Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 71

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 71

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Portsmouth-The town was well supplied with schools before the Revolution, and con- tinued them afterward. There were seven schools in 1819, and four schoolhouses, accommo- dating four winter and one or two summer schools, in 1828.

Providence-Infra.

Richmond-Caleb Barber erected a stone building, known as Barber's Academy, 1806. Other schoolhouses were built as follows: By Amos Lillibridge, George Perry, David Kenyon, and Sprague Kenyon. 1806, destroyed by fire, 1825; by Judge William James, 1812;

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Clark's schoolhouse, near Stanton's Corners, 1812; Kenyon schoolhouse, by Samuel, Silas, Benedict and Carey Kenyon, 1812; Bell schoolhouse, 1826. The General Assembly granted a lottery to build a schoolhouse in Richmond in 1825. Three schoolhouses were maintained in 1819, and schools were also kept in other buildings.

Scituate-Union Schoolhouse Company of Scituate was chartered, 1808; Scituate and Foster Academy, 1817. Scituate had seven schoolhouses in 1819, and ten schoolhouses in 1828.

Smithfield-Tradition relates the building of schoolhouses at Greenville, in the Angell district, at Allendale and Stillwater, before 1776, but the dates may not be verified. Other schoolhouses were built, in the Dexter district, 1816; by Philip Allen, 1820; by S. A. Night- ingale, 1820; rebuilt, 1827. The Society of Friends established a migratory school for chil- dren of the denomination in 1777. Smithfield complied with the state school act of 1800, distributing $1000 annually to twenty-four school districts. Smithfield School Society was chartered in 1808, and Woonsocket public school in 1810. Smithfield had three academies : Thornton's, at Slatersville, 1773-1793; Smithfield Academy, chartered 1808, granted a lottery, 1810, continued to 1853; Greene Academy, chartered and granted a lottery, 1812, became a district school in 1843. Twenty schools were kept in Smithfield in 1819; two academies and nineteen schools in thirteen schoolhouses, in 1828.

South Kingstown-Samuel Sewall's trust, fifty acres of land at Pettaquamscott "for the procuring, settling and supporting and maintaining a learned, sober and orthodox person, from time to time and at all times forever hereafter, to instruct the children and youth as well of English there settled, or to be settled, as Indians, the aboriginal natives of the place, to read and write the English language and the rules of grammar," materialized in 1781, when a schoolhouse was built on Tower Hill. The academy was removed to Kingston in 1819, incorporated under the name of Pettaquamscott Academy in 1823, and renamed Kingston Academy in 1826. The academy lost the Sewall foundation in 1840, and survived until 1863. Four schools were kept in South Kingstown in 1819; in 1828 there were, besides the acad- emy, seven schoolhouses.

Tiverton-Ten schools were kept regularly in ten schoolhouses in 1828; there were also other rural schools.

Warren-Liberal School Society of Warren was incorporated, 1791. Warren Academy was granted a lottery, 1803. The town had one schoolhouse and the academy in 1819; three quasi-public schools, one private school and the academy, in 1828.

Warwick-School societies were chartered: North School Society, 1794; West School Society, 1803; Central School Society, 1804. A schoolhouse built in 1798 on land granted by Stephen Arnold, was removed across the road in 1828. This school served the village of Crompton until a few years after 1828. A schoolhouse was built at Centreville in 1803, by the West School Society. Warwick had seven schoolhouses in 1828; ten winter schools were taught by men, and six summer schools by women.

Westerly-Red schoolhouse was erected, 1800; Pawcatuck Academy, 1800, and West- erly Academy, 1816, were chartered. Westerly had two academies and six schoolhouses in 1828, in which schools were kept regularly.

West Greenwich-Two schoolhouses in 1828, both built by subscription ; eleven schools were kept three months in the winter, and three of the eleven through the year.

Between 1775 and 1800 the following books, mostly textbooks adapted for use in schools, were published by Rhode Island printers: Four editions of the "New England Primer," in 1775, 1782, 1785, and 1800; two editions of the "Pennsylvania Spelling Book," in 1782 and 1789; Ross's "American Latin Grammar," in 1780; Burr's "American Latin Grammar," in 1794; the "Universal Spelling Book," in 1784; the "American Youth's Mathematics," in

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1790; Wilkinson's "The Federal Calculator," in 1795; the "Young Ladies' and Gentlemen's Preceptor," in 1797. Fox's "Instructions for Right Spelling," was published in Rhode Island in 1737.

Providence -- The Providence public school story is most interesting as an illustration of a method by which a free public school system might be developed without precedent by a democratic community intent on solving what it had discovered as an educational problem; it shows democracy in action, treading a way through unexplored experiences and attaining as the result of long consideration and discussion the first complete American free public school system. American public education results from a recognition by the state, as society's agent, of responsibility for the training of the rising generation. The principle was stated clearly by John Howland in 1799 toward the close of the agitation for a public school system in Providence that had continued over a third of a century. The period in Providence was long in years, but short in contemplation of the fact that only the most advanced of civilized nations have yet reached the same ideal. The movement in Providence began before the Revolution, was abated during the struggle for independence, and carried on to fruition in 1800. Joseph Olney, Esek Hopkins, Elisha Brown, and John Mawney were elected a school committee in Providence in 1752, to care for the town schoolhouse and to appoint a master. Perhaps this committee and other early school committees should be designated schoolhouse committees; their duties were stated explicitly in 1756 as being "to have the general over- sight and care of the town schoolhouse, as well as for repairing the schoolhouse, appointing and consulting with the master, or doing what else may be needful about the same, provided that the town be put to no expense thereabout." This record makes clear also the general attitude of the town of Providence in 1756 toward school support. There was no inclination to assume the burden of school support beyond providing a schoolhouse.

Providence voted in 1767 to provide four schoolhouses and to place the schools under con- trol of a school committee. Committees on school property and for the preparation of regula- tions were appointed. Both committees reported January 1, 1768. The committee on school property recommended the construction of two new schoolhouses east of the river, one each at the upper and lower ends of the town, and a large brick schoolhouse on the old Colony House lot. The committee on regulations reported a plan for a system of free schools, open without tuition to children of the inhabitants of the town, freemen or otherwise, with pro- vision for teaching "reading, accenting, pronouncing and properly understanding the English tongue" for not exceeding two hours per day, the remainder of the school day to be reserved for "writing, arithmetic, the various branches of mathematics and the learned languages." The plan contemplated grading the pupils; to enter the "small schools" children must have "learned their letters and acquired some acquaintance with spelling"; to enter the larger school, "they must have gained considerable knowledge in reading and writing." The town meeting rejected both reports. Moses Brown, of one committee, wrote this comment upon the town's action : "1768, Laid before the town by the committee, but a number of the inhab- itants (and what is most surprising and remarkable, the plan of a free school, supported by a tax, was rejected by the poorer sort of the people), being strangely led away not to see their own as well as the public interest therein (by a few objectors at first), either because they were not the projectors, or had not public spirit to execute so laudable a design, and which was first voted by the town with great freedom." The town meeting did, however, resolve to build a two-story brick schoolhouse, 30x40 feet, near the courthouse, out of the proceeds of the sale of the old town schoolhouse, a tax of fioo, and {182 17s., to be raised by public sub- scription, and to support a free school in the building. Public subscriptions twice failed to reach the amount designated, but in July, 1768, a list was completed and building was under- taken. The subscribers were incorporated in 1770. A two-story structure was erected, the

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lower floor controlled by the town, the upper by the subscribers. The building is still used as a city schoolhouse; it stands on Meeting Street. Both floors were occupied in 1770, the upper by Rhode Island College, and the lower by the University Grammar School, while the college, which had removed from Warren, awaited the completion of University Hall. Ben- jamin West, astronomer, kept a school in the building afterward, receiving "his reward for educating from the parents of those that he shall teach." Stephen Hopkins, Jabez Bowen and Moses Brown were appointed a committee, in 1772, "to draw up regulations for the town schoolhouse, and to procure and agree with suitable persons to keep the same at the expense of those who sent their children and youth to said schools, and to do everything necessary toward rendering said school useful." Except that the town owned part of a new school- house, little progress toward free schools had been made. Whipple Hall, another society school, was chartered in 1768; a schoolhouse for two schools was erected at the corner of Halsey and Back streets. The Revolution interrupted schools, and the project to establish a town public school system was postponed.

Providence emerged from the Revolution with three schoolhouses, the Brick schoolhouse on Meeting Street, Whipple Hall, and a schoolhouse west of the river. Early in 1785 a com- mittee appointed to draw up a plan for school government reported, in words which recognized the public need and stated the logical conclusion : "They have endeavored to suggest some gen- eral outlines for the regulation of schools, as they are now supported by individuals, but are of the opinion that no effectual method can be devised for the encouragement of learning and the general diffusion of knowledge and virtue among all classes of children and youth, until the town shall think proper to take a matter of so much importance into their own hands, and provide and support a sufficient number of judicious persons for that purpose." In town meeting, June 29, 1785, a school committee was appointed "to take the government of the town schoolhouse under their direction, and to appoint proper masters, and to give their direction for the government of the schools," with power also to "take charge of such other schoolhouses in town as the proprietors may think proper to resign into the care of the town, and also of such funds as may be hereafter provided by the town for the support of schools," and to negotiate with the proprietors for a surrender of their schools into the charge of the town school committee. The purpose of combining existing agencies under public control was clearly indicated. The committee went to work earnestly to carry the project into effect, but failed ultimately of actual accomplishment, because the financial town meeting made no adequate appropriation.

Almost six years later, June 6, 1791, a petition for the appointment of a sufficient num- ber of schoolmasters to instruct all the children in the town at public expense was referred to the school committee. The committee reported on August I a plan drafted by President Manning of Rhode Island College, who had died suddenly a week before. The committee recommended the purchase of society interests in the Brick schoolhouse and Whipple Hall, and building two new schoolhouses, one on the west side of the river, and the other at the lower end of the east side. The report was approved in the general town meeting, but another failure was recorded for want of an appropriation by the financial meeting. Chace's map of Providence, 1798, showed five schoolhouses: The Brick schoolhouse on Meeting Street ; Whipple Hall, near the northerly end of Benefit Street; neighbors' school, George Street, close to Magee Street ; neighbors' school, Mathewson and Chapel streets; Dexter's or Shel- don's School, lower east side, near Benefit Street. The school committee of 1785 included : President Manning, Rev. Enos Hitchcock, Rev. Joseph Snow, Rev. Thomas Fitch Oliver, Hon. Jabez Bowen, Dr. Thomas Truman, Nicholas Brown, John Innis Clarke, and Moses Brown, four clergymen, two lawyers, one physician, and two wealthy merchants. Moses

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Brown, in 1768, had reason to lament the apathy, indifference and opposition of freemen of the poorer classes, which defeated the movement for free public schools in that year. The school committee of 1785 was a combination of professional and rich men. Success ultimately was achieved through the efforts of a combination of the wealthy and educated men with the more enterprising mechanics of the town. A man and an organization supplied the stimulus. The successful movement was largely the work of the man; the organization became his accessory before the fact, and the professional and wealthy men joined willingly in promoting the enterprise.

JOHN HOWLAND AND HIS PROJECT FOR FREE SCHOOLS-Home from the war marched a soldier boy. Not yet twenty years old, he had been with Washington at Trenton. Ragged, but probably not unkempt-his vocation forbade that; almost barefooted, weary and hungry, he trudged along over the country roads from New York, through Connecticut; for the Con- tinental Congress was in dire straits for money and could not furnish transportation for sol- diers discharged from the service. The soldier boy was John Howland, a barber. Born in Newport in 1757, he was apprenticed to a hair-dresser in Providence when thirteen years of age. He joined the continental army when eighteen. His shop in Providence became, after the war, a resort for the leading townsmen; but he retained always his associations with the mechanics and more humble tradesmen. He rose to be town treasurer, member of the school committee for a generation, President of the Rhode Island Historical Society, President and Treasurer of the Providence Institution for Savings. He led the movement which established free public schools in Providence, and he lived to see the system spread throughout the state. This was the man. The organization was the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers, founded February 27, 1789, "for the promotion of home manufactures, the cementing of the mechanic industry and for raising a fund to support the distressed."

John Howland became an active member of the association and an earnest advocate of free schools. He urged upon the members the importance of public education as a means of improving their condition; he was a frequent contributor to the public press as well, always advocating public schools free for everybody. In 1798 he was appointed a member of a committee of the association to "inquire into the most desirable method for the establish- ment of free schools." He wrote for the association a petition for free schools which was presented to the General Assembly in 1799, and contained these statements, with others: "That the means of education which are enjoyed in this state are very inadequate to a pur- pose so highly important. That numbers of the rising generation whom nature has liberally endowed, are suffered to grow up in ignorance, when a common education would qualify them to act their parts in life with advantage to the public and reputation to themselves. That in consequence of there being no legal provision for the establishment of schools, and for want of public attention and encouragement, this so essential part of our social duty is left to the partial patronage of individuals, whose cares do not extend beyond the limits of their own families, while numbers in every part of the state are deprived of a privilege which it is the common right of every child to enjoy." Here was a clear enunciation of a fundamental prin- ciple: "That education is the common right of every child." John Howland wrote also the resolutions adopted by the Providence town meeting, which instructed its Deputies in the General Assembly to support the petition. He rallied influential members of the General Assembly to his cause. The General Assembly ordered 400 copies of a favorable committee report on the petition and a bill accompanying the report printed, and distributed for discus- sion in town meetings, following the practice thus of conducting a type of referendum on important measures.

The bill, as passed early in 1800, was one of the most significant pieces of school legisla-

Lincoln Pinz

with affection and Regard John Howland

JOHN HOWLAND, FATHER OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

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tion ever enacted by an American legislature, as it incorporated in its provisions the most essential principles of American public school law. It was the first American free public school late, planning a comprehensive, universal, statewide system of free education; it was absolutely without precedent, and entitled the Rhode Island General Assembly of 1800 to recognition as the first American legislature to attain a vision of a school system free for all the children of all the people. An act of so great significance warrants brief exposition: The preamble recited a public purpose : "Whereas, the unexampled prosperity, unanimity and liberty, for the enjoyment of which this nation is eminently distinguished among the nations of the earth are to be ascribed, next to the blessing of God, to the general diffusion of knowl- edge and information among the people, whereby they have been enabled to discern their true interests, to distinguish truth from error, to place their confidence in the true friends of the country, and to detect the falsehoods and misrepresentations of factious and crafty pretend- ers to patriotism, and this General Assembly being desirous to secure the continuance of the blessings aforesaid, and moreover to contribute to the greater equality of the people by the common and joint instruction and education of the whole." The act declared : "That each and every town shall annually cause to be established and kept, at the expense of such town, one or more free schools for the instruction of all the white inhabitants of said town between the ages of six and twenty years in reading, writing and common arithmetic, who may stand in need of said instruction and apply therefor." It required town councils to divide each town into school districts, not exceeding four in any town, and stipulated for each town the num- ber of schools and the length of term. To aid towns in meeting the requirements of the statute, provision was made for remission of twenty per cent. of state taxes, not exceeding $6000 annually, the money to be used exclusively for school purposes, and forfeited unless so used. In any school district a meeting of freemen, seven being a quorum, had power to assess a tax on ratable estates in the district for building. repairing or improving a school- house, or for extending a school term beyond the minimum required by law. Teachers must be citizens of the United States, and certificated by the town council, which body was made a town school committee. The essential features of American school legislation were embodied in the provisions for mandatory maintenance of schools, state support and additional support provided by the community ; and in the opening of schools without tuition to all who applied for instruction. Unfortunately most of the towns were not ready for free schools, and the act was repealed in 1803, Bristol, Middletown, Providence and Smithfield having complied with its provisions. Notwithstanding its failure as a permanent piece of state legislation, the act of 1800 had accomplished its primary purpose; Providence had achieved a free public school system. Indeed, Providence was the first town in the United States to establish a uni- versal free public school system, and the free public school system established in Providence under the first state free school law, is the oldest existing system in America.

FREE SCHOOLS ESTABLISHED-John Howland's work was not completed with the enact- ment of a law ; it remained to carry the plan through the town meeting in Providence, and to this task John Howland addressed himself immediately. The freemen of Providence, in town meeting on April 16, 1800, appointed James Burrill, Jr., John Corlis, Richard Jackson, Jr., John Carlisle, Joel Metcalf, William Richmond and John Howland as a committee to draw up and report a plan for carrying the act of 1800 into effect. The committee reported the four schoolhouse plan, familiar since 1767, the purchase of Whipple Hall and society rights in the Brick schoolhouse, and building two additional schoolhouses. John Howland was suc- cessful in avoiding disaster in the town meeting, so successful that $6000, instead of the $4000 requested by the committee, was appropriated. Two new brick buildings, 50x30 feet, two stories high, were constructed, and equipped with sixty double desks. A fifth schoolhouse of

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stone, one story high, was erected in 1819. The schools were opened October 27, 1800, with 988 pupils, 180 at Whipple Hall, 230 at Meeting Street, 240 at Transit Street, and 338 at Claverick Street. Five assistant teachers were appointed November 1, 1800, to carry the load of an altogether unexpected enrollment; the free public schools were popular imme- diately and justified the fondest dreams of those who had advocated them. The course of study included "spelling, accenting and reading in both prose and verse with propriety and accuracy, and a general knowledge of English grammar; .... writing a good hand accord- ing to the most approved rules, and arithmetic through all the previous rules, and vulgar and decimal fractions, including tret and tare, fellowship, exchange, interest," etc. Schools were kept through the year, with few holidays, five days a week, six hours a day in winter, six and a half hours a day in spring and summer, an effective application of daylight saving. Tuition was free, but pupils were assessed a small charge for fuel and replacing glass, and provided their own books and supplies, including ink, except that the town council provided books to be loaned to pupils too poor to buy them. The general rules for schools, written by John How- land, indicated an enlightenment in school discipline and incidental values of education remark- able for the period, and scarcely surpassed by modern codes. These rules "recommended to the schoolmasters that, as far as practicable, they exclude corporal punishment from the schools, and in particular that they never inflict it on females; that they inculcate upon the scholars the propriety of good behavior during their absence from school; that they consider themselves in the place of parents to the children under their care, and endeavor to convince them by their treatment, that they feel a parental affection for them; that they never make dismissal from school at an earlier hour than usual a reward for attention or diligence, but endeavor to lead the children to consider being at school a privilege, and dismissal from it as a punishment; that they never authorize one scholar to inflict any corporal punishment on another ; that they endeavor to impress the minds of their pupils with a sense of the being and providence of God, and the obligation they are under to love and reverence Him, their duty to their parents and masters, the beauty and excellence of truth, justice and mutual love, tenderness to brute creatures, the happy tendency of self-government and obedience to the dictates of reason and religion, the observance of the Sabbath as a sacred institution; the duty which they owe to its laws; and that they caution them against the prevailing vices." The schools were administered by the town council, which disbursed the appropriation and controlled the selection of teachers, asserting the exclusive right to select teachers in a test case. The school committee was supervisory principally, its most important function being visiting; it might be called a "visiting committee." In 1816 a clergyman was named by the council to visit each school building between the quarterly visitations by the school committee. The freemen eventually surrendered their function of electing a school committee, and in 1827 the town council elected a committee of thirty-six members, of which Francis Wayland, President of Brown University, was chairman. Henrietta Downer and her sister, Lucilla, con- ducted a school for small children in the upper story of the Transit Street building as early as 1801, without salary or expense to the town. Until 1827 the Providence teachers were all men ; in April, 1827, Miss Carr was appointed, on public salary, to teach a public school for children five to eight years of age. Besides the public schools, which continued to provide for 1000 children through the first quarter of the nineteenth century, there were in 1828 six academies and eighty to ninety other private schools in Providence. The town spent annually $3750 for salaries of teachers, and very little additional for operating expenses; the amount expended for private tuition was estimated at $15,000 annually.

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 71

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716