USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume Three > Part 3
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public schools ascertained that of about 400,000 children of school age at least 250,000 were growing up in ignorance because no schools were within their reach.
After the act for a general system of education was passed, it was believed by some to be unconstitutional. Fortunately, the Supreme court held that while schools for the poor were explicitly commanded by the constitution, schools for all were not forbidden. Under the wording of the constitution of 1776 and under the form in which the article on education came before the convention of 1789-90, providing for the payment by the State "to the masters of such salaries as should enable them to teach at low rates," a system of free schools would have been impossible. Through the efforts of Timothy Pickering and others, the wording of the con- stitution of 1790 was changed so as to include the words "that the poor may be taught gratis" in schools established by law through- out the State. And yet this action paved the way for legislation which made a distinction between the rich and the poor, and which in one form or another remained the law until it was obliterated in 1874. The act of 1809 permitted counties to grant free instruction only between the ages of five and twelve years.
On the eve of a gubernatorial election James Buchanan said : "If ever the passion of envy could be excused a man ambitious of true glory, he might almost be justified in envying the fame of that favored individual, whoever he may be, whom Providence intends to make the instrument in establishing common schools through- out this Commonwealth. His task will be arduous. He will have many difficulties to encounter and many prejudices to over- come; but his fame will exceed even that of the great Clinton in the same proportion that mind is superior to matter. Whilst the one has erected a frail memorial, which, like everything human, must decay and perish, the other will raise a monument which shall flourish in immortal youth, and endure whilst the human soul shall continue to exist. 'Ages unborn and nations yet behind, shall bless his memory.'"
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Governor Shulze was a man of culture, whose messages con- tain the most urgent appeals for legislation designed to put within reach of all the advantages of an education. In his message of 1827 he says : "Among the injunctions of the constitution, there is none more interesting than that which enjoins it as a duty on the legislature to provide for the education of the poor throughout the Commonwealth. Whether we regard it in its probable influ- ence upon the stability of our free republican government, or as it may contribute to social and individual happiness, it equally de- serves the earnest and unremitted attention of those who are honored with the high trust of providing for the public welfare," etc.
Again, in 1828, he wrote: "The mighty work and conse- quent great expenditures undertaken by the State, cannot induce me to forbear again calling attention to the subject of public education. To devise means for the establishment of a fund, and the adoption of a plan, by which the blessings of the more neces- sary branches of education should be conferred on every family within our borders, would be every way worthy the legislature of Pennsylvania ; and attention to this subject, at this time, would seem to be peculiarly demanded by the increasing number of chil- dren and young persons who are employed in factories," etc.
The honor which was denied to Governor Shulze fell to the lot of his successor, Governor Wolf. To his mind it was a start- ling fact that out of four hundred thousand persons of school age, two hundred and fifty thousand should not be inside of the school during the entire year. He undertook to establish a system of public instruction and made it the special object of his ambition, the cherished purpose of his administration. In his first inaugu- ral address and in message after message he referred to the need of legislation for the establishment of a system of common schools. He opened an office for the transaction of business in one of the rooms of the capitol, threw aside all forms of exclu- siveness which might hinder the approach of the people, and by
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daily contact with legislators and other public men, enforced the duty of action to remove this stain from the Commonwealth. He sought to dispel the notion that wealth is preferable to knowl- edge; he pointed out the relation of universal education to the welfare and prosperity of the people, and he maintained that a well-educated people will always possess a moral and physical energy superior to an ignorant and illiterate people, and that education tends to check vice and to diminish crime. Prejudice, avarice, ignorance and error were the adversaries he faced in his fight for free schools; and in his victory over these, and in what he accomplished for the general diffusion of knowledge among the people of Pennsylvania by the establishment of a system of free schools, were verified the most sanguine predictions of his most ardent friends. "To George Wolf," says Major Armor, "that honor was accorded and to him in all time to come, when the inquirer shall seek to know by whose voice and sturdy will that great boon was championed and finally won, will the paeans of gratitude be sung."
It would be unjust to ascribe to Governor Wolf all the glory for the establishment of our system of free schools. In this noble work he was aided by many others who labored in the same great cause both before and after him, as well as during his administra- tion. The Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Public Schools, organized in 1828, did much by its publications and by correspondence to awaken an interest in common schools through- out the State. Throughi its agency public meetings were held and petitions in favor of free schools were sent to members of succes- sive legislatures. It was claimed by Ex-State Superintendent Hickok, shortly before his death, that portions of Governor Wolf's message relating to education were framed by Roberts Vaux, president of the society to which reference has been made.
Legislative Action .- As early as 1824 an act was passed pro- viding, according to its title, for more effectually laying the ' foundation of a general system of education throughout the
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Commonwealth. It provided for the selection by vote or ap- pointment by the court of three "school men" in every township, borough or ward to look after the education of the poor. The citizens of the several townships, wards and boroughs were au- thorized to vote on this question of a general tax, schools or no schools, and in case a majority voted for schools, the school men were to levy taxes, erect school houses, furnish text books and stationery, examine and employ teachers and supervise the schools. There are no records to show that the act ever went into actual effect. Public opinion was not yet ripe for such a step. In 1826 it was repealed and the act of 1809 for the educa- tion of the poor was restored. Out of the failure of the efforts to educate the poor as a class arose the idea of schools free to all.
During the session of 1831, petitions asking for the establish- ment of a better system of schools came to both houses from twenty-four counties (also a few against), showing that the question was before the people. By the act of April 2, 1831, a school fund was created, interest to be added to the principal un- til the interest should amount to $100,000 annually, after which the interest was to be distributed and applied for the support of common schools. It was supposed that the fund would in ten years amount to two millions of dollars. Three years later, (1834), an act was passed which laid the foundation for the Pennsylvania system of public instruction.
The honor of having framed the act of 1834 belongs to Sam- uel Breck, a senator from Philadelphia, who entered the public service for the sole purpose of giving the State a general system of education, and as soon as this was accomplished he retired to private life. As chairman of the joint committee of the house and senate he addressed to the governors of several States. and to other persons versed in educational affairs, a carefully prepared series of questions covering all subjects necessary to be under- stood by the committee and the legislature in drafting and voting upon a bill designed for the establishment of a thorough and
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permanent educational system for the people of our Common- wealth. The answers to these interrogations were "prompt, full and satisfactory," and through the knowledge thus acquired Sen- ator Breck prepared the frame of the act upon which the free educational system of Pennsylvania now stands.
When the bill came up for final passage there were only three votes against it in the senate and but one in the house. It was approved on the first day of April, 1834, and the storm of excite- ment that followed extended into every county in the State. "In many districts," says Dr. Wickersham, "the contest between those
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in favor of accepting the new law and those determined to reject it, became so bitter that party and even church ties were for a time broken; the rich arrayed themselves against the poor, and the business and social relations of whole neighborhoods were great- ly disturbed."
A chief executive, solicitous of his political future, might have hesitated in his course or changed his policy to please the angry populace, but Governor Wolf remained steadfast in his purpose and took a firm stand on the side of the new law in his message of December 3, 1834. After admitting that the law might be defective in certain details, he claimed that its objectionable fea- tures could be ascertained by experience and remedied by suitable amendments, and he bravely asserted that the new system was dcidedly preferable to the old from every point of view.
When the next legislature assembled it was found that a majority in the senate was against the new system, and the atti-
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tude of the house was doubtful. A bill repealing the law passed the senate and was reported to the house unchanged by the com- mittee on education. Thirty-eight counties out of fifty-one sent petitions for repeal, while others asked for a modification of its provisions. Only eleven counties refrained from embarrassing their representatives by such petitions. The bill was taken up in committee of the whole, and on April 10 a substitute for the senate bill was reported to the house, which, instead of repealing the act of 1834, gave it new strength by removing some of its gravest defects, and adding provisions designed to facilitate its practical operation.
The next day (April 11, 1835) has been rightly named an eventful day in the history of the school legislation of Pennsyl- vania. The amended bill came up on second reading. The struggle over its passage continued during the forenoon, after- noon and evening sessions. At a critical point in the proceedings the member from Adams county, Thaddeus Stevens, said :
"Mr. Speaker : I will briefly give you the reasons why I shall oppose the repeal of the school law. This law was passed at the last session of the Legislature with unexampled unanimity, but one member of this House voting against it. It has not yet come into operation, and none of its effects have yet been tested by experi- ence in Pennsylvania. The passage of such a law is enjoined by the Constitution and has been recommended by every Governor since its adoption. Much to his credit, it has been warmly urged by the present Executive in all his annual messages delivered at the opening of the Legislature. To repeal it now, before its prac- tical effects have been discovered, would argue that it contained some glaring and pernicious defect, and that the last Legislature acted under some strong and fatal delusion, which blinded every man of them to the interests of the Commonwealth. I will at- tempt to show that the law is salutary, useful and important ; and that consequently the last Legislature acted wisely in passing, and the present would act unwisely in repealing it; that, instead of be-
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ing oppressive to the people, it will lighten their burthens, while it elevates them in the scale of human intellect.
* * "If an elective republic is to endure for any great length of time, every elector must have sufficient informa- tion, not only to accumulate wealth and take care of his pecuniary concerns, but to direct wisely the Legislature, the Ambassadors, and the Executive of the nation; for some part of all these things, some agency in approving or disapproving of them, falls to every freeman. If, then, the permanency of our government depends upon such knowledge, it is the duty of the government to see that the means of information be diffused to every citizen. This is a sufficient answer to those who deem education a private and not a public duty-who argue that they are willing to educate their own children, but not their neighbor's children. *
"Many complain of the school tax, not so much on account of its amount, as because it is for the benefit of others and not them- selves. This is a mistake. It is for their own benefit, inasmuch as it perpetuates the government and ensures the due administra- tion of the laws under which they live, and by which their lives and property are protected. Why do they not urge the same objection against all other taxes? The industrious, thrifty, rich farmer pays a heavy county tax to support criminal courts, build jails, and pay sheriffs and jail-keepers, and yet probably he never has had
and never will have any direct personal use for either. He never gets the worth of his money by being tried for a crime before the court, allowed the privilege of the jail on conviction, or receiving an equivalent from the sheriff or his hangmen officers! He cheer- fully pays the tax which is necessary to support and punish con- victs, but loudly complains of that which goes to prevent his fel- low-being from becoming a criminal, and to obviate the necessity of those humiliating institutions.
..
"Why shall Pennsylvania now repudiate a system which is calculated to elevate her to that rank in the intellectual which, by the blessing of Providence, she holds in the natural world-to be
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the keystone of the arch, the 'very first among her equals?' I am aware, sir, how difficult it is for the great mass of the people, who have never seen this system in operation, to understand its advantages. But is it not wise to let it go into full operation, and learn its results from experience ? Then, if it prove useless or
burthensome, how easy to repeal it ! I know how large a portion of the community can scarcely feel any sympathy with, or under- stand the necessities of the poor; or appreciate the exquisite feel- ings which they enjoy, when they see their children receiving the boon of education, and rising in intellectual superiority above the clogs which hereditary poverty had cast upon them. It is not wonderful that he whose fat acres have descended to him, from father to son in unbroken succession, should never have sought for the surest means of alleviating it. Sir, when I reflect how apt hereditary wealth, hereditary influence, and, perhaps as a conse- quence, hereditary pride, are to close the avenues and steel the heart against the wants and the rights of the poor, I am induced to thank my Creator for having, from early life, bestowed upon me the blessing of poverty. Sir, it is a blessing-for if there be any human sensation more ethereal and divine than all others, it is that which feelingly sympathizes with misfortune.
"But we are told that this law is unpopular, and that the peo- ple of the State desire its repeal. Has it not always been so with every new reform in the condition of man? Old habits and old prejudices are hard to be removed from the mind. Every new improvement which has been gradually leading man from the sav- age through the civilized up to a highly cultivated state, has re- quired the most strenuous and often perilous exertions of the wise and the good. But, sir, much of its unpopularity is chargeable upon the vile arts of unprincipled demagogues. Instead of at- tempting to remove the honest misapprehensions of the people, they cater to their prejudices, and take advantage of them, to gain low. dirty, temporary, local triumphs. I do not charge this on any particular party. Unfortunately, almost the only spot on
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which all parties meet in union, is this ground of common infamy !
"I have seen the present chief magistrate of this Common- wealth violently assailed as the projector and father of this law. I am not the eulogist of that gentleman; he has been guilty of many deep political sins. But he deserves the undying gratitude of the people for the steady, untiring zeal which he has manifested in favor of common schools. I will not say his exertions in that cause have covered all, but they have atoned for many of his errors. I trust that the people of this State will never be called upon to choose between a supporter and an opposer of free schools. But if it should come to that, if that should be made the turning point on which we are to cast our suffrages, if the opponent of education were my most intimate personal and political friend, and the free school candidate my most obnoxious enemy, I should deem it my duty, as a patriot, at this moment of our intellectual crisis, to forget all other considerations, and I should place my- self unhesitatingly and cordially, in the ranks of him whose ban- ner streams in light."
It was Stevens's eloquence and leadership that won the vic- tory for the free school system. He was a prominent leader in the anti-masonic movement and a political opponent of Governor Wolf. But immediately after his great speech the governor sent for Mr. Stevens, and when the latter entered the executive cham- ber embraced him, and with tearful eyes and broken voice thanked him for the great service he had rendered to our common com- munity.
The full text of the speech was reprinted in the Pennsylvania School Journal in 1891, Vol. 39, pages 326-330. In 1835 there was no stenographer in either house of the legislature. Some hours after the delivery of the speech an attempt was made to report it from memory, but the written speech is said to convey very little of the force and power of the words as they fell from the orator's lips. The speech, beautifully printed on silk, was afterwards presented to him by some school men of Reading, and
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Thomas Mckean
Signer of the Declaration of Independence ; member Delaware General Assembly, 1752- 1769; member stamp-act congress, 1765; mem- ber Continental Congress, 1774-1783; chief jus- tice of Pennsylvania, 1777-1799; member Penn- sylvania Constitutional Convention, 1790; gov- ernor of Pennsylvania, 1799-1808
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was proudly kept by him as a relic till his death. He considered it the most effective speech he ever made, and styled it the "crown- ing utility" of his life. At another time he remarked that he should feel himself abundantly rewarded for all his efforts in behalf of universal education if a single child educated by the Commonwealth should drop a tear of gratitude on his grave.
To those who are fond of studying the details of school ad- ministration and the historic beginnings of great movements the act of 1834 is exceedingly interesting. It made each county a school division, and each ward, township and borough a school district. It prescribed the manner of electing six citizens to serve as school directors. Within ten days after their election they were to meet and organize by electing a president, secretary and treasurer. The method of deciding what district schools were to be put in operation under the law was complicated and unsatisfactory in practice. On a day specified by law there was to be held at the county seat a joint meeting of the commissioners and one delegate from each board of school directors for the pur- pose of deciding whether or not a tax for the expenditure of each district should be levied. It was provided that no tax should be less than double the funds furnished to the county as its share of the appropriation in aid of common schools. This appropriation was to be $75,000 annually until the year when the school fund (created in 1831) should yield an annual interest of $100,000. The law made a strong appeal to the desire of the average citizen to get money out of the State treasury under legal sanction. At the joint meeting a vote was to be taken by yeas and nays on the question of making an appropriation for common schools (each man's vote was recorded), and if the majority decided against such appropriation the districts whose delegates voted in the neg- ative were not entitled to any share of the State appropriation, and the whole amount due to the county was to go to the districts whose delegates voted in the affirmative, in the ratio of the taxable inhabitants of each. If a tax was authorized by the majority, it
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was to be apportioned among the several districts as county rates and levied as was then by law provided.
Within twenty days after the joint meeting each school dis- trict was to have a meeting to decide by a majority of votes whether they would raise for the current year a sum in addition to that determined by the delegates at the joint meetings to be applied to the common schools. This additional sum was certi- fied to the supervisors or to the town council of boroughs, and was collected as township or borough rates were then by law collected. The supervisors or town council were given power to purchase, hold, receive and sell real and personal property for the establishment and support of the schools. The details of man- agement were assigned to the board of school directors. It was made their duty to determine the number of schools to be operated in their respective districts; to cause suitable building's to be purchased, erected or hired for schools; to appoint capable teachers at liberal salaries : to admit scholars; to visit the schools by two or more of their number at least once each month, and to cause the result of their visit to be entered in the minutes of the board; and to have the general superintendence of the schools in their respective districts.
In addition provision was made for the appointment of two competent citizens in each district as inspectors, whose duty was to examine teachers and issue certificates good for one year. The inspectors were to visit every school at least once in three months and as much oftener as they might deem proper, to inquire into the moral character, learning and ability of the several teachers employed. They also were required to make an annual report to the superintendent of public schools. Neither the inspectors nor the directors were to receive compensation for their services, but they were to be free from militia duty or from serving in any other township or borough office; but in case the incumbent was made a delegate to the annual meeting at the county seat he was entitled to receive out of the county treasury one dollar per day
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for attendance including the time spent by him traveling to and from the meeting. The secretary of the commonwealth was made superintendent of public schools, and his duties as then prescribed have remained unchanged except in so far as the crea- tion of the county superintendency, the certifying of teachers, the establishment of State Normal schools, and the enactment of laws making attendance at school compulsory, made necessary an en- largement of his powers.
A supplement to the act of 1834 was approved by Governor Wolf on April 15, 1835, and by its provisions the office of inspec- tor was abolished and all the duties transferred to the school directors. It also provided for the levying of the tax agreed upon by the minority at the joint meeting, said tax to be assessed and collected in the respective districts in the same manner as if a majority of the delegates had voted in the affirmative. It was provided that the tax should be levied on the articles on which the State tax was levied, and on all posts of profit, professions, trades, occupations or callings, not exceeding one and a half times the amount assessed on the same for county purposes. The collec- tion of tax on unseated lands could be enforced as when assessed for county purposes. In all meetings of the people in the several districts no persons were allowed a vote except those entitled to vote for members of assembly.
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