USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 34
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The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor.
-WALT WHITMAN
THE citizens of New York were making great strides in education and the various branches of art and literature in the same period that they were winning undisputed leadership in commerce, transportation, finance, and manufacturing. The growth of free public schools on the elementary level and the development of the daily newspaper were significant in making New Yorkers better informed citizens. New York City, which in 1825 was a cultural center on a level with Boston and Philadelphia, gradu- ally outstripped its rivals by the time of the Civil War. In painting, music, architecture, journalism, and the theater, New York City set the pace for the nation. In publishing and in literary pursuits, New Yorkers were slowly forging ahead of their rivals in the Boston-Cambridge area.
Great progress toward a public school system was made between 1825 and 1860, but the main developments were quantitative rather than qualitative. Education for the average boy or girl ended in the elementary school, which enrolled over 90 per cent of all students in 1860. The curricu- lum offered little beyond the traditional three R's. State supervision of elementary schools became more rigid, especially for the city systems that developed. During the 1850's the public high school began to challenge the dominant position of the private academies, which had always re- ceived some public support. Standards for teachers and physical condi- tions for students remained low.
The law of 1812, the basic educational provision until 1849, provided that the common school fund of the state should be apportioned among the different towns according to the population. The supervisors of each county were to levy upon each town a sum matching the state grant.
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Additional funds to pay teachers' salaries were to be raised by a rate bill levied upon those sending children to the school in proportion to the number of days such children were in attendance.
Unfortunately, not all children received a free education and schooling was not compulsory. Thousands of children had to work to support them- selves and their parents. For example, in Rochester in 1839 there were over one thousand children (about one-fourth of those in the age range five to sixteen ) not attending any school. The worst defect in the law of 1812 was the requirement that indigent parents sign a pauper's oath if they wished the rate bill waived. Since many parents were too proud to sign such a statement, they kept their children at home. The superin- tendent of schools of New York State estimated in 1846 that over forty- six thousand children were not attending schools.
Sentiment for free public schools began in the cities and spread to the countryside. During the 1840's several cities followed the leadership of Buffalo and New York City in setting up systems of free public schools. The working-class leaders, residents of New England background, and the reformers were the strongest advocates. Opposition to public schools was strong, since many farmers and persons of wealth feared higher taxes. Roman Catholics, who thought such institutions were "godless" or tainted with Protestantism, or both, resented paying taxes for public schools and wished to use the money for schools maintained by their church. Private schools naturally feared the competition of a free public school system.
Between 1849 and 1851 a memorable battle was fought between the friends and foes of public schools. The legislature, heeding the petitions of thousands of residents, passed an act in 1849 establishing free schools throughout the state. The lawmakers considered this act so important that they referred it to the people. Well over two-thirds of the voters gave it their approval, but many New Yorkers took a second view when their tax bill came in. Furthermore, the act did not work well in practice. Real property was hit hard while corporate and personal property escaped tax- ation. Some twenty thousand citizens, especially in the rural districts, asked the legislature to repeal the act. The law was resubmitted to a vote and again sustained, though by a decreased majority.
The legislature passed a compromise act in 1851 which provided for the imposition of rates upon parents of children attending the public schools. At the same time they appropriated $800,000 for the schools, which meant, in effect, that most rural districts received enough state aid to avoid rate bills.
Friends of education kept fighting for more support and better direction of the school system. In 1854 the legislature removed the supervision of the schools from the secretary of state and created the office of Super- intendent of Public Instruction. This led to closer supervision of local
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schools and higher standards. Finally, in 1867, the hated rate-bill system was abolished.
Economy was the watchword for trustees of school districts, who tried to secure teachers at the lowest possible salaries. During the 1820's some schools adopted the Lancastrian system, whereby the teacher worked with the more advanced students, who, in turn, heard the recitations of the less advanced. After a short trial period the Lancastrian system was quietly dropped. A more successful way of reducing expenses was the replace- ment of male teachers with female teachers, at half the cost. By 1866, when over 80 per cent of the common-school teachers were women, Super- intendent Victor Rice enthused, "To teach and train the young seems to be one of the chief missions of woman. Herself high-minded, the minds of those with whom she comes in daily contact unconsciously aspire. Gentle herself, she renders them gentle."
The combination of low pay, hard work, insecurity, and political favor- itism meant a transient and incompetent set of teachers. Teacher turn- over was very high. In 1844 one observer estimated that twenty-six thousand people were hired to fill sixteen thousand positions. The emotion- charged words of Superintendent Samuel Young in his annual report for 1843 strips the "little red school house" of some of the nostalgic charm with which it has been invested by the passing years:
The nakedness and deformity of the great majority of the schools in this State: the comfortless and dilapidated buildings, destitute, in many instances, of the ordinary conveniences and decencies of life; the unhung doors, broken sashes, absent panes, stilted benches, gaping walls, yawning roofs, and muddy and moldering floors ... and many of the self-styled teachers, who lash and dogmatize in these miserable tenements of suffering humanity, are shown to be low, vulgar, obscene, intemperate, ignorant, and profane, utterly in- competent to teach any thing that is good.
The statistics of Superintendent Nathaniel Benton in 1846 indicate that Young was not carried away by rhetoric. In the nine thousand districts inspected, 2,760 buildings were in bad repair; 6,462 had no playground; and over 5,000 had no privy accommodations at all. Furthermore, the average wage per month for male teachers was $14.00, and for females, $7.50. Improvements came with discouraging slowness. In 1865 Super- intendent Victor Rice noted with satisfaction that he had succeeded in repairing many schools and had supplied them for the first time with proper cleaning equipment.
The basic requirement that teachers should possess an adequate knowl- edge of subject matter and understand how to handle children intelli- gently only slowly won support. The various state superintendents of common schools continually urged the legislature to improve teaching
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standards. In 1827 New York became the first state to appropriate money regularly to train teachers in the academies, and the law of 1835 estab- lished teachers' departments in eight academies, one in each senatorial district. These academies, however, failed to provide sufficient teach- ers to meet the need, and in 1844 the first normal school was set up at Albany. The idea of in-service training for teachers took hold, and Teach- ers Institutes lasting for two to six weeks were held. Common problems and newest methods were discussed.
By 1860 few schools had deviated from the traditional curriculum of spelling, writing, arithmetic, geography, composition, and patriotic his- tory. The Bible was read regularly until the protests of the Roman Cath- olics against the King James Version led to its withdrawal. But McGuffey's Readers continued to provide students with a daily dose of morality. Some of the more progressive elementary schools in the cities offered courses in bookkeeping, natural philosophy (science), and French. The acquisition of factual information and the disciplining of the mind by memorization were the goals and methods of almost all teachers.
Secondary education remained almost entirely in private hands until the decade of the 1850's. The Board of Regents and various local authori- ties had already fostered development of a number of academies which prepared young men for college and trained teachers for the common schools.
The Regents acted with discrimination in granting charters to acade- mies, requiring sponsors to show evidence of sufficient funds, suitable buildings, and public need. Unfortunately, promoters who were unable to meet these requirements could by-pass the Regents and secure charters from the state legislature. During the 1820's there was a rush for new charters, and every village and town with any pretensions sought to establish an academy. The poverty of pioneer days was passing and the Finney revivals stimulated Christian concern for securing trained young people to spread the Gospel. Yankee schoolteachers brought with them a strong faith in education.
When it created the University of the State of New York, the legisla- ture also directed the Regents to encourage the establishment of acade- mies. As early as 1786 the legislature had ordered the surveyor general to mark one lot of unsold land in each township for "Gospel and schools" and one lot for the promotion of literature. The revenue from these lots of land was given to the academies, but this fund was very small until it received an additional $150,000 from the Canal Fund in 1827. Money was apportioned according to the number of students pursuing classical studies or the "higher branches of English education." The total amount of aid to the academies was small and in 1840 averaged only $339. The Board of Regents also made special grants for the purchase of books, maps,
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and globes. Eight academies, which maintained departments for the education of common-school teachers, received special funds.
Academies were not coeducational as a rule. In general, seminaries were established for girls and academies for boys. Perhaps the outstanding seminary was the Troy Female Seminary founded in 1821 by Mrs. Emma Willard. Seminaries commonly offered genteel instruction in music and painting and other "accomplishments" suitable to the young lady of leisure.
The academies, however, responded to the growing demand for the practical subjects such as bookkeeping and teaching methods. Each year the list of such subjects grew. A considerable number of students came to elect courses in science or history and philosophy and did not follow the classical college-preparatory course. City schools designed for artisans and tradesmen specialized in practical subjects.
In 1850 unchartered private schools enrolled almost as many students as the chartered academies. Hundreds of small schools sprang up only to disappear within a year or so. As the Rochester Republican noted in 1837, "an educated young woman needs only a suitable room and some apparatus, and then begins operation at once." A majority of these schools catered to girls and became known as select schools. Although a few tried to enhance the young ladies' graces, most of them were primarily con- cerned with teaching the three R's. As the district public schools became free and as their standards of instruction rose, these select schools gradu- ally declined. The strongest ones began to call themselves seminaries.
The academies in New York State reached their peak in 1855 with an enrollment of over 36,000 students, as compared with only 2,445 in 1825. Attendance varied from town to town, but apparently no more than 10 to 20 per cent of the boys and girls (ages twelve to sixteen) were en- rolled in 1850. After 1855 academies declined steadily until about 1900. Most of the 12,272 students in private academies at the later date were studying under Roman Catholic auspices.
A demand for free instruction at the secondary level rose in New York State during the decade prior to the Civil War. In some communities the public demanded that the academies offer free tuition to students coming from the towns. "Free academies" were established in New York City and elsewhere. For example, Rochester set up a central high school in 1857. By 1860 there were twenty-two free, public high schools in the state. Most of these schools bore the name of free academies, institutes, and classical schools. Despite the rise of the high school, the private academies dominated secondary education before the Civil War.
Higher education was not a field in which New York led the nation. More New Yorkers went to out-of-state schools than the number of non- New Yorkers who studied at colleges in this state. The tiny fraction of
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the population which entered college (fewer than one per thousand citi- zens of New York as compared with almost seventeen per thousand citi- zens of the United States in 1952) remained almost stationary from 1833 to 1863. In the latter year there were only 1,305 students in the "literary" colleges and 897 in the medical colleges.
The most noteworthy development in higher education was the found- ing of several of our most important colleges under denominational in- spiration. The education of clergymen was the main goal of the various denominations. St. Johns (1840) was Roman Catholic; Madison (now Colgate ) and Rochester were established as the result of a Baptist feud in 1846; St. Lawrence (1856) was Universalist, and Alfred (1857) was Seventh-Day Baptist. In 1860 the Protestant Episcopal church founded St. Stephens (now Bard) to supplement Hobart and Columbia. New York University (1831) was nondenominational and owed its origin partly as a protest against the conservatism and Episcopal exclusiveness of Colum- bia. The Methodist Episcopal church founded Genesee College at Lima in 1851 and in 1871 moved it to Syracuse to be reopened as Syracuse University. Presbyterian influence remained strong at Hamilton and Union, founded before 1825. Cornell University, chartered in 1865, opened its doors in 1868. It was the first college to provide coeducation and to avoid all sectarian ties.
The United States Military Academy at West Point was opened in 1802 with ten cadets. Major Sylvanus Thayer, who served as superin- tendent from 1817 to 1833, built up the academy into a first-rate military school. Many of the famous generals of the Civil War-Lee, Grant, Jack- son, Sheridan, Early, Jefferson Davis-received their training in the castellated Gothic structure on the heights overlooking the Hudson.
Both old and new colleges needed money desperately. Their presidents spent much of their time seeking benefactors. The most munificent dona- tion of the time ( over $600,000) was made to Union by President Eliphalet Nott. The state legislators made grants to several institutions, but they became increasingly less generous, preferring to devote tax money to free public schools. Tuition, often only thirty dollars a year, brought in little revenue and could not be increased because the students, the majority of them the sons of farmers and parsons, could not afford to pay more.
The basic aim of the colleges was to train men for positions in church and state, and therefore the colleges stood for conservatism in politics and orthodoxy in religion. Trustees and faculty were agreed that the pri- mary function of the college was to preserve and perpetuate the knowl- edge of the past, not to stimulate new ideas in immature minds.
Students prepared for admission by attending the academies or by study- ing with a private tutor. Colleges normally required applicants to be four-
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teen or older and to show some proficiency in Latin, Greek, English, and arithmetic.
The college course of study for the first three years consisted largely of drill in Latin, Greek, and mathematics. The fare for juniors was broad- ened to include some science and modern languages. Seniors escaped with less study of the ancient languages and mathematics but took prescribed courses in moral philosophy, political economy, science, and rhetoric. The president frequently gave the course in "evidences of Christianity" for seniors.
Cracks were beginning to appear in the iron front of the classical cur- riculum, despite the resistance of the conservatives. Union was the first college to place scientific instruction on a level equal with the classical course. Students could substitute modern languages for Greek and Latin and had several free electives. In the face of competition from New York University, Columbia in the 1830's added a "scientific and literary course" to train young men for mercantile and engineering pursuits. The new in- stitution in Rochester allowed students several options. Among the new subjects in the curricula of various colleges were laboratory science, Ro- mance languages, English literature, and history.
Faculty members were gentlemen, often clergymen, of unquestioned probity, great industry, and uncertain scholarship. Teaching was dull and uninspired, since memorization of the text was standard procedure. Teach- ers relied upon the prescribed textbook as the final authority and insisted upon the right answers instead of encouraging students to ask the right questions. Salaries were low-customarily less than one thousand dollars a year. The professors were expected to advise students, preach an occa- sional sermon, and police the dormitory. The daily routine was laid out as carefully as the curriculum. The following was the schedule at Hamil- ton College in 1813: prayers at six o'clock, summer and winter; recitation for one hour before breakfast; study hours before and after lunch, in- terrupted by two other recitations; dinner, followed by evening prayers.
Students frequently defied the stern and elaborate regulations adopted by the faculty. Their pent-up physical energies had no way of ex- pressing themselves in organized athletics or planned social functions. Most misconduct was merely mischievous, such as placing cows in the rooms of tutors, ringing the chapel bell, and tearing down fences. Occa- sionally, however, students engaged in pitched battles with town boys, burned the college buildings, and stoned the professors. George Strong noted in his diary in 1835, "Lucky for the faculty that curses do not kill or else the faculty of Columbia College would have been swept from the earth."
Undergraduates showed considerable initiative in organizing and man-
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aging literary societies. On most campuses such societies enrolled prac- tically the entire student body. Their chief purpose was to criticize literary compositions and to debate contemporary issues. The Phoenix Society at Hamilton College in 1825 debated these issues. Should the United States aid the Greeks to win their independence? Should students become en- gaged or marry? Does education cramp genius? In addition, the societies bought and collected libraries, a function most colleges neglected before 1850.
Despite their very real achievements, the societies gradually lost in- fluence and after 1850 began to disappear, largely because the Greek-letter fraternities, originating at Union, spread to many colleges. Both the so- cieties and the fraternities reflected student activities and values which the classroom could not satisfy. Their rise marks the growth of a secular spirit which defined success in terms of wealth, skill at games, and social distinction.
New York was a laggard in promoting education for women either in women's colleges or in coeducational institutions. Elmira Female College (1855) was the first institution for young ladies in this state. Vassar opened its doors in 1865. Coeducation had to wait until after the Civil War.
The establishment of professional schools was a significant development of this period. Many colleges, including St. Johns, St. Lawrence, Alfred, Rochester, and Madison, established theological departments. Independ- ent theological schools also sprang up as denominational loyalties hard- ened. The Lutherans pioneered with Hartwick Seminary in 1816; the Presbyterians set up Auburn in 1820; and the Episcopalians founded the General Theological School in New York City in 1822. The division in the Presbyterian church prompted the New School Presbyterians to set up Union Theological Seminary in 1837 as a protest against the conservatism of "Old School" Princeton.
In engineering education New York State was a leader. The Erie Canal has been called America's first school of engineering, since many early engineers received practical training building locks and running surveys for that canal. Stephen Van Rensselaer, who took a keen interest in geology and other scientific matters, secured a charter in 1826 for the Rensselaer Institute. Its aim was "to qualify teachers for instructing sons and daugh- ters of farmers and mechanics ... on the application of experimental chemistry, philosophy, and natural history to agriculture, domestic econ- omy, the arts, and manufactures." At the start, candidates received a de- gree in civil engineering after one year's study. In 1849 President Franklin Greene completed the reorganization of the school and extended the course of study for a degree in civil engineering to approximately four years. The United States Military Academy at West Point also trained men in engineering.
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The aspiring lawyer continued to receive his training in the office of an established attorney and then passed an easy bar examination. A few law schools were started: at New York University in 1835; Albany in 1851; Columbia in 1858. Earlier, some colleges had professorships of law. The famous Chancellor James Kent lectured at Columbia from 1823 to 1847.
Medical colleges were more numerous than law schools, although most hopeful students were still trained in the office of an older physician. New York University set up a college in 1837 to compete with the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Albany Medical College (1839) and the Uni- versity of Buffalo (1846) served the eastern and western parts of the state. The course of study was rather limited, and although the students listened to lectures, they received no laboratory training.
Adult education depended largely upon various voluntary associations and libraries. Informal groups and societies which had sponsored occa- sional lectures before 1825 multiplied during the lyceum movement in the 1830's. The lyceum was a local association of neighbors interested in self-improvement. It collected books and scientific specimens and some- times had an assembly room, but its main function was the sponsorship of lectures. Talks on science were the most popular, but literary figures, such as Emerson, and politicians also swung around the lyceum circuit. New York took the leadership in lyceums, establishing the first state fed- eration and providing the first president for the national federation in the person of Stephen Van Rensselaer.
Similar societies grew up under a variety of names: literary institutes, forums, Franklin institutes, manual labor schools, and young men's so- cieties. There were several mechanics institutes which sponsored lectures on scientific and literary subjects. The Albany Institute, the successor to the Albany Lyceum, amassed a library and an art collection.
New York led the other states in the total number of professional, dis- trict, and academy libraries. The State Library, founded in 1818, became a leading reference library. Its directors persuaded the legislature to ap- propriate funds for legal works and for historical collections on the colonial period. The finest reference library in America at the time resulted from the bequest of John Jacob Astor in 1848 which enabled Director Joseph Cogswell to ransack the book markets of Europe. The Astor Library be- came the nucleus of the New York Public Library.
The establishment of small book collections in almost all of the ten thousand common school districts was one of the most interesting de- velopments of this period. Governor De Witt Clinton in 1827 had urged that money be granted to each district for this purpose, and in 1836 the legislature set aside an annual grant of $55,000 which enabled the districts to collect over 1,600,000 volumes by 1853. Undoubtedly these libraries helped to raise the cultural level, but neglect and apathy limited their
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