As I believe I mentioned in my review of his book, Popular Education and Its Discontents, Dr. Lawrence A. Cremin, Ph.D., was a well known education historian, president of Teachers College at Columbia, and late husband of someone we know from the puzzle parties we’ve attended. I read the 150-page Popular Education and Its Discontents and found it interesting and fairly readable. Dr. Cremin has also written three much longer volumes about the history of education in the United States and I decided to give one of these a try. The Cal State L.A. library only had the first two and the second, American Education: The National Experience 1783-1876, has won the Pulitzer Prize. I started reading it and I learned some things, though it wasn’t the easiest book to follow and I only got through part of it. But I’m still writing a review because the copyright page says it’s OK to embody brief quotations in critical essays and reviews.
Unlike Popular Education and Its Discontents, American Education: The National Experience 1783-1876 is a long book of well over 500 pages. It is organized into parts of 100-150 pages each that seem to be about the different ideas and social forces that shaped American education. I only got through the first and less than half of the second part. The first part, “The Kingdom of God” is about the religious movements and ideas. Religious leaders believed that education would create a more pious populace and take the country to the proverbial millennium (I’m not sure what that means but it’s mentioned frequently in the book). The primary religions involved are Protestant Christians especially the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregational churches. The latter two are so active in education that Dr. Cremin refers to the interdominational movement as “Presbygational”. It makes sense to me that the Methodists would be involved because they founded the college where I went for undergrad, Willamette University. Dr. Cremin describes how Sunday school actually wasn’t religious in origin but was first used to offer “the rudiments of reading and writing to the children who worked during the week with the added benefit of keeping them off the streets for the Sabbath.” (Cremin, p. 66) Later the churches took control of Sunday school and used to for evangelical purposes. The final pages of the first part describe three religious movements, two that failed and one, the Latter Day Saints or Mormons, that succeeded. A footnote mentions how founder Joseph Smith planned his city to have a population of fifteen to twenty thousand but only one thousand house lots “indicating that the average household size was expected to be between fifteen and twenty.” (p. 97)
I got through 1/3 or about 50 pages of the second part, The Virtuous Republic, that’s about education and government. Like the first part, this one goes through ideas that shaped education and the people behind those ideas. Dr. Cremin writes a lot about Thomas Jefferson. He and many other leaders and Founding Fathers believed that education was needed to ensure the survival of the Republic. An educated populace would commit fewer crimes, perform its duty to the country, and help the nation advance. The subjects in primary education that Jefferson believed would achieve these goals were “reading, writing, arithmetic, mensuration, geography, and history.” (p. 110) Mensuration is the act of measuring. For higher education, Jefferson has interesting groupings of math and physics. Pure mathematics consists of algebra, fluxions, geometry, and architecture while “physio-mathematics” consists of mechanics, statics, dynamics, pneumatics, acoustics, optics, astronomy, and geography. I haven’t heard head of fluxions before. It’s not in the Random House dictionary, though “flux” means flowing or continuous change among other things. It’s also interesting that architecture is included in the pure mathematics grouping.
Other passages of part two touch on issues and ideas that are still discussed in the present day by education scholars. In 1795 the Reverend Samuel Knox proposed that the country establish a national board of education that would ensure “identical curricula, identical textbooks, and identical standards prevailed.” (p. 123) As we well know from history, this never happened. Education evolved to be controlled by local and state boards. The national Department of Education did not arise until the 1970’s and to this day only really has power over Federal funding. Many other first world countries direct education at the national level and they arguably do a better job educating children. In my studies of public education, I developed the belief that it was problematic that education was controlled by politicians and bureaucrats. However, public control was part of American education leader Horace Mann’s design. He believed that “popularly elected representatives rather than professional schoolmen” should have ultimate oversight since the people should control what is taught to their children.” (p. 139) This strikes me as a noble idea, but with all the politics in education, I wonder if it really plays out.
In the past and today the texts used by educators are important education tools. Dr. Cremin describes some interesting texts used in the late 18th and early 19th century in the U.S., especially those used in religious teaching. The story “George’s Feast” is a story about a boy who finds some strawberries and would have enjoyed them but gives them to his sick mother instead. The Tract Society published the Illustrated Family Christian Almanac that urged youngsters to “Work! Work!” That sounds like the song “Work” by Hockey.
I learned some interesting information about life in early America. Along with spelling and reading comprehension, educational texts stressed oral English since “reading had for centuries been a social phenomenon and indeed most reading had been carried on aloud and in groups.” (p. 71) That’s interesting that people would read aloud as entertainment. I guess that’s what they did before TV, movies, the Internet, and video games. Something else that was interesting was that Joseph Palmer, one of the co-founders of Bronson Alcott’s failed Transcendentalist Society in Fruitlands, Massachusetts, “wore a long beard when beards were out of fashion and actually suffered a brief imprisonment for that in Worcester, Massachusetts.” (p. 90)
There were a few things mentioned that reminded me of books I’d read recently. Bronson Alcott’s more deeply held view of human nature “was decisively confirmed by his studying of the writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.” (p. 86) Coleridge was one of the Lake Poets or Lakers I read about in the Dictionary of English Literature last year. Two separate passages mention how education leaders believed that the education of women was important. Benjamin Rush believed young women needed training as wives and mothers so that they could instruct their sons in the principles of liberty and government. Horace Mann went further when he declared in 1853 “The rulers of our country need knowledge (God only knows how much they need it!) But mothers need it more; for they determine, to a great extent, the very capacity of the rulers’ minds to acquire knowledge and apply it.” (p. 143) This sentiment is similar to Greg Mortensen’s, the real life protagonist of Three Cups of Tea who builds schools in Pakistan to teach all children but primarily to teach girls. They will hopefully grow up and teach their sons values that dissuade them from fundamentalist terrorism.
The earlier sections of Dr. Cremin’s text give a few widely held believe about education. Thomas Paine emphasized that children and young people need to be taught to seek knowledge on their own since ultimately self-education was the truest education. He stated, “Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.” (p. 22) William Ellery Channing realized that schools and schoolteachers would carry the greatest burden of popular education. (p. 33) I believe President Obama or Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said something similar, that the teachers in the classrooms had the greatest impact on the education of children.
I got through 150 of the 500+ pages of American Education: 1783-1876. I got through the Rule of Fifty and thought I could keep going. I was learning some interesting things but I found the book to be very slow going. It was more informative reading than pleasure reading. It’s more of a textbook to be studied in class or used for research than something to be read from cover to cover. Dr. Cremin obviously knew education and history. He knew that all events, and movements are shaped by ideas and he explores the origins of these ideas and the people behind them. The book is a survey of these people and ideas rather than a listing of events one after another. It’s the combination of these ideas that formed American education, and that, along with later ideas, evolved in to the educational system we have today.
Unlike Popular Education and Its Discontents, American Education: The National Experience 1783-1876 is a long book of well over 500 pages. It is organized into parts of 100-150 pages each that seem to be about the different ideas and social forces that shaped American education. I only got through the first and less than half of the second part. The first part, “The Kingdom of God” is about the religious movements and ideas. Religious leaders believed that education would create a more pious populace and take the country to the proverbial millennium (I’m not sure what that means but it’s mentioned frequently in the book). The primary religions involved are Protestant Christians especially the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregational churches. The latter two are so active in education that Dr. Cremin refers to the interdominational movement as “Presbygational”. It makes sense to me that the Methodists would be involved because they founded the college where I went for undergrad, Willamette University. Dr. Cremin describes how Sunday school actually wasn’t religious in origin but was first used to offer “the rudiments of reading and writing to the children who worked during the week with the added benefit of keeping them off the streets for the Sabbath.” (Cremin, p. 66) Later the churches took control of Sunday school and used to for evangelical purposes. The final pages of the first part describe three religious movements, two that failed and one, the Latter Day Saints or Mormons, that succeeded. A footnote mentions how founder Joseph Smith planned his city to have a population of fifteen to twenty thousand but only one thousand house lots “indicating that the average household size was expected to be between fifteen and twenty.” (p. 97)
I got through 1/3 or about 50 pages of the second part, The Virtuous Republic, that’s about education and government. Like the first part, this one goes through ideas that shaped education and the people behind those ideas. Dr. Cremin writes a lot about Thomas Jefferson. He and many other leaders and Founding Fathers believed that education was needed to ensure the survival of the Republic. An educated populace would commit fewer crimes, perform its duty to the country, and help the nation advance. The subjects in primary education that Jefferson believed would achieve these goals were “reading, writing, arithmetic, mensuration, geography, and history.” (p. 110) Mensuration is the act of measuring. For higher education, Jefferson has interesting groupings of math and physics. Pure mathematics consists of algebra, fluxions, geometry, and architecture while “physio-mathematics” consists of mechanics, statics, dynamics, pneumatics, acoustics, optics, astronomy, and geography. I haven’t heard head of fluxions before. It’s not in the Random House dictionary, though “flux” means flowing or continuous change among other things. It’s also interesting that architecture is included in the pure mathematics grouping.
Other passages of part two touch on issues and ideas that are still discussed in the present day by education scholars. In 1795 the Reverend Samuel Knox proposed that the country establish a national board of education that would ensure “identical curricula, identical textbooks, and identical standards prevailed.” (p. 123) As we well know from history, this never happened. Education evolved to be controlled by local and state boards. The national Department of Education did not arise until the 1970’s and to this day only really has power over Federal funding. Many other first world countries direct education at the national level and they arguably do a better job educating children. In my studies of public education, I developed the belief that it was problematic that education was controlled by politicians and bureaucrats. However, public control was part of American education leader Horace Mann’s design. He believed that “popularly elected representatives rather than professional schoolmen” should have ultimate oversight since the people should control what is taught to their children.” (p. 139) This strikes me as a noble idea, but with all the politics in education, I wonder if it really plays out.
In the past and today the texts used by educators are important education tools. Dr. Cremin describes some interesting texts used in the late 18th and early 19th century in the U.S., especially those used in religious teaching. The story “George’s Feast” is a story about a boy who finds some strawberries and would have enjoyed them but gives them to his sick mother instead. The Tract Society published the Illustrated Family Christian Almanac that urged youngsters to “Work! Work!” That sounds like the song “Work” by Hockey.
I learned some interesting information about life in early America. Along with spelling and reading comprehension, educational texts stressed oral English since “reading had for centuries been a social phenomenon and indeed most reading had been carried on aloud and in groups.” (p. 71) That’s interesting that people would read aloud as entertainment. I guess that’s what they did before TV, movies, the Internet, and video games. Something else that was interesting was that Joseph Palmer, one of the co-founders of Bronson Alcott’s failed Transcendentalist Society in Fruitlands, Massachusetts, “wore a long beard when beards were out of fashion and actually suffered a brief imprisonment for that in Worcester, Massachusetts.” (p. 90)
There were a few things mentioned that reminded me of books I’d read recently. Bronson Alcott’s more deeply held view of human nature “was decisively confirmed by his studying of the writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.” (p. 86) Coleridge was one of the Lake Poets or Lakers I read about in the Dictionary of English Literature last year. Two separate passages mention how education leaders believed that the education of women was important. Benjamin Rush believed young women needed training as wives and mothers so that they could instruct their sons in the principles of liberty and government. Horace Mann went further when he declared in 1853 “The rulers of our country need knowledge (God only knows how much they need it!) But mothers need it more; for they determine, to a great extent, the very capacity of the rulers’ minds to acquire knowledge and apply it.” (p. 143) This sentiment is similar to Greg Mortensen’s, the real life protagonist of Three Cups of Tea who builds schools in Pakistan to teach all children but primarily to teach girls. They will hopefully grow up and teach their sons values that dissuade them from fundamentalist terrorism.
The earlier sections of Dr. Cremin’s text give a few widely held believe about education. Thomas Paine emphasized that children and young people need to be taught to seek knowledge on their own since ultimately self-education was the truest education. He stated, “Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.” (p. 22) William Ellery Channing realized that schools and schoolteachers would carry the greatest burden of popular education. (p. 33) I believe President Obama or Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said something similar, that the teachers in the classrooms had the greatest impact on the education of children.
I got through 150 of the 500+ pages of American Education: 1783-1876. I got through the Rule of Fifty and thought I could keep going. I was learning some interesting things but I found the book to be very slow going. It was more informative reading than pleasure reading. It’s more of a textbook to be studied in class or used for research than something to be read from cover to cover. Dr. Cremin obviously knew education and history. He knew that all events, and movements are shaped by ideas and he explores the origins of these ideas and the people behind them. The book is a survey of these people and ideas rather than a listing of events one after another. It’s the combination of these ideas that formed American education, and that, along with later ideas, evolved in to the educational system we have today.
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