r R E P O R T RESUMES ED 015 522 24 EA 000 826 THE IRONY OF URBAN SCHOOL REFORM,IDEOLOGY AND STYLE IN MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY MASSACHUSETTS. FIIALREPORT. BY- KATZ, MICHAEL B. REPORT NUMBER CRF-S-085 PUB DATE 66 REPORT NUMBER BR-5-8183 . EDRS PRICE MF-$1.50 HC-$15.76 392F. DESCRIPTORS- *EDUCATIONAL CHANGE, *URBANEDUCATION, ECONOMIC FACTORS, INDUSTRIALIZATION,MOTIVATION, PUBLIC EDUCATION, HIGH SCHOOLS, *EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION,COMMUNITY LEADERS, SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, *RURAL URBANDIFFERENCES, ADMINISTRATIVE PERSONNEL, EDUCATIONALOBJECTIVES, DELINQUENT REHABILITATION, CORRECTIONAL EDUCATION,FACTOR ANALYSIS, SCHOOL COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIP,*HISTORICAL REVIEWS, CAMBRIDGE, THE ORIGINS OF MASS POPULAR EDUCATIONIN NINETEENTH-CENTURY MASSACHUSETTS ARE STUDIEDIN TERMS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN REFORMER IDEOLOGY ANDSTYLE OF REFORM WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF FUNDAMENTAL ALTERATIONSIN THE LIFE CONDITIONS IN MASSACHUSETTS. THREE SIGNIFICANTEVENTS ARE ANALYZED IN DETAIL--(1) ABOLITION OF BEVERLY HIGHSCHOOL IN 1860, (2) ATTACK OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTEOF INSTRUZTION ON CYRUS PEIRCE, AND (3) CRITICISM OF THESTATE REFORM SCHOOL OFFERED BY SOME OF THE STATE'S LEADINGREFORMERS. THE STUDY CONCLUDES THAT EDUCATIONAL REFORM WASSPONSORED FY A COALITION OF THE SOCIAL AND FINANCIAL LEADERS OFMASSACHUSETTS: MIDDLE CLASS PARENTS, AND EDUCATORS. A FACTORANALYSIS OF RELEVANT VARIABLES IN THE HISTORICAL STUDY ISAPPENDED. (HM) Aililli. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION &WELFARE OFFICE Of EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCEDEXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATINGIT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENTOFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. THE IRONY OF URBANSCHOOL REFORM, Ideology and Style inMid-NineteenthCenturyMassachusetts by Michael B. Katz UnitedStates Office of Education, Cooperative Research Program, Project S-085 Final Report 1966 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACUPWLEDGMENTS ABBREVIATIONS Educational Reform:The Cloud of Sentiment INTRODUCTION. 1 and Historiograplly 7 The New Society . I. 18 II. The New Education Reform by Imposition: PART ONE. 26 Social Origins ofEducational Controversy 26 The Abolition ofBeverly High School PROLOGUE: 36 I. Educational Promoters andthe High School 66 Local Opposition toReform II. 66 1. Academies and Districts 82 2. Groton, a Case inPoint 106 3. The Working Class againstReform Town" to "Primary School EPILOGUE: Lawrence, From "Model 122 of Vice" PART TWO;The Uses of Pedagogy: Teachers and the EducationalProcess 152 152 PROLOGUE: The Heresy of CyrusPeirce action" and the Necessity I. Society's "hot stimulus to 154 of Restraint 166 II. "The true idea ofeducation" excellence" vs. "emulation" . 176 III. "A new motive to moral 204 EPILOGUE: "God's Gardener," Strategies of Teacher Mobility Urban Delinquent: PART THREE. Compulsory Education and the The State Reform School 214 . 214 PROLOGUE: Reformers against the ReformSchool . of Prisons 215 I. Delinquency and the Grading impressions'? to "imperfection ofthe II. From "favorable 225 stock": the Theory of Crime and Poverty 244 III. "At once a home and aschool" 267 EPILOGUE: The Results of Reform Myths and Limits 279 CONCLUSION. Educational Reform: Table of Contents (continued) Page APPENDICES APPENDIX A: Massachusetts Social, Economic and Educational Statistics 287 APPENDIX B: Communities and Education, an Analysis of Variance 292 I. High School Defined 295 First Relationships 305 III.Factor Analysis 315 IV. Patterns of Variance 331 V. Conclusions and Limitations 340 APPENDIX C: Social Composition of High School Enrollment 345 APPENDIX D: Beverly and the Vote to Abolish the High School: Relevant Statistics 348 BIBLIOGRAPHY 363 I. Note', 363 II. Sources 367 VITA 386 Acknowledgments contract from the This study was madepossible by the grant of a deeply grateful. United States Officeof Education. For this award I am supported by a National The statistical workinvolving a computer was time under the Science Foundation grant. For allowing me computer John B. Carroll.Throughout grant I wouldlike to thank Professor administration my stay atthe Harvard GraduateSchool of Education the considerable financial has provided tolerance,freedom, interest and very graciousness and generosity support, and ithas done so with the characteristic of itsdealings with students. My thanks go especially to Associate DeanEdward Kaelber. assistance I sought have The librarians andschool officials whose wculd like to been almost unfailinglyhelpful. In particular, I Society, whose eagerness thank Miss Ruth Hill ofthe Beverly Historical collection should be imposed to help scholars usethe Society's fine listened upon more often. Many friends andcolleagues have patiently the past two years; anumber to me think outloud about this study over have read drafts andsections; almost all havemade helpful comments. thank Dr. They have my deepestthanks. Especially, I would like to substantial assistance. Robert Dreeben and Dr.Allan Ellis for their very My advisor and the sponsorof this project hasbeen Dean Theodore R. residence at H. Sizer; and the profitablenessand pleasantness of my G.S.E. has been due in nosmall part to his considerationand assistance. This study started as a paperin the seminar of Dr.Daniel Calhoun. almost every draft of each Dr. Calhounhas sinceread every version and section; he has, too, spent manyhours discussing the studywith me. have helped give His always penetratingand stimulating comments this study much ofwhatever merit it possesses.For all the help mis- I have received I am mostgrateful. Of course, all errors, interpretations and otherblunders that remain are entirely my own responsibility. Finally, it is probablyenough to say that my wifeand children well as graduate have suffered throughlife with an undergraduate as than he himself student husband andfather with more faith and patience has had. Abbreviations of In the footnotes all references tothe various annual reports the Massachusetts Board ofEducation will be abbreviatedand include only the number and the word"report," e. ,g.,Nineteenth Report. The full title would beNineteenth Annual Report of theMassachusetts Report of the Board of Education togetherwith the Nineteenth Annual Secretary to the Board. Report number one is dated1838. Reports of school committeesfrom the same town changedtitles in the manner of the frequently. Here they will be referred to following example: Groton. .1851-52, 1852, p.5. The Cloud of Introduction. Educational Reform: Sentiment andHistoriography Americans share a warmand comforting mythabout the origins of historians have helped to perpetu- popular education.For the most part rational, enlightened ate this essentisllynoble story which portrays a intellectuals, trium- working class, led byidealistic and humanitarian wealthy elite and phantly wresting fzne publiceducation from a selfish, 1 This story squares from the bigoted proponentsof orthodox religion. More and more in poorly with the currenttrend in historical writing. that fundamental social recent years historianshave attacked the notion Instead, they controversy providedthe dynamic of nationaldevelopment. controversies repreient but argue, theapparently opposing sides in past variations of a common consensuson fundamentalprinciples. satisfies no more But the consensusviewpoint applied to education 2 of than the older conflictversion. For a hard look at the myth 1 reform in the As an example of the candard version of educational mid-nineteenth century, oneof the:mmitul*lidely,:read socialhistories of became conscious of the period claims: "It was not until the common man used the suffrage he had the privileges ofwhich he had been deprived and turned to a acquired to demand educationfor his children that the state consideration of the commonschool. This movement was in accordwith the humanitarianism: of the time,and the reformers joined theworkingmen in seeking remedies for thedefects in the educationalsystem."Alice Felt Tyler, Freedom's FermentPhases of American Social Histor to 1860, Minneapolis, 1944, p. 233. 2 knowledge produces popular education and atrealities which are common Everyone knowsthat for many some glaringdiscrepancies and paradoxes. went to highschool. years only atiny proportionof eligible children version, was Yet the foundingof the high school,in the conventional Could there havebeen a a greatachievement of populardemocracy. Pop- ready consensus toestablish expensive,minority institutions? outgrowth of workingclass ular education, sothe story goes, was an the school aspiration, but the estrangementbetween the culture of least since the and the workingclass community hasbeen lamented at implies the existenceof a deep time of Dewey. Such an estrangement evidence to cultural division throughoutsociety. It seems to provide but it also runs support the theoriesthat stress social controversy, working class. counter to the ideaof an education hungry started in a passionate Popular education,according to the myth, urban school system&since blaze of humanitarianzeal, but most large cold, rigid andsomewhat ster- the latter nineteenthcentury have been humanitarian urge tohelp realize ile bureaucracies. Could a truly quickly into thedispassionate, widely diffusedaspirations have turned so for the discrep- ethos of red tapeand drill?How are we to account Are parts of themyth valid, parts ancies between mythand actuality? questions and brushaside the cloud of untrue?To answer these of applied the consensusinterpretation to the events Massachusetts has Consensus in Common Jonathan Messerli,"Controversy