Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Record of a School by Elizabeth Peabody Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804-1894) Background. Looking back over the course of Elizabeth Palmer Pea-body ’ s life, every important development in her early years seems to have prepared her for a life in educational reform and a role as America ’ s foremost advocate of kindergarten education. Her mother, Elizabeth Palmer, was an “ independent, well educated ” woman who managed a boardinghouse for students in Atkinson, New Hampshire, and went by the name of the “ Walking Dictionary ” because her extensive reading enabled her to answer all questions put to her by the boarders. Palmer married Nathaniel Peabody, a teacher at the academy, in November 1802 and moved to Andover, Massachusetts, where they administered the North Andover Free School. In 1804 they moved again, to Billerica, Massachusetts, where Elizabeth Palmer Peabody was born on 16 May. There Elizabeth ’ s mother established a boarding school for girls but abandoned it after two years and moved again to Cambridge and finally to Salem, where Peabody spent the remainder of her childhood. In Salem, Elizabeth ’ s mother established a school for children and pioneered an innovative approach to early childhood education that would make a lasting impression on her daughter. “ It seems to me, ” she remarked some years later, “ that the self- activity of the mind was cultivated by my mother ’ s method in her school. Not so much was poured in — more was brought out. ” Peabody followed in her mother ’ s footsteps in one other important way: education was at the center of her life from an early age. Elizabeth ’ s father instructed her in Latin, and she eventually learned ten other languages; by 1820, at the age of sixteen, she had established her own school in Lancaster, Massachusetts. The Unitarian Legacy. Peabody ’ s life as a reformer was shaped very profoundly by the reform impulse that animated Boston ’ s social and intellectual elite from the 1830s through the third quarter of the nineteenth century. She was raised, as Peabody herself put it, “ in the bosom of Unitarianism, ” at a time when deep philosophical and religious differences within the Unitarian Church itself were generating a lively intellectual ferment and spilling over into animated discussions about the need for reform in American society. (Unitarianism stressed individual freedom of belief, the free use of reason in religion, a united world community, and liberal social action.) Some Unitarians charged that their doctrine was becoming a “ religion of the commercial classes, ” and as a result the church ’ s tradition of tolerance increasingly gave way to attempts to stop reform, to “ set limits on free thought and inquiry. ” Channing and Alcott. Peabody came of age just as this schism reached its peak, and as a young adult she straddled both sides of the debate, maintaining relationships with individuals who were at the center of the controversy. Probably the single individual who exerted the greatest influence upon Peabody was William Ellery Channing. Peabody first came into contact with the great Unitarian leader when she moved to Brookline in 1825 and opened a girls ’ school there. A year later she convinced Channing to allow her to publish a collection of his sermons and eased into a role as his unpaid personal secretary. Interestingly, given her later devotion to children ’ s education, one of the many things that impressed Peabody about Channing was his manner with children. “ He treats children with the greatest consideration, ” she wrote in 1825, “ and evidently enjoys their conversation, and studies it to see what it indicates of the yet Unfallen nature. He will never tire, I see, of the observation of children of which I am so fond … . ” A half-century later, when she introduced Friedrich Froebel ’ s kindergarten idea to New England mothers, she recalled that “ this is nothing new; more than fifty years ago Dr. Channing taught us to live with our children and to look upon them as capable of the life of Christ. ” In 1834 Peabody became an assistant to educator Amos Bronson Alcott at the private Temple School in Boston, an experience that left its mark on Peabody ’ s developing ideas about childhood education. Peabody quickly became disillusioned with Alcott ’ s introspective classroom methods, objecting to his insistence that young children keep detailed journals and bemoaning the lack of physical stimulation. Importing the Kindergarten. Her lifelong association with schooling and close acquaintance with some of the foremost educational reformers (including Horace Mann, with whom she was romantically involved before he married her sister Mary) made Peabody receptive to the early childhood education concepts being imported by German immigrants after midcentury. In 1859 Peabody met Carl and Margarethe Schurz and was impressed with their young daughter Agathe, who had attended the kindergarten opened several years earlier by her mother in Watertown, Wisconsin. “ That little girl of yours is a miracle, so childlike and unconscious, and yet so wise and able, attracting and ruling the children, who seem nothing short of entranced, ” she reportedly told Margarethe Schurz. “ No miracle, but only brought up in a kindergarten, ” Schurz replied, “ a garden whose plants are human. ” After acquainting herself with the ideas of Froebel, founder of the kindergarten movement, Peabody opened her own kindergarten — the first English-speaking one in the country — in Boston in 1860. She directed the school until 1867, when she traveled to Germany in order to study Froebel ’ s work firsthand, and, after her return fifteen months later, devoted the next twenty-five years of her life to this revolutionary approach to childhood education. Between 1873 and 1875 she published the magazine Kindergarten Messenger. Boston Reform. In addition to her tireless work on behalf of the kindergarten movement, Peabody was associated in the post-Civil War period with the causes of freedmen ’ s education and Indian rights, and she continued her involvement with Boston ’ s intellectual reform milieu. By the end of the 1870s she had earned a reputation as the “ grandmother of Boston reform, ” and in The Bostonians (1886), novelist Henry James reportedly based his character “ Miss Birdseye ” on a rather unflattering portrait of Peabody. She lived long enough not only to see the kindergarten grow from being a marginal experiment among immigrants and the well-to-do to a permanent feature in America ’ s urban public schools, but even to hear many of her ideas attacked by a new generation of educators as oldfashioned and outdated. Peabody died in 1894 in Jamaica Plains, Long Island, New York. Sources. Bruce A. Ronda, ed., Letters of Elizabeth Peabody, American Renaissance Woman (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1984); Louis H. Tharp, The Peabody Sisters of Salem (Boston: Little, Brown, 1950). Salem Tales. In 1835 a Salem dentist named Nathaniel Peabody bought a three story home just east of the Burying Point on Charter Street. Peabody and his wife Elizabeth had three daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia. "Lizzie" was an educator and cultural gadfly who was already well known in Boston and Salem. Thanks to her a number of soon- to be famous men came calling at the Peabody's modest home. Two of those men were Nathaniel Hawthorne, a budding author who would later use the Charter Street home as a setting in his "Dr. Grimshawe's Secret" and "Dolliver's Romance," and the educator Horace Mann. Nathaniel would marry Sophia Peabody in 1842. A year later her sister Mary wed Horace Mann, the first Massachusetts Superintendent of Schools. Elizabeth, the "introducer," never married but became famous as a feminist, educator, and author. She ran two schools of her own and worked at Bronson Alcott's controversial Temple School in Boston. Elizabeth later opened the nation's first kindergarten on Beacon Hill in 1861. She was largely responsible for the spread of the kindergarten movement in America. Ms. Peabody later became one of America's first female publishers. Using the name E.P. Peabody , to disguise her gender, she printed.anti-slavery tracts, childrens' books by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the "Dial," the journal of the Transcendentalists who gathered at her Boston bookstore. She also provided a forum for early women lecturers Harriet Martineau and Margaret Fuller. Elizabeth's writings reflect her connections to important men of the times: "Reminiscences of Rev. William Ellery Channing," "Record of a School" (Alcott's Temple School), and "A Last Evening with Allston" (painter Washington Allston). After her death in 1894 Lizzie's friends opened The Elizabeth Peabody House, a combination social service agency and kindergarten, in Boston to carry on her work. Salem Tales. May 16, 2004, marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the 19th century's most remarkable woman, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody who lived from 1804 to 1894. Elizabeth was the oldest of the three famous Peabody sisters of Salem. Through her schoolteacher mother, she was drawn into the world of education and moral improvement as a young woman. By the age of 30, Lizzie had opened and run two schools and worked at Bronson Alcott's controversial Temple School in Boston. Elizabeth later opened the nation's first kindergarten, on Beacon Hill in 1861, and was largely responsible for the spread of the kindergarten movement in America. Throughout her long life, Elizabeth worked to improve the lives of women and minorities. She provided a forum for early women lecturers including Harriet Martineau and Margaret Fuller, and founded a school for the orphan children of southern slaves. After her death in 1894, Lizzie's friends opened The Elizabeth Peabody House, a combination social service agency and kindergarten, in Boston to carry on her work. . Elizabeth was also one of America's first female publishers, and for a time served as editor of "Dial," the journal of the Transcendentalists who sometimes gathered at her Boston bookstore on West Street. Her own writings reflect her connections to important men of the times: "Reminiscences of Rev. William Ellery Channing," "Record of a School" (Alcott's Temple School), and "A Last Evening with Allston" (painter Washington Allston). One famous man Elizabeth chose not to write about was her brother-in-law, Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of the Seven Gables." The Peabody and Hawthorne families had been Salem neighbors for a time when Elizabeth and Nathaniel were children, but had lost track of each other over the years. Their acquaintance was renewed in 1837 when Elizabeth , shortly after Hawthorne's "Twice-Told Tales" was published in 1837, invited the author and his sisters to the Peabody home on Charter Street. On subsequent visits to the Peabody home, the handsome Hawthorne met and fell in love with Elizabeth's sister, Sophia. Despite her probable disappointment at not being his chosen one, Lizzie set out to to help the young author's career. In March 1838, she wrote a glowing review of "Twice-Told Tales" for The New Yorker published by Park Benjamin. In it she called Hawthorne "a first rate genius," although she did chide the author for including in his book a number of sketches that she felt were written just to appeal to the popular audience. Peabody then introduced Hawthorne to Susan Burley, a Salem women whose salons attracted the town's cultural and literary elite. Ms. Burley immediately took to the young author, and financed the publication of a special edition of Hawthorne's "The Gentle Boy," a powerful story based on the persecution of Quakers that took place in Massachusetts in the late 1650s. The book was illustrated by Nathaniel's beloved Sophia whom he would soon marry. Elizabeth also tried to interest another of her famous friends in promoting Hawthorne's work. But Ralph Waldo Emerson was unimpressed with the author's writing, and chose to champion another of Lizzie's Salem proteges, the poet Jones Very, instead. When it became clear that Nathaniel and Sophia were going to marry, Elizabeth set out to find her future brother-in-law a job. Through her connections and lobbying, Hawthorne received a political appointment at the Custom House in Boston. Nathaniel moved into the city in 1839, and the Peabody family followed a year later. Despite the fact that they were almost neighbors, and future in-laws, Hawthorne made little effort to socialize with Elizabeth. As she usually did in such cases, the young woman swallowed her pride and hurt, and continued to work to further his career. Elizabeth turned publisher, and in the early 1840s brought out three Hawthorne books, "Grandfather's Chair," "Famous Old People," and "Liberty Tree," all of which were based on Massachusetts history. Despite her efforts on his behalf, Hawthorne had little use for Elizabeth from this time forward. Their relationship was strained at best, and at various times Nathaniel took Elizabeth to task for meddling in his affairs and those of his growing family. The author at one point went so far as to tell his patroness quite bluntly that she, Lizzie, was definitely not marriage material and suggested that she concentrate instead on minding her own business. Today in History: May 16. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, the educator who opened the first English-language kindergarten in the United States, was born on May 16 , 1804, in Billerica, Massachusetts. Long before most educators, Peabody embraced the premise that children's play has intrinsic developmental and educational value. Peabody was a teacher, writer, and prominent figure in the Transcendental movement, editing The Dial , the chief literary publication of the movement, for two years, beginning in 1841. From 1834-36, she worked as assistant teacher to Bronson Alcott at his experimental Temple School in Boston. After the school closed, Peabody published Record of a School , outlining the plan of the school and Alcott's philosophy of early childhood education, which had drawn on German models. When she opened her kindergarten in 1860—the first formally organized kindergarten in the United States, the concept of providing formal schooling for children younger than six was largely confined to German practice. Through her own kindergarten, and as editor of the Kindergarten Messenger (1873-77), Peabody helped establish kindergarten as an accepted institution in U.S. education. She also wrote numerous books in support of the cause. The extent of her influence is apparent in a statement submitted to Congress on February 12, 1897, in support of free kindergartens: The advantage to the community in utilizing the age from 4 to 6 in training the hand and eye; in developing the habits of cleanliness, politeness, self- control, urbanity, industry; in training the mind to understand numbers and geometric forms, to invent combinations of figures and shapes, and to represent them with the pencil—these and other valuable lessons…will, I think, ultimately prevail in securing to us the establishment of this beneficent institution in all the city school systems of our country. Hon. William Harris, Commissioner of Education, "Free Kindergartens," circa 1897. African American Perspectives, 1818-1907. After Peabody, other educators, such as Wisconsin-born Mary Davison Bradford (1856-1943), pioneered local kindergarten programs. In her Memoirs , Mary Bradford recollects beginning her teaching career at age sixteen, dressed in a "brown and white striped calico dress" and armed with "the ability to put [her]self in the child's place, and sense his point of view." Bradford started teaching in a small rural school in a district run jointly by Kenosha and Racine counties. Along the way to becoming Kenosha's Superintendent of Schools, she instituted kindergartens, vocational training programs, breakfast programs for needy children, and a wide range of school reforms. Her memoirs, part of the American Memory collection Pioneering the Upper Midwest, circa 1820-1910, chronicle the development of Wisconsin's public school system. Learn more about kindergartens and schools in American Memory: the collection The Nineteenth Century in Print: Books on Elizabeth Peabody to retrieve the full text of Peabody's books, Record of Mr. Alcott's School, Exemplifying the Principles and Methods of Moral Culture (1835) and Guide to the Kindergarten and Intermediate Class (1877), published in one volume with Mary Mann's Moral Culture of Infancy . Search the collection on education to retrieve many works expounding the educational theories and practices of the nineteenth century. on kindergarten in American Life Histories, 1936-1940 to explore Americans' recollections of kindergarten days. After retrieving a list of hits, select any item and use the BEST MATCH link in the page header to jump to the segment of the piece pertaining to the subject of interest. The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog contains many photographs of kindergartens in the United States. At the same time that many school systems began to adopt formal kindergartens, many Americans living in rural regions continued to attend one-room schoolhouses. The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920 features several memorable photographs of these once commonplace schools; to find them, search the collection on school children . on school in the collection Buckaroos in Paradise, 1945-1982 for a variety of school images from Paradise Valley, Nevada. consists of more than 47,000 musical compositions registered for copyright during the years 1870 to 1879. The collection is easy to search and includes among its many titles the "Kindergarten Waltz." Read from some of the books that shaped the culture of religious instruction in America between 1815 and 1865. Search on a keyword such as advice in Sunday School Books: Shaping the Values of Youth in Nineteenth-Century America to see items such as Little Verses for Good Children . Search the Today in History Archive on educator or teacher to find other features on such people as Alexander Graham Bell, Mary Church Terrell, Patrick Francis Healy, Bronson Alcott, Mary McLeod Bethune, and John Scopes. The Andrew Johnson Impeachment. On May 16 , 1868, the U.S. Senate voted 35 to 19, one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict President Andrew Johnson of "high crimes and misdemeanors," as he was charged under the eleventh article of impeachment. Ten days later, on May 26, the Senate also failed by the same margin (35 to 19) to convict Johnson on articles two and three. At this point the Senate voted to adjourn the impeachment trial without considering the remaining articles. When Johnson received the news, he broke into tears. Johnson, a Southern Democrat, assumed the presidency after Lincoln's assassination. He issued a plan allowing former Confederate states to return representatives to Congress as soon as they repealed the ordinances of secession, repudiated Confederate debts, abolished slavery, and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. Lacking the personal and political sagacity of President Lincoln, however, Johnson was unable to bring about the transition smoothly and what ensued was a cataclysmic encounter between the executive and legislative branches. In 1865, Johnson took advantage of a long Congressional recess to recognize a Reconstruction government in all former Confederate states, except Texas. The states then took advantage of his conciliatory policy to pass "Black Codes" limiting freedmen's rights. When the 39th Congress reconvened in December 1865, the Republican majority in Congress refused to seat the newly elected Southern members of Congress. In early 1866, angry congressmen, led by men such as Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, passed the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights bills to empower those the codes repressed. Johnson vetoed both bills, but Congress overrode the veto of the Civil Rights Act on April 9, 1866, the first major piece of legislation to pass over a presidential veto in U.S. history. Clearly at cross-purposes, Congress approved the Fourteenth Amendment, while Johnson recommended that the states refuse to ratify it. Congress responded with its own militant reconstruction program and passed the Army Appropriations Act to thwart the president's power as commander in chief, insisting that his orders all be communicated through an intermediary. Congress also repassed the Freedmen's Bureau Act and overrode Johnson's veto. Passage of the Tenure of Office Act only heightened the antagonism between Johnson and the Congress. The Act forbid the president from removing office-holders, including Cabinet members, without the Senate's approval. Formulated in language akin to that used in the Constitution to describe grounds for impeachment, the Act made the removal of office-holders without Senate approval a "high misdemeanor." Johnson defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton on August 12, 1867, and appointing Ulysses Grant secretary of war ad interim. Grant resigned this post on January 14, 1868, after the Senate refused to agree to Stanton's dismissal. Next, Johnson appointed Lorenzo Thomas as secretary of war on February 21, 1868 but this time Stanton, who had actually been working with radicals in Congress, barricaded himself inside his office. This deadlock culminated in the first presidential impeachment proceedings in U.S. history. In February 1869, the House voted articles of impeachment and seven House managers, including former Civil War Majors General Benjamin F. Butler and John A. Logan, prepared Johnson's trial. Lincoln appointee Salmon P. Chase, chief justice of the Supreme Court, presided. Ten of eleven articles concerned the Tenure and Army Appropriations Acts; the last article claimed that Johnson had attempted to undermine the Congress. Johnson did not attend the trial. Learn more about impeachment in American Memory: Read a transcript of the 1869 Johnson trial on articles of impeachment. See the Supplement to the Congressional Globe Containing the Proceedings of the Senate Sitting for the Trial of Andrew Johnson, a special presentation within the American Memory collection A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation, 1774-1875. Find personal accounts of the turbulent Reconstruction Era. Search on reconstruction or carpetbagger in American Life Histories, 1936-1940. Of particular interest are the interviews with Alexander W. Matheson and Mr. C. S. Bradley. For additional relevant documents, search on reconstruction or freedmen in African American Perspectives, 1818-1907. The latter search will retrieve a document entitled Equality before the Law Protected by National Statute , which includes speeches and debates by and involving Charles Sumner as he proposed amending the 1866 Civil Rights Act. In it Sumner discusses race, the separate but equal doctrine, slavery, and citizenship with Southern senators. Another site, Finding Precedent: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (external link) provides excerpts from over 200 articles from Harper's Weekly (external link) during the period 1865-69. The Impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton. The second trial of a U.S. president on articles of impeachment occurred in January and February of 1999. The Report of the Independent Counsel including all appendices and supplemental material are available through the Government Printing Office (GPO). Additional materials related to Clinton's impeachment are available on THOMAS, including the enrolled version of House Resolution 611, impeaching William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors, as well as House Report 105-830 of the House Judiciary Committee. The record of roll call votes on the two articles adopted — Article 1: "willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony" and Article II: "prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice" — and the two that were rejected are maintained by the Office of the Clerk of the House. The proceedings of the Senate trial are available as part of the Congressional Record for the Senate beginning on January 20, 1999. Browse successive issues of the Record for the complete trial or see Miscellaneous Senate Publications Related to the Impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton maintained by GPO. The two Senate roll call votes of February 12, 1999, for Article I and Article II finding the president not guilty are available as maintained by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody , (born May 16, 1804, Billerica, Massachusetts, U.S.—died January 3, 1894, Jamaica Plain [now part of Boston], Massachusetts), American educator and participant in the Transcendentalist movement, who opened the first English-language kindergarten in the United States. Peabody was educated by her mother, who for a time operated an innovative girls’ school in the home, and from an early age she exhibited an interest in philosophical and theological questions. In 1820 she opened a school of her own in Lancaster, Massachusetts, and two years later another in Boston. She also studied Greek with the young Ralph Waldo Emerson. She opened a school in 1825 in Brookline, Massachusetts, where she made the acquaintance of William Ellery Channing, with whom she shared a remarkable intellectual intimacy. As her Socratic tutor, Channing introduced Peabody to the Romantic poets and philosophers of the day, and together they examined the emerging liberal theology of Unitarianism. She also served informally as his secretary (1825–34), recording his sermons and seeing them into print. After her school closed in 1832 Peabody supported herself until 1834 mainly through writing, principally her First Steps to the Study of History (1832), and through private tutoring, when she helped Bronson Alcott establish his radical Temple School in Boston. Her Record of a School , based on her journal of Alcott’s methods and daily interactions with the children, was published anonymously in 1835 and did much to establish Alcott as a leading and controversial thinker. In 1837 Peabody became a charter member of the Transcendentalist Club, members of which included Margaret Fuller, Emerson, Channing, and Alcott. On visits to Emerson and the others she introduced her Transcendentalist friends to the work of the Salem poet-mystic Jones Very and the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who had married her sister Sophia (another sister, Mary, married Horace Mann). In 1839 Peabody opened her West Street bookstore, which became a sort of club for the intellectual community of Boston. On her own printing press she published translations from German by Fuller and three of Hawthorne’s earliest books. For two years she published and wrote articles for The Dial, the critical literary monthly and organ of the Transcendentalist movement; she also wrote for other periodicals. She was probably the first woman book publisher in America. In 1849 she published a single issue of a Transcendentalist journal, Aesthetic Papers , which contained, among other essays, Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience.” Peabody closed her shop in 1850 and for the next 10 years taught school, wrote, and worked to promote public education. Her particular brand of Transcendentalism, anchored firmly in an idea of a just society informed by liberal Christianity, led her to place great emphasis on the education of the young. In 1859 Peabody learned of Friedrich Froebel’s kindergarten work in Germany, and the next year she opened in Boston the nation’s first formal kindergarten. She continued it until 1867, when she undertook a tour of European kindergartens to learn more of Froebel’s thought. Much of her later writing concerned kindergarten education. Those titles include Moral Culture of Infancy, and Kindergarten Guide (1863), Kindergarten Culture (1870), The Kindergarten in Italy (1872), Letters to Kindergartners (1886), and Lectures in the Training Schools for Kindergartners (1888). In 1873 she founded the Kindergarten Messenger , of which she was editor during its two years of publication, and in 1877 she organized the American Froebel Union, of which she was the first president. From 1879 to 1884 she was a lecturer at the Concord School of Philosophy of her old friend Alcott. She also published Reminiscences of Rev. Wm. Ellery Channing, D.D. (1880) and Last Evening with Allston (1886). This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen, Corrections Manager.