The Common School- Horace Mann
Massachusetts 1830’s

Political Economy

Demographics

  • Westward expansion generated a need for increased patriotism
  • Immigration-Irish - 1850's. Concerned citizens because they were poor, uneducated, unskilled and most of all Catholic
  • Urbanization and Industrialization -Most growth in port cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia. Family was no longer the central unit, now the authority of a boss.  Labor, in the early factories used women and children.

 Political

  • Major expansion of suffrage for men (1 in 7 in 1780 to 4 in 7 in 1830)..

 Economic

  • Transportation developed which connected people and goods, led to expansion of commerce and greater industrialization

Ideology - same as Classic Liberalism

Schooling

  • Moral Values: Breakdown of morals - school must inculcate common moral values - justice, truth, love to their country, industry, chastity, moderation and temperance (Protestant morals).
  • View of Schooling: (Based on the Prussian System) State financed, universal, compulsory through the elementary grades. Class based, one system of schooling for the aristocracy (university) and one for the common people (literacy and numeracy). People of color excluded.
  • School Buildings: Improved physical conditions - toilets, drinking water, insulation for winter, location.

Plans for education were accepted:

  • Need for common morals
  • Economic value of schooling:

a) For business, produced workers who could follow directions, were punctual.  Support of business was crucial. (For Mann, schooling developed creative intelligence.)
b) For some, common school education seen as a vehicle to upward mobility.

Feminization of teaching: (1700's teachers were male.)  The common schools would need teachers so Mann supported the Normal Schools which trained teachers. Mann thought women were naturally better nurturers plus renewed support from women gaining suffrage.