Education+Reform

Education Reform

Summary

Education before the 1800's was in poor condition to say the least. Not only were the schools scarce, barely funded, and of poor quality, but there was also no general education. Americans slowly began to see the benefits and necessity of public education. The people deprived of education would soon be future voters. The reforms began with Horace Mann's demands for "…better schoolhouses, longer school terms, higher pay for teachers, and an expanded curriculum." As others like Noah Webster, with his standardized dictionary, and Emma Willard, with her founding of the Female Seminary, joined Mann’s cause, education sky-rocketed during time of renewal.

Causes Goals
 * As time passed, Americans began to realize that the people they deprived of education would soon choose the leader of the free world, and because they lacked the education, they would easily fall prey to propaganda and lies of unsuitable presidential candidates.
 * Also, due to the industrial revolution, working class citizens were gaining more and more influential power and wealth. Because they wanted better for their children and the next generation, these new successes began pushing for public education to protect them from repeating historical mistakes.
 * Educate the masses
 * Set up a public education system
 * Educate women (Willard's goal)

How?
 * They tried to educate the masses by making schools tuition-free and by setting up new schools with broadened studies.
 * They set up a public education system when Horace Mann set up a board of education. The people thought the children should be educated to provide them with individual opportunity and to keep them out of trouble.
 * Willard set up the one of the first college to offer a better education for women because she believed women deserved the same rights as men and should therefore be educated just as much and just as well.

Success/failures


 * Successes: The first women’s college was established. Women were now able to get a better and more advanced education; children of all race, color, and religion could attend school and get educated; children were more respectful towards their elders and their peers; Sunday School was established to better educate the lower classes in religion; and more colleges were now being established.
 * Failures: they tried to go by the motto “Authority, Force, Fear, Pain!...” ; Joseph Hale trying to enforce physical coercion among the students to get them to not question their parents and/or teachers.

Key People Horace Mann (1796-1859) - the nations leading educational reformer who fought for public schools. He set up a board of education, lengthen the school year, and made the first compulsory school attendance law. He also wanted schools to be run by the motto: "ATHORITY, FORCE, FEAR, PAIN!!!!"
 * Emma Willard - promoted women's schools at secondary level in Philadelphia in 1814 with an anti-Catholic bias where they use books that were of the Catholic church.
 * Mary Lyon - established Mount Holyoke Seminary in South Hadley, MA.
 * Noah Webster - standardized American Language with his dictionary (published in 1828)
 * Joseph Hale (1845)- He was a Boston school master. He thought physical coercion was necessary, proper, and natural, he also thought children should not qu[[image:http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/images/142.jpg width="107" height="113" align="right" caption="William H. Mcguffey"]]estion their parents.
 * William H. McGuffey - wrote Mcguffey's Readers (book) which not only focused on morals, patriots, and ideals but also sold over 122 million copies.

Key events

1814- Emma Hart Willard opened one of the first colleges in America that allowed women to get advanced education in Philadelphia.
 * 1820-1830 – schools broadened their studies to include history, literature, geography, multiple foreign languages, and sciences.
 * 1833- Oberlin College became the first co-educational college.
 * 1837- Mary Lyon established the first women’s college
 * 1837- Horace Mann established a state board of education
 * 1840- Catholics in New York City decided they were going to open their own schools.
 * 1850- New York City gave the opportunity for tuition-free education (elementary school through college)
 * 1852- Concord, Massachusetts set up the first school attendance law in the history of America.
 * 1855- Massachusetts accepted students without regard to “race, color, or religious opinions.”

Sources [|The Struggle for Education] [|Horace Mann] [|Emma Hart Willard] [|Noah Webster] [|William McGuffey]

Bibs Mintz, S. (2007). //Digital History//. Retrieved (insert the date your retrieved the information here without parentheses) from [|http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu]