Frank Pierrepont Graves

In England, during the eighteenth century, there were numerous attempts to provide education for the poor through charity schools. The most important factor in maintaining these institutions was the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.

Among other organizations, there sprang up a Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which supported schools throughout the American colonies, except Virginia. Charity schools were also maintained in America by various other agencies.

An attempt was likewise made by Raikes of Gloucester, England, to establish Sunday schools, for training the poor to read, and these institutions spread throughout the British Isles and America.

A system of instruction through monitors, developed by Lancaster and Bell, while formal and mechanical, furnished a sort of substitute for national education in England, and, spreading throughout the United States, paved the way for state support, and greatly improved the methods of teaching.

‘Infant schools’ for poor children also grew up during the nineteenth century in France, England, and the United States, and found a permanent place in the national systems, but they soon became formalized and mechanical.

Philanthropic education proved a first step toward universal and national education.

Reconstructive Tendencies of the Eighteenth Century.—The eighteenth century cannot be regarded altogether as a period of revolution and destruction. While such a characterization describes the prevailing tendencies, there were also social and educational forces that looked to evolution and reform rather than to a complete disintegration of society and a return to primitive Even in Rousseau and the philanthropinists, living. Even in Rousseau, the arch-destroyer of traditions, we found many evidences of a reconstruction along higher lines, and such a positive movement was decidedly obvious in Basedow, Salzmann, and other philanthropinists. But in England reforms were especially apparent. In the land of the Briton, progress is proverbially gradual, and sweeping victories and Waterloo defeats in affairs of society and education are alike unwonted. The French tendency to cut short the social and educational process and to and especially in England. substitute revolution for evolution is out of accord with the spirit across the English Channel.

The Rise of Charity Schools in England.—And yet conditions in England at this time might well have incited people to revolution. Wages were low, employment Wretched conditions of laboring class. was irregular, and the laboring classes, who numbered fully one-sixth of the population, were clad in rags, lived in hovels, and often went hungry. Opportunities for elementary education were rare. The few schools that remained after the Reformation had largely lost their endowments or had been perverted into secondary institutions, and had suffered from incompetent and negligent masters and from the religious upheaval of the times. It was as a partial remedy for this situation, that, toward the close of the seventeenth century, there sprang up a succession of ‘charity schools,’ in Charity schools as remedy. which children of the poor were not only taught, but boarded and sometimes provided with clothes, and the boys were prepared for apprenticeship and the girls for domestic service. Probably about one thousand schools upon this general philanthropic basis had been established in England and Wales by the middle of the eighteenth century. Most of these had received substantial endowment, but numbers of them were maintained by private subscriptions.

The Schools of the S. P. C. K.—A factor that was even more important in opening charity schools was the ‘Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge’ (often abbreviated to S. P. C. K.). This society was Foundation, founded in 1698 by Reverend Thomas Bray, D. D., and four other clergymen and philanthropists. As a rule, management, its schools were established, supported, and managed by local people, but the Society guaranteed their maintenance, and assisted them from its own treasury whenever a stringency in funds arose. The S. P. C. K. also inspected schools, and advised and encouraged the local books, managers, and furnished bibles, prayer books, and catechisms at the cheapest rates possible. It made stringent regulations of eligibility for its schoolmasters, requiring, teachers, in addition to the usual religious, moral, pedagogical, and age tests, that they be members of the Church of England and approved by the minister of the parish. Each master was expected to teach the children their catechism, and purge them of bad morals and manners, and course. besides training them in reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic. The pupils were, moreover, clothed, boarded, and at times even lodged.

The number of charity schools of the S. P. C. K. grew by leaps and bounds, and by the close of the first decade there were eighty-eight within a radius of ten Development, miles of London. The gifts made had amounted to almost ten thousand pounds, and nearly one thousand boys and over four hundred girls had been sent out as apprentices. And before the middle of the eighteenth century the total number of these charity schools in England and Wales reached nearly two thousand, with about fifty thousand boys and girls in attendance. This increase in facilities for the education of the poor was not kindly received by many in the upper classes, who often felt that “there is no need for any learning at all for the meanest ranks of mankind: their business is to opposition and advocacy, labour, not to think.” But the charity schools had also many warm supporters, and Addison even believed that as a result of them there would be “few in the next generation who will not at least be able to write and read, and have not an early tincture of religion.” The benefactions for these institutions continued to increase for nearly half a century, but by the middle of the eighteenth decadence, century popular interest had waned. The subscriptions began to fall off, the system of inspection and the teaching became less effective, and the schools ceased to expand. Nevertheless, the S. P. C. K. had succeeded and influence. in impressing the Church of England with a sense of responsibility for the establishment of a national school system upon a religious basis. Its schools were largely continued throughout the eighteenth century, and in most instances after 1811 were absorbed by the new educational organization of the English Church, the so-called ‘National Society’ (see p. 239).

Other British Charity Schools.—These institutions of the Church of England society may be regarded as typical of British charity schools in general. There were, however, Nonconformist schools. also a dozen well-known foundations by nonconformists, including the ‘Gravel Lane School’ of Southwark, London, which was started over a decade before the S. P. C. K. was organized. And an interesting type of philanthropic institution known as ‘circulating ‘Circulating schools.’ schools’ was founded in Wales. These schools simply aimed to teach pupils to read the Bible in Welsh, and when this had been accomplished in one neighborhood, the school was transferred to another. But a much more important organization was the offshoot of the S. P. C. K., that arose chiefly to carry on charity schools in the American colonies. This association, the ‘Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foundation of the S. P. G. Foreign Parts,’ (commonly known as S. P. G.), was founded by Dr. Bray three years after the parent society, but no schools were established for several years.

The Charity Schools of the S. P. G.—The first school S. P. G. school in New York City,— of the S. P. G. was opened in New York City in 1709 under William Huddleston, who had been conducting a school of his own there. It was intended that the new school should follow the plan of the charity schools in England, but, while free tuition and free books were granted from the beginning, it was not until many years later that the means of clothing the children gratuitously was provided. Under different masters and with varying fortunes, the school was supported by the society until 1783, when the United States had finally cut loose from the Mother Country and started on a career of its own. Meanwhile Trinity Church had come more and more to take the initiative in the endowment and support of the school, and since the withdrawal of the now ‘Trinity Church School.’ society from America the institution has been known as ‘Trinity Church School.’

Schools of the same type were active throughout the colonies in the eighteenth century. We possess more or less complete accounts of these institutions in New Other colonies York and all the other colonies, except Virginia, where they were not believed to be needed. Except for size and local peculiarities, all of them closely resembled Attendance, the school in New York City. The attendance ranged from eighteen or twenty pupils to nearly four times that number. Girls were generally admitted, and occasionally equalled or exceeded the boys in number. As a rule, children of other denominations were received on the same terms as those of Church of England members, and at times nearly one-half the attendance was composed of dissenters, but often those outside the Church were given secondary consideration, or the catechism was so stressed by the school that the dissenting children were withdrawn and rival schools set up. The character course, and books. of the course of study in these charity schools is further indicated by the books furnished by the society. In packets of various sizes it sent over horn-books, primers, spellers, writing-paper and ink-horns, catechisms, psalters, prayer books, testaments, and bibles. There is also some evidence that secondary instruction was carried on intermittently in the various centers by the missionaries or by the schoolmasters in conjunction with their elementary work.

Throughout its work in the American colonies the S. P. Opposition to the S. P. G. G. met with various forms of opposition. The dissenters, Quakers, and others were often openly hostile through fear of the foundation of an established national church similar to that of England, and both sides displayed considerable sectarianism and bigotry. After 1750 the opposition to the society increased in bitterness and became more general, owing to the feeling that its agents were supporting the king against the colonists. Yet its patronage of schools was most philanthropic and important for American education in the eighteenth century. While it insisted upon the interpretation of Christianity adopted by the Church of England, it stood first and foremost for the extension of religion and education to the virgin soil of America. It carried Its devotion and generosity, on its labors with devoted interest and showed great generosity in the maintenance of schools, and the support and influence upon universal education. of schools in the colonies by the S. P. G. must have exerted some influence toward universal education.

Charity Schools among the Pennsylvania Germans.—During the eighteenth century the efforts of the S. P. G. were supplemented by the formation of minor associations and the establishment of other charity schools in various colonies. Perhaps the most noteworthy instance was the organization in 1753 of ‘A Society for Propagating the Knowledge of God among the Germans,’ and the maintenance of schools among the sects Organization, of Pennsylvania. These schools were managed by a general colonial board of six trustees, who visited the schools annually and awarded prizes for English orations and course, and attainments in civic and religious duties. The course of study included instruction in “both the English and German languages; likewise in writing, keeping of common accounts, singing of psalms, and the true principles of the holy Protestant religion.” Twenty-five schools were planned, but probably there were never more than half disappearance of S. P. K. G. schools. that number. The schools lasted only about a decade, as the Germans soon came to feel that this English schooling threatened their language, nationality, and institutions.

The ‘Sunday School’ Movement in Great Britain.—A variety of charity school, quite different from those already mentioned, sprang up toward the close of the century under the name of ‘Sunday Schools.’ To overcome the prevailing ignorance, vice, and squalor in the Foundation, manufacturing center of Gloucester, England, Robert Raikes in 1780 set up a school in Sooty Alley for the instruction of children and adults in religion and the rudiments. Six months later he started a new school in Southgate street, and soon had other schools established. He paid his teachers a shilling each Sunday to train the children to read in the Bible, spell, and write. This opposition, charity education, meager as it was, was attacked by many of the upper classes, and was often viewed with suspicion by the recipients themselves. Yet the new advocacy, and spread. movement had warm supporters among the nobility and such reformers as Wesley, and the schools soon spread to London, and then throughout England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and the Channel Islands. A Sunday School Society was founded in 1785, and within a decade distributed nearly one hundred thousand spellers, twenty-five thousand testaments, and over five thousand bibles, and trained approximately sixty-five thousand pupils in one thousand schools.

The ‘Sunday School’ Movement in the United States.—The Raikes system of Sunday instruction was also soon introduced in America. The first school was organized Individual centers in 1786 by Bishop Asbury at the house of Thomas Crenshaw in Hanover County, Virginia, and within a quarter of a century a number of schools arose in various and permanent associations. cities. Before long, permanent associations were also started to promote Sunday instruction. ‘The First Day or Sunday School Society’ was organized at Philadelphia in 1791, and during the first two decades of the nineteenth century a number of similar societies for secular instruction on Sunday were founded in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. In 1823 these associations were all absorbed into a new and broader organization, known ever since as the ‘American Sunday School Union.’ At the start it published suitable reading-books, and furnished primers, spellers, testaments, and hymn-books to needy Sunday schools at a reasonable rate.

Value of the Instruction in ‘Sunday Schools.’—Both in Great Britain and the United States, however, the Sunday schools gradually tended to abandon their Makeshift, but prepared the way for universal education. secular instruction and become purely religious. At the same time the teachers came to serve without pay and to instruct less efficiently. And the value of the secular teaching was not large at the best, as the work was necessarily limited to a few hours once a week. Raikes and all others interested in these institutions recognized their inadequacy as a means of securing universal education, and regarded them merely as auxiliary to a more complete system of instruction. But while a makeshift and by no means a final solution for national education, they performed a notable service for the times, and helped point the way to universal education.

The Schools of the Two Monitorial Societies.—While philanthropic education started largely in the eighteenth century, some of the schools continued well into the nineteenth. This was especially the case with the ‘monitorial’ system, started at Southwark in 1798. This district of London was thronged with barefoot and unkempt Lancaster children; and Lancaster, the founder of the school, undertook to educate as many as he could. His schoolroom was soon filled with a hundred or more pupils. In order to teach them all, he used the older pupils as assistants. He taught the lesson first to these ‘monitors,’ and they in turn imparted it to the others, who were divided into equal groups. Each monitor cared for a single group. The work was very successful from the first, but Lancaster, attempting to introduce schools of this kind throughout England, fell so recklessly into debt that an association had to be founded in 1808 to continue the work on a practical basis. Within half a dozen years Lancaster withdrew from the organization, and the British and Foreign Society; but the association, under the name of the ‘British and Foreign Society,’ continued to flourish and found new schools.

So successful was the Lancasterian work that the Church of England, fearing its nonsectarian influence upon education, in 1811 organized ‘The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church.’ This long-named association was to conduct monitorial schools under the Bell and the National Society. management of Doctor Andrew Bell, who had experimented with the system in India before Lancaster opened his school. Although they had formed no part of Bell’s original methods, the Anglican catechism and prayer book were now taught dogmatically in the schools founded by the National Society. Bell proved an admirable director, and a healthy rivalry sprang up between the societies.

Value of the Monitorial System in England.—The Differences in the two systems. plans of the two organizations were similar, but differed somewhat in details. Both used monitors and taught writing by means of a desk covered with sand, but the system of Lancaster was animated by broader motives and had many more devices for teaching. It also instituted company organization, drill, and precision, and developed a system of badges, offices, rewards, and punishments. Monitorial instruction, however, was not Both were unoriginal original with either Lancaster or Bell. It had long been used by the Hindus and others, although the work of the two societies brought it into prominence. It overemphasized and mechanical. repetition and recitation mechanics, and consisted of a formal drill rather than a method of instruction.

Yet the monitorial schools were productive of some Afforded substitute for national education. achievements. Most of them afforded a fair education in the elementary school subjects and added some industrial and vocational training. They also did much to awaken the conscience of the English nation to the need of general education for the poor. The British and Foreign and the National Societies afforded a substitute, though a poor one, for national education in the days before England was willing to pay for general education, and they became the avenues through which such appropriations as the government did make were distributed. In 1833 the grant of £20,000, constituting the first government aid to elementary education, was equally divided between the two societies (see p. 388), and this method of administration was continued as the annual grant was gradually increased, until the system of public education was established. Likewise, in 1839, £10,000 for normal instruction was voted to the societies, and was used Training colleges. by the British and Foreign for its Borough Road Training College, and by the National for St. Mark’s Training College. These were followed by several other training institutions, established by each society through government aid. In 1870, when the ‘board,’ or public elementary, schools were at length founded, the schools British and Foreign schools absorbed, but National a system by themselves. of the British and Foreign Society, with their nonsectarian instruction, fused naturally with them; but the institutions of the National Society, though transferred to school boards in a few cases, have generally come to constitute by themselves a national system on a voluntary basis.

Results of the Monitorial System in the United States.—In the United States the monitorial system was introduced into New York City in 1806. The ‘Society for the Establishment of a Free School,’ after investigating the best methods in other cities and countries, decided to try the system of Lancaster (see p. 260). The method Adoption by New York and other cities. was likewise introduced into the charity schools of Philadelphia (see p. 261). The monitorial system then spread rapidly through New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and other States. It is almost impossible to trace the exact extent of this organization in the United States, but before long it seems to have affected nearly all cities of any size as far south as Augusta (Georgia), and west as far as Cincinnati. There are still traces of its influence throughout this region,—in Hartford, New Haven, Albany, Washington, and Baltimore, as well as in the places already mentioned (Figs. 27, 28, and 29). In 1818 Lancaster himself was invited to America, and assisted in the monitorial schools of New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia. A dozen years later the system began to be introduced generally into the high Introduced into high schools and academies. schools and academies. Through the efforts of Dr. John Griscom, who had been greatly pleased with the monitorial high school of Dr. Pillans in Edinburgh, a similar institution was established in New York City in 1825, and the plan was soon adopted by a number of high schools in New York and neighboring states. Likewise, the state systems of academies in Maryland and in Indiana, which became high schools after the Civil War, were organized on this basis. For two decades the monitorial remained the prevailing method in secondary education. Training schools for teachers on the Lancasterian basis also became common.

In fact, the monitorial system was destined to perform a great service for American education. At the time of its introduction, public and free schools were generally Increased school facilities lacking, outside of New England, and the facilities that existed were meager and available during but a small portion of the year. In all parts of the country illiteracy was almost universal among children of the poor. This want of school opportunities was rendered more serious by the rapid growth of American cities. ‘Free school societies,’ like that in New York City, formed to relieve the situation, came to regard the system of Lancaster, because of its comparative inexpensiveness, as a godsend for their purpose. And when the people generally awoke to the crying need of public education, legislators also found monitorial schools the cheapest way out of the difficulty, and the provision made for these schools gradually opened the road to the ever increasing expenditures and taxation that had to come before satisfactory schools could be established. Moreover, the Lancasterian schools were not only economical, but most effective, when the educational conditions of the times are taken into consideration. Even in the cities, the one-room and one-teacher school was the prevailing type, and grading was practically unknown. The whole organization and improved organization and methods. and administration were shiftless and uneconomical, and a great improvement was brought about by the carefully planned and detailed methods of Lancaster. The schools were made over through his definite mechanics of instruction, centralized management, well-trained teachers, improved apparatus, discipline, hygiene, and other features.

Fig. 27.—A monitorial school, with three hundred pupils and but one teacher.