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.