenote: Fruit of the classics]

We have seen that from the classical academies came forth the minds which, for a generation or two, bore sway while the nation passed its critical period. There were the Adamses and Jefferson, Franklin, Webster, De Witt Clinton, Horace Mann, Joseph Henry, Everett, and Story; Guilford, of Ohio; Grime, of South Carolina; Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; Wayland, in Rhode Island; and Shaw, in Virginia; besides Kent, Clay, Marshall, and Randolph, who were, many of them, not only solving political problems, but exerting an influence in the school systems planned for their several States.

Many of these were classical academy men, and we can but see that the education received in these schools must affect the systems they would father in their several States. Had the colleges remained true to their trust with Christian education, the academies would have been preparatory schools for Christian colleges, and men sent forth from their walls would have been firmly grounded in the principles of Christian education, going forth into every State of the Union to found Christian schools which would in their turn make earnest and valiant youth, true to Protestantism and true to republicanism.

WHEN THE CHURCH FAILS TO EDUCATE, MEN TURN TO THE STATE. These men “differed in their views about the Constitution, and wrangled over the dangers of centralization; the best men were fearful of the inroads of slavery and the dangers to commerce,” says Boone, “but all agreed that intelligence was necessary to citizenship.” Washington said, “In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is necessary that public opinion should be enlightened,” and Jefferson urged that “the diffusion of light and education are the resources most to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue, and advancing the happiness of man.”

There is a demand for the highest and most practical kind of education. Statesmen see that statesmen, _citizens_, are needed. The denominational colleges ceased to educate Christians, and citizens must be educated elsewhere. “In 1805 the Public School Society, of New York City, was formed; the claims of public primary education were urged in Boston in 1818; and New York provided for the county supervision of schools. Early in the nineteenth century were either introduced or else discussed the first high schools, manual training schools, and mechanics’ institutes, teachers’ associations, teachers’ publications, professional schools, and free public libraries.”

We have entered the third period.

XV

AMERICA AND THE EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM (Continued)

III. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The problem of elementary preparatory education fell from the hands of the churches, and was taken up by the state. What is the character of that education which the state can rightfully support? A momentous question indeed; but before considering it, let us investigate the schools that the state has organized, and which it did, and still does, support. There was an urgent demand for liberal education, and several States appropriated lands toward a school fund. As early as 1786 “New York State set apart two lots in each township of the unoccupied lands, for ‘gospel and school purposes,’” and by a vote of about eighteen hundred, devoted the proceeds of half a million acres of vacant lands to the support of the common schools. Other States followed the same general plan, some in rapid succession, others more slowly. One thing was a settled fact,—the _education of the common people, passed over by the churches, had been taken up by the government_.

[Sidenote: Horace Mann and the public schools]

Under those circumstances it is not surprising that in 1837, Horace Mann, president of the Massachusetts Senate, interested himself in the subject of education. Of this man it is said, “Rarely have great ability, unselfish devotion, and brilliant success been so united in the course of a single life.” This man became the father of the public-school system of the United States, and began a work which long before should have been started by the popular churches of America. But it was neglected by them, and it will be profitable for us to watch the development of the grandest system of schools ever organized,—a system which, if the subject of Christian education could be dropped, and it be viewed alone from the standpoint of the politician, has brought the United States into prominence as an educational center among the nations of the world. However, since _republicanism rests in the bosom of Protestantism, and Protestantism is cradled in Christian education_, the moment the feature of Christian education is laid aside, and the system purports to be civil (but in fact it is never really that), that moment it loses its real vitality and genuine strength. But to return to Mr. Mann and his wonderful work.

[Sidenote: The churches and public schools]

Boone says: “The gnarls of a century’s growth were to be smoothed; not all of the large number of private schools were in accord with the new movement, and the churches were naturally watchful of the encroachments of unsectarian education.”[164] This expression describes the sectarian schools as in much the same attitude as that assumed by the weakening Christian church about the days of Constantine; and as the church of those days held out its hands to a stronger power for aid, and because it had lost its individual supply of strength,—the Spirit of God,—so now these sectarian schools watched with a jealous eye the progress of unsectarian schools, and, unable to hold their former and their allotted position by virtue of inherent strength, they reached out their hands to the state coffers, and received aid. Yale did it before the days of Horace Mann; many others have done it since.

[Sidenote: Improvements made by Horace Mann]

Boone continues: “Incompetent teachers were fearful, politicians carped, and general conservatism hindered” by the advances of Mr. Mann. “Much was to be accomplished, also, within the school. Teachers had to be improved, interest awakened, methods rationalized, and the whole adjusted to the available resources. Moreover, school architecture had to be studied. All this Mr. Mann did.” How great was the opportunity which the religious sects of America had missed! Some of the things which were accomplished in the next few years are thus reported: “A system of normal schools was originated. The annual appropriation for schools was doubled; two million dollars expended on houses and furniture; the number of women teachers increased; institutes introduced and systematized; school libraries multiplied; education provided for the dependent, and young offending classes, and the first compulsory school law of the State enacted.”

[Sidenote: Henry Bernard]