The Progressive, the Immigrant, and the School

Abstract

Abstract While still imperfect, our understanding of the emergence of the common school in the nineteenth century has become increasingly clear. Through the vigorous endeavors of a generation of gifted and energetic historians who have examined the successful common school campaigns, the early organization of the schools, as well as the intense conflicts that success often masked, we can now speak with confidence and considerable grace, as Carl Kaestle recently has, about the critical ways in which schooling in the nineteenth century was entwined with the developing capitalist economy, the ethos of republicanism, and the values of an ebullient Protestant middle class. As Kaestle has demonstrated, schooling for early nineteenth century Americans was intended to be a broadly socializing experience. The hoped for outcomes included high-minded character, a religiously de rived morality, and industriousness oriented to social progress-virtues understood to be essential to effective republican citizenship. “The chief end is to make GOOD CITIZENS,” an Illinois superintendent maintained at mid-century. “Not to make precocious scholars ... not to impart the secret of acquiring wealth . . . not to qualify directly for professional success ... but simply to make good citizens.” Toward this end, reformers labored to make at least a limited exposure to publicly supported schools the common possession of most Americans. Even the exceptions-blacks, Asians, Indians, whose relation to the republic was highly problematic emphasized the inclusive goals of the ideology for those who were potential constituents of the civic society and contributed to its polity.