Pilgrim's Progress: Toward a Social History of the School Superintendency, 1860-1960

Abstract

THE DEATHS of great men in national and political history are commemorated by song, story and memorial days, Aaron Gove told his fellow school superintendents in 1900. Only in secluded family circles, and midst the personal friends, are the works and lives of heroic schoolmasters recorded and remembered. To this day, historians have largely neglected those who probably did more than any other individuals to shape the day-to-day operation of American public educationthe superintendents of school districts. Not entirely neglected, of course: we have Raymond Callahan's important, path-breaking work; several scholars have enlightened us about changing metaphors of leadership and the ideologies of administrators; early historians have traced the administrative duties of school chiefs; and we have a number of narratives about individual superintendents. (1) But we are still just beginning to understand the character of educational leadership in the past. We need to focus especially on superintendents in the local districts, where the chief decision-making power resided for most of American history rather than at the state or federal level (a statistic illustrates this point: in 1890 the median size of state departments of education was two persons, including the superintendent.) (2) Superintendents talked and wrote a good deal about their ideologies, their expectations, their practices, and their problems. We know a good deal about their social characteristics and career lines, at least in the