LATER STATE SYSTEMS "The highest institutions are necessary to supply the proper standard of education; to raise up instructors of the proper qualifications; to define the principles and methods of education. "Nothing is more evident than that the three grades of education-the primary, the intermediate, the university are all alike necessary. The one cannot exist, in perfection, without the others; they imply one another. . . "It is to the honor of Michigan that she has conceived of a complete system of public education running through the three grades we have discussed above. Nor do these grades exist merely in name. She has established the primary grade of schools and made them well nigh free. She has laid the foundation of an institution which admits of being expanded to a true university. In former days she had her branches' belonging to the intermediate grade; and now we see rising up those invaluable institutions, the 'union schools,' belonging to the same grade. We say not that legislation has adequately reached the entire system, or made provision for its development; but the idea of the entire system is abroad among the people; it has not been absent from our legislation; it has appeared in the reports of superintendents and visitors, and in other documents; and the people, at this moment, unaided by any special appropriation, are organizing above the district school, the best schools of the intermediate grade, less than a college, which have yet existed among us; and are erecting large, tasteful, and convenient edifices for their accommodation. These ideas, spontaneously working in the minds of the people, these spontaneous efforts to create schools of a higher grade must determine future legislation, and indicate the grand point to which our educational development is tending." It is this large conception of education as one great public interest, from the lowest schools to the highest, which we need as a background for any consideration of the development of state systems of secondary education. We have already looked into the establishment of those state systems in which the educational unit was the presented by President Clap, of Yale College, in the eighteenth century. President Tappan says, "A university is a collection of finished scholars in every department of human knowledge, associated for the purpose of advancing and communicating knowledge."-Op. cit., p. 161. academy. Such systems belong to the latter part of the eighteenth and the earlier half of the nineteenth century. The great movement in the establishment of state systems which make the high school their unit, belongs to the period following the Civil War. But highly important pioneering had been done at a period much earlier than this. The first general provision for anything answering to our idea of a high school, which has thus far come to light, was contained in the Connecticut law of 1798. Previous to this time, the requirement that each of the county towns should support a grammar school had been in force. This requirement was now discontinued. In its place, a provision was adopted to the effect that any school society (district) might by a two-thirds vote establish a higher school, "the object of which shall be to perfect the youth admitted therein in reading and penmanship, to instruct them in the rudiments of English grammar, in composition, in arithmetic, and geography, or, on particular desire, in the Latin and Greek languages, also in the first principles of religion and morality, and in general to form them for usefulness and happiness in the various relations of social life." This law seems to contemplate, not a high school proper, but rather a mixed institution an advanced primary or English grammar school for the most of the pupils, and a Latin grammar school for a select few. A similar provision had been adopted two years earlier for the first school society of Farmington, Connecticut, but Latin and Greek were not included in its list of studies. This was to be a central school, supported by a pro rata assessment on the public moneys assigned to the several districts into which the society might be divided.2 In Massachusetts, as we have seen, the law requiring grammar schools in the towns was so far weakened, in 1824, that towns having a population of less than five thousand were allowed to substitute for such school an elementary school, if the people should so determine by vote at a public elec1 Rept. Comr. Ed. for 1892-93, II., pp. 1253-54. 2 Id., p. 1255. tion. This is the low-water mark of public school sentiment in Massachusetts, with reference to the secondary grade of instruction. In 1826 it was enacted that every town having five hundred families should provide a master to give instruction in the history of the United States, bookkeeping, geometry, surveying, and algebra, and every town having four thousand inhabitants, a master capable of giving instruction in Latin and Greek, history, rhetoric, and logic.1 This act has seen some vicissitudes since its first adoption, but it marks the beginning of continuous provision in Massachusetts for a state system of high schools. It is difficult to trace the early statutory provisions for high schools in many of the states. At the time when the older schools of this sort were coming into being, special legislation was not held in such disfavor as in more recent times. The high schools, as institutions of the municipalities, were often erected under special statutes and charters framed for each city separately, without reference to any general enactment, or even to any general principle. Their legal history must be sought for in the maze of such legislation. Yet it will not be forgotten that through just such devious ways a general policy of the states with reference to such institutions was gradually built up. In some instances a measure drawn in the first place for a single community found so great favor that it was made the model for statutes framed for the benefit of other communities, or even for general enactments. For example, the Akron law," passed by the Ohio legislature in 1847, provided for a graded school system in the city of Akron, including a "central grammar school," which was in reality a high school. The provisions of this act were immediately extended to the city of Dayton, and in 1848 to every incorporated town or city in the state, whenever two-thirds of the qualified voters should petition the town or city council in favor of such extension.' 1 Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, ch. 143, sec. 1. 2 A history of education in the state of Ohio, pp. 113, 114. In 1848 the third district in Somersworth, New Hampshire, was empowered by the legislature to establish and maintain a high school. Later in the same year, the provisions of this act were extended to all school districts which might adopt it in regular form; and it was further enacted, "that any school district, when the number of scholars should exceed 100, might vote to keep such high school or schools as the interests of education might require." 1 Other general enactments appear at a comparatively early date. They were, however, permissive in their provisions, and not compulsory as was the Massachusetts law. State Superintendent Benton, of Iowa, recommended graded or "union" schools in 1848; and legal permission for the organization of higher grades in the public schools of that state was granted in 1849. In 1857 more ample provision was made for the higher schools, “provided that no other language than the English shall be taught therein, except with the concurrence of two-thirds" of the board of education. The general school law of 1858 authorized county high schools.2 The first school law of California, adopted in 1851, provided for the establishment of high schools by any city, town, or village having more than four hundred scholars, on petition of two-thirds of the legal voters within such district, or by two school districts which might unite for this purpose while remaining separate in other respects. Not more than one-fourth of the state and county moneys received by any district might be expended for the support of such high schools. Districts were authorized also to tax themselves for the support of schools of this grade, but might not expend for this purpose more than one-fourth of the whole amount raised by local taxation for schools. High schools were required under this act to teach, in addition to the studies of the grammar schools, "bookkeeping, surveying, drawing, music, political economy, Greek and Latin, equal 1 BUSH, History of education in New Hampshire, p. 19. to that what [sic] is required for admission into college, Spanish and French." These provisions were soon supplanted by others less liberal in character, but the early school legislation of the state generally made a way for public schools of this grade. In New York the general school law of 1864 authorized the board of education of any "union free school district to establish in the same an academical department whenever, in their judgment, the same is warranted by the demand for such instruction." Such academical departments were made subject to the board of regents in all matters pertaining to their course of education, and were to enjoy such privileges in the university as had been granted to the academies. Provision was made for the formal adoption of existing academies by boards of education, and the transference of institutions so adopted from private to public control.2 In Maryland the old state academy system was swept away by a law of 1865, and a system of county high schools substituted for it. But the change was too radical to be fully carried out. Later legislation provided for the renewal of state aid to academies, which continued to exist alongside of the system of county high schools. While such early and liberal enactments may be found in a few of the states, in others high schools were established in large numbers without explicit warrant of law. The school law of these states commonly provided in general terms that the studies to be pursued should be determined by the local board of school trustees or directors. A minimum list of studies was sometimes prescribed in the statute; and it was commonly held that the school board might provide for the teaching of other subjects, including such as were distinctly of secondary grade. Objection was made repeatedly to this practice. As was 1 California statutes, 1851, ch. 126, art. 5, secs. 3, 6, 7, 8; art. 7, sec. 2. 2 HOUGH, Historical and statistical record of the University of the State of New York, pp. 28, 29. SOLLERS, Secondary education in the state of Maryland (Chapter 2 of STEINER'S History of education in Maryland), pp. 66-68. |