DOCUMENT RESUME ED 042 270 24 EA 003 066 AUTHOR Lazerson, Marvin TITLE The Burden of Urban Education: Public Schools in Massachusetts, 1870-1915. INSTITUTION Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass. SPONS AGENCY Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D.C. National Center for Educational Research and Development.; Joint Center for Urban Studies, Cambridge, Mass. BUREAU NO BR-8-A-001 PUB DATE Jul 70 GRANT OEG-0-000001-0194-010 NOTE 366p. EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF-$1.50 HC-$18.40 DESCRIPTORS *Educational Change, *Educational History, Ethical Instruction, Immigrants, *Industrialization, Industrial Training, Kindergarten, Parochial Schools, Public Education, Urban Education, *Urban Environment, *Urbanization, Vocational Education ABSTRACT Confronted by a rapidly changing urban-industrial society, Massachusetts educators undertook reforms between 1870 and 1915 to make the public school a more relevant institution. Kindergarten, manual training, vocational education, evening schools, and citizenship education represented answers to problems arising from industrialism and urbanism. Educators and social reformers looked to the schools for the preservation of established moral and social values, but the schools could not reshape the urban environment. As a result, the problems of city life remained. Massachusetts schools turned from effecting broad social reforms to preparing children to fulfil economic functions; vocational education replaced manual training as preparation for the real world. (Hard copy may be of poor quality because of marginal legibility). (RA) /Se g -do/ .o t°4 61Y- FINALREPORT Project No. 8A001 Grant No. OEG-0-8-000001-0194-010 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. THE BURDEN OF URBAN EDUCATION: Punic SCHOOLS IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1870-1915 Marvin Lazerson Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 July 1970 Q: CO C; U. S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, WELFARE Office of Education Bureau of Research- Final Report Project No. 8A001 Grant No. 0EG-0-8-000001-0194-010 THE BURDEN OF URBAN EDUCATION: PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1870 - 1915 Marvin Lazerson Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts 02D8 July 1970 The research reported herin was,performed pursuant to a grant with the Office of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Contractors undertaking such projects under Government sponsor- ship are encouraged to express freely their professional judgment in the conduct of the project. Points of view or opinions stated do not,therefore necessarily represent official Office of Education position or policy. U. S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Office of Education Bureau ofResearch Table of Contents Ch.I. The Burden of Urban Education 1 Ch. li. The Kindergarten: Childhood and Social Reform 40 Ch. II!. Manual Training: The Search for An 'ideology 108 Ch. IV. Manual Training and the Restoration of Social Values... 151 Ch. V. Frain the Principles of Work to the Teaching of Trades... 198 Ch. VI. The. Politics of Vocationalism 229 Ch. VII. Vocationalism and Equality of Educational Opportunity... 267 Ch. VIII.The Quest for Citizenthip 296 - _ Ch. IX. Form and Substance in Urban Education 337 Bibliography 344 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Grants from the Bureau of Research of the U. S. Office of Education and a Samuel Stouffer Fellowship from the Harvard-M.I.T. Joint Center for Urban Studies provided the funds and an intellectually exciting environment for the research and writing of this study. A number of individuals granted access to important collec- tions, especially Dr. J. R. Hayden, Superintendent of Schools, New Bedford; Mr. Ernest Jacoby, Director of the North Bennet Street Industrial School; Mrs. Margaret Joy of the Lowell Day Nursery; and Mr. Benjamin M. Tenaglia, Jr., Director of the Lynn Independent Industrial Shoemaking School.The staffs of the Cambridge, Lynn, and New Bedford Public Libraries were hospitable on a number of occasions, while those at the Massachusetts State Library, the Harvard College Library, and the.Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College proved of ines- timable value. Tamara Harevan, Daniel Horowitz, and Stephan Thernstrom commented on parts of the manuscript. My friend and colleague, Robert L. Church, criticized the entire study while prodding me to finish it.I am grate- ful to Oscar Handlin for his advice, mastery of American history, and for allowing me the independence I desired. Needless to say, none of the above should be held responsible for my interpretations.Four other individuals should be singled out.Phyllis Goldwyn, Judith Stevens, and Ann Brown for their skills as typist-editors and Jonathan Smith who served as 'a model research assistant. Finally, but hardly least, a deep-felt thanks to my wife, Judith Shoenholtz Lazerson, for her patience, editorial incisiveness, and affection. THE BURDEN OF URBAN EDUCATION: PUBLIC SCHOOL IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1870-1915 by Marvin Lazerson SUMMARY Confronted by a rapidly changing urban-industrial society, Massachusetts' educaLoru, between 1870 and 1915, undertook reforms which they hoped would make the public school,a more relevant institution. Drawing extensively upon the annual school reports of ten Massachusetts cities--Boston, Cambridge, Fall River, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, New Bedford, Springfield, and Worcester- -the reports and publications of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and other documents on education from national, state, and local sources, this study focuses on the kindergarten, manual training, vocational education, evening schools and citizenship education as responses by educa- tors and social reformers to the problems of industrialism and the city. Assuming that New England society had once been homogeneous, its insti- tutions balanced and sharing in the education of all individuals, 'late ninteenth century reformers believed that a prior social harmony had been rudely shattered. .Ambivalent about industrialism, and hostile to the city, they initially turned to the schools to preserve the social andmoral characteristics they believed existed at an earlierperiod. With the emer- gence of the factory and its unskilledlabor force and the disappearance of the apprenticeship system, they called upon manual training to preservethe values of honest labor believed indigenous to .a homogeneous rural society. -2- Through the child, the kindergarten would reshape urban family life and the immigrant community, teaching parents the mores and behavior patterns of the traditional home. By teaching literacy and patriotism, evening schools would inculate the essentials of citizenship bringing cohesion to a heterogeneous urban population. In practice, such optimism in the school's ability to reshape the urban environment Was difficult to retain. Even where educational reforms were implemented; the problems of the city and immigrant life remained. Children dropped out of school as soon as they. legally could.After 1900, .Massachusette schools moved away from broad social change to more effectively fit the child to the new.industrial order. Vocational education replaced .manual training and claimed that the school should prepare each child for his economic function. Prevocational classes and vocational guidance emerged as preparation for the real world. By 1915, Massachusetts' schools found themselves caught between reforming society and fitting children to the existing society. CHAPTER I THE BURDEN OF URBAN EDUCATION As the twentieth century approached, Massachusetts' educators were deeply troubled. The ideals of commonwealth, that blurring of distinctions between public needs and private desires, in which government acted as a co-partner in the economic and social progress of society, had eroded even before the Civil War, but they had left behind a commitment by government to the welfare of its citizens. While Amer- icans had been eagaged in a frenetic quest for individual achievement and thus social salvation, Massachusetts had continued to affirm that society's advancement depended upon social balance and equity, achievable only when its constituents accepted certain common obligations.If the.state had, in practice, lost its earlier role as the key par- ticipant in Massachusetts' economic growth, it had, nonetheless, passed statutes and appointed commissions to preserve the responsibility of corporate enterprise to the broader public it served.In the face of industrial change, the revolutions in trans- portation and communication, it had continually readjusted its laws and institutions to preserve traditional standards of social behavior.Institutional reforms in the political process, child and female labor laws, and other social legislation sought to improve the quality of life and established progressivism in the state before that word had become a movement. Nevertheless, the agitation over and the limits of these activities revealed that the consensus to retain state and citizen responsibility for public welfare was in the process of breaking down.. The good government concerns of the Mugwumps had been greeted more with scorn than praise, while those who -2- talked most loudly about integrity in government had been forced into alliances with ward politicians and adventurist businessmen in order to assume even the trappings of power. The social