Aristocratic Education and the Making of the American Republic by Mark Boonshoft

Abstract

Reviewed by: Aristocratic Education and the Making of the American Republic by Mark Boonshoft James P. Cousins Aristocratic Education and the Making of the American Republic. By Mark Boonshoft. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. xvi, 279. Paper, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-4696-6136-0; cloth, $95.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-5953-4.) The United States was, at its inception, a union of ideas. Historians of education have worked to understand how these ideas were digested and then repackaged for the benefit of future generations. Most agree it was a reciprocal process, where lofty ideals, transmitted through high-flown rhetoric, shaped society and were reshaped from the bottom up. But in many histories, the bottom is never that far from the top; universities, intended for the sons of elite white men, take an outsized role at the expense of other, lesser understood but [End Page 331] equally significant, institutions. Mark Boonshoft's study of early American academies pushes beyond these boundaries and, in doing so, moves the entire field in a more inclusive and balanced direction. Academies, something more than a grammar school but less than a university, were often attached to colleges and used to qualify prospective matriculates. These institutions' historical significance lies in their popular appeal and accessibility. Academy curricula were adapted to meet public demand, and, though such schooling was reserved for white families, the cost of attendance was generally low enough to accommodate the lower classes. Boonshoft details the origins and rise of early American academies from the late colonial era, a period when the expectations for American education were set by European, particularly British, standards, through the 1830s, when academies took on a more recognizably public form. Along the way, readers are treated to an exploration of America's emerging cultural landscape as it shifted and bent according to geopolitical forces and societal impulses. Boonshoft traces the roots of the American academy to the Great Awakening and places reform-minded Protestant ministers at the vanguard of an early academy building boom. Scottish-born Presbyterian minister William Tennent arrived in the remote wilderness of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and in 1727 founded his "Log College" (p. 19). A host of schools emulating Tennent's academic principles sprung up across the mid-Atlantic shortly thereafter; reformer Jonathan Edwards inspired a similar chain of academies across New England. The popularity of academies in this early period was undeniable, and, though they were originally intended as centers of ministerial training, they quickly found a wider audience. Benjamin Franklin's nonsectarian vision for education favored modern languages over dead ones, scientific literacy over theological training, and a practical curriculum that prepared students to enter a range of vocations. When his Academy of Philadelphia started to steal away matriculates from denominational schools, Protestant academy heads adapted with practical-minded programs of their own. In the decades after the American Revolution, academies were again remade, this time into religiously plural institutions dedicated to the long-term stability of the fledgling country. The preservation of the republic was paramount, but whose vision of the republic would win the day? Federalist leaders, many of whom were trained in academies, grew uneasy at the site of so many unwashed, and unlettered, claimants to political power. Federalists considered merit to be a prequalifer of political authority, and there was nothing more meritorious than academic training in an academy—or so Federalists would argue. The War of 1812 and the Panic of 1819 upended Federalist control of academies and reframed the discussion once again, this time favoring a more populist vision for academies. In this climate of American self-sufficiency, anything that smacked of elitism, or British pretention, became anathema. This populist wave propelled a new publicly accessible vision of higher education; popular support, and tax dollars, followed suit. Boonshoft's work is exceptional in most every regard, but his use of sources is especially noteworthy. Academy records from this era are, for the most part, nonexistent, so Boonshoft is forced to reconstruct the main lines of argument from fragmentary and peripheral accounts. He adeptly weaves these sources [End Page 332] into a composite whole while negotiating the complex interplay of political events...