On the Firing Line in Education | Page 8

most rapid strides in education. Both were practically absolute rulers, but they were benevolent and far-sighted, and the educational reforms that they inaugurated were basic and far-reaching, such as state-control and support, compulsory attendance, and the professional education of teachers. Being absolute in authority, all they needed to do was to promulgate the decrees and order their execution. The result was that, educationally, Prussia immediately forged ahead of all the other European countries.
England, on the other hand, was a limited monarchy. Her king could not have acted thus even if he so desired. Such mesures had to have the sanction of Parliament, which would have to hark back to an enlightened public opinion since Parliament was a representative body. And public opinion, especially in matters of education, is slow of creation. As a matter of fact, even tho the English people were much in advance of the Germans in civilization and in all the refinements of life, it was not till 1833 that England as a government took her first step looking toward the education of her children thru appropriating money. And the grant of that Act was only a paltry ��20,000 a year to be used by two religious societies for the erection of school houses. And it was an entire generation later, even 1870, before they adopted the necessary principles of compulsory attendance and local taxation. More than a hundred years behind Prussia, England was, in the management of educational affairs!
Another illustration of the slow action of democracy is nearer at hand both in time and space, even in our own country. For one reason or another, rather, for many reasons, education was at a low-water mark in the United States the latter part of the eighteenth and the first part of the nineteenth centuries. Thoughtful men, progressive educators, prominent statesmen, searching for the cause and for the remedy, found the one in the poor character of the teaching being done and the other in the establishment of the State Normal School patterned after those of Germany. This was first suggested in 1816 in Connecticut and pretty faithfully kept before the people of New England thereafter. But in spite of every effort, including a campaign of education and the establishment of private normal schools for the purposes of demonstration, it was not till 1838 that the Massachusetts legislature could be induced to act. And she would not have done so then had it not been that a very prominent man of Boston, a friend of the cause, Mr. Edmund Dwight, showed his faith in the movement by making a generous contribution out of his private funds. Note, too, this action from another point of view--the amount of Democracy's initial contribution toward this new great movement in America: Mr. Dwight's gift of $10,000 was evenly matched by that of the wealthy state of Massachusetts! And the $20,000 was the amount planned for the establishment of three new normal schools and their maintenance for three years! That amount to-day would scarcely build a coal shed for each of three new normal schools!
But I am not advocating monarchical methods even to hasten so good a cause as educational improvement. I am merely accounting for our slowness of action in needed reform. For several reasons I should be decidedly opposed to adopting such a program of centralization even if we could. In the first place, not every absolute monarch would act as did Frederick the Great. There are few benevolent despots. In France during the seventeenth centuries the Louises were just as absolute as were the Fredericks in Germany. But they were not interested in education for the people. Again, Germany's system of education, tho objectively efficient, has been far from satisfactory because not based on sane moral principles. And that fact, by the way, has finally been Germany's undoing. Now, we can scarcely conceive of Democracy erecting an educational structure on an unsatisfactory moral foundation.
And still again, the action of an absolute monarch, in all such matters as education, tho perhaps temporarily rapid, is not permanent. Remove the guiding spirit and it slips back. An illustration will assist. Again Germany furnishes it. The little duchy of Gotha, just south of Prussia, serves us. During the Thirty Years' War Gotha had suffered greatly. Near its close, in 1640, Duke Ernest the Pious became its ruler. He had at heart the good of his people. He believed that education could be a very important factor in their upbuilding, and at once put into effect a progressive program. His people were greatly bettered and his duchy became a fine object lesson for other German States. But Duke Ernest died. And his educational reforms, not springing from the people themselves, followed him not long after.
A few years ago President Diaz, Mexico's benevolent despot of nearly