Abstract
It was a rather momentous call to action when James McCosh proclaimed that the “grand educational want of America at this present time is a judiciously scattered body of secondary schools.” McCosh, president of what would become Princeton University, declared at the 1873 annual meeting of the National Education Association (NEA) that these schools were needed “to carry on our brighter youths from what has been so well commenced in the primary schools, and may be so well completed in the better colleges.” A charismatic Scotsman who loved a vibrant debate, McCosh was one of the first educators at the national level to call for educational reform and for a stronger set of secondary schools closely articulated with higher education:
How are our young men to mount from the lower to the higher platform? Every one has heard of the man who built a fine house, of two stories, each large and commodious, but who neglected to put a stair between. It appears to me that there has been a like mistake committed in most of the states of the Union. We need a set of intermediate schools to enable the abler youths of America to take advantage of the education provided in the colleges.1
His call galvanized his fellow delegates. They formed a committee to review McCosh’s comments and propose ways to build the missing staircase.
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Notes
James McCosh, “Upper Schools,” in The Addresses and Journal of Proceedings of the National Educational Association, Session of the Year 187? (The National Educational Association, 1873), 23.
Ibid., 35. For his description of McCosh, see D. C. Gilman, “The Future of American Colleges and Universities,” The Atlantic Monthl? 78 (August 1896), 175–176.
S. H. Carpenter, “The Relation of the Different Educational Institutions of the State,” Wisconsin Journal of Educatio? 4 (March 1874), 86.
United States Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 187? (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1878), lxxi; Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 187? (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880), lxxx–lxxxi.
United States Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 187? (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1874), lii.
Ibid., xlvii.
United States Bureau of Education Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 188? (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1883), cxl; Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1885–8? (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1887), 362; Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1887–8? (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889), 494; Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1890–9? (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894), 789–796, 817–819, 832–833. The historian Edward Krug has argued that scholars should be cautious when using Bureau of Education statistics. As he warned, the statistics for secondary schools before 1889–90 and for higher education before 1900 are unreliable, confusing, and contradictory. They are based on voluntary reports from schools. They are compiled from a number of confusing tables spread throughout the commissioner’s reports and likely fail to count precisely the number of students enrolled in secondary and higher education. See Edward A. Krug, The Shaping of the American High School, 1880–192? (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 451.
United States Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, lix, 663–682; Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, xc, 515–546; Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1890–9?, 817–819 832–833; Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1885–8?, 490–493. See also Geraldine Jonçich Clifford, “Equally in View”: The University of California, Its Women, and the School? (Berkeley: Center for Studies in Higher Education and Institute for Governmental Affairs, University of California, Berkeley, 1995), 3–4. As historians have warned, statistics for higher education in this period are not entirely reliable. See Krug, Shaping of the American High Schoo?, 451.
Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–192? (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), xiii–xiv, 1–4, 10–16, 22, 30–39, 44–47, 111; Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United State? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 20, 272–275.
Wiebe, Search for Orde?, 10–16, 22, 30–39, 111–129; Samuel Hays, The Response to Industrialism: 1885–191? (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957), 2–3, 48, 71–75, 188–190; Jackson, Crabgrass Frontie?, 272–275.
Alba M. Edwards, Population: Comparative Occupation Statistics for the United States, 1870 to 1940; Sixteenth Census of the United States, 194? (Washington, D. C., 1943), 11. See also Maury Klein and Harvey Kantor, Prisoners of Progress: American Industrial Cities, 1850–192? (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1976), 73–77.
William J. Reese, The Origins of the American High Schoo? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), xvi–xvii, 167–169, 238–239; David F. Labaree, The Making of an American High School: The Credentials Market and the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1838–193? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 4–5, 9–10, 33–34, 46–47, 114.
Reese, Origins of the American High Schoo?, 107–121; Labaree, Making of an American High Schoo?, 4–5, 9–10, 19–23, 29. See also John L. Rury, Education and Social Change: Themes in the History of American Schoolin? (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002), 82–90.
Laurence Veysey, The Emergence of the American Universit? (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1965), 264–66; Labaree, Making of an American High Schoo?, 6, 65–66, 128–130, 134–135, 165–170; Burton J. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in Americ? (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1976), 33–39; John R. Thelin, A History of American Higher Educatio? (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 155.
C. W. Parmenter, “Discussion,” in Sixty-Second Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Instruction, Lectures, Discussions, and Proceedings, Bethlehem, N.H., July 6–9, 189? (Boston: American Institute of Instruction, 1891), 76–77.
Olivier Zunz, Why the American Century? (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), 9.
There is a significant literature on universities, expertise, and science. Edward Shils, “The Order of Learning in the United States: The Ascendancy of the University,” in The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, 1860–192?, edited by Alexandra Oleson and John Voss (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 19–29; Richard Hofstadter, “The Revolution in Higher Education,” in Paths of American Though?, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and Morton White (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1963), 274–277, 283–289; Thomas Haskell, The Emergence of Professional Social Science: The American Social Science Association and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Authorit? (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), 192, 235–236; Dorothy Ross, “American Social Science and the Idea of Progress,” in The Authority of Experts: Studies in History and Theor?, edited by Thomas Haskell (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 157–166; Thomas Bender, “The Erosion of Public Culture: Cities, Discourses, and Professional Disciplines,” in The Authority of Expert?, 84–101; Veysey, Emergence of the American Universit?, 142–143, 173–179; Frederick Rudolph, The American College and University: A Histor? (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), 245–247. See also John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy, Higher Education in Transition: A History of American Colleges and Universities, 1636–196? (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 116, 143; Roger Geiger, To Advance Knowledge: The Growth of American Research Universities, 1900–194? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 1–3; Richard Hofstadter and C. DeWitt Hardy, The Development and Scope of Higher Education in the United State?, 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), 31, 48, 57–58; Harold Wechsler, The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admission in Americ? (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1977), 8–11; Julie A. Reuben, The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Moralit? (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996).
Bledstein, Culture of Professionalis?, 33–34, 37; David K. Brown, Degrees of Control: A Sociology of Educational Expansion and Occupational Credentialis? (New York: Teachers College Press, 1995), 10, 49–50, 61–63, 70.
Brown, Degrees of Contro?, 72, 137–161.
Zunz, Why the American Centur?, 9; Alexandra Oleson and John Voss, “Introduction,” in The Organization of Knowledge in Modern Americ?, xii; Geiger, To Advance Knowledg?, 13–14; Rudolph, American College and Universit?, 339–343; Bledstein, Culture of Professionalis?, 33–39; Thelin, History of American Higher Educatio?, 155; Veysey, Emergence of the American Universit?, 264–266.
United States Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 187? (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1873), xxxiv.
Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, lix, 663–682; Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, lxxx–lxxxi, xc, 515–546. Massachusetts accounted for over 80 percent of the region’s city high schools in 1878.
Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, xlix.
“Schools and Scholarship,” The Natio? 19 (October 1, 1874), 215.
Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, 586–639.
S. R. Winchell, “The True Function of the High School,” Wisconsin Journal of Educatio? 4 (August 1874), 304.
Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, lix, 663–682; Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, xc, 515–546; Clifford, “Equally in View,” 3–4.
Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, 663–682; Krug, Shaping of the American High Schoo?, 124.
Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, lix, 663–682; Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, lxxx–lxxxi, xc, 515–546.
E. W. Coy, “Discussion,” in The Addresses and Journal of Proceedings of the National Educational Association, Session of the Year 189? (Published by the NEA, 1895), 752. Coy was principal of Hughes High School in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Roger Geiger, “The Era of Multipurpose Colleges in American Higher Education, 1850–1890,” in The American College in the Nineteenth Centur?, edited by Roger Geiger (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000), 139–140; Lucas, American Higher Educatio?, 131–134.
Geiger, “Era of Multipurpose Colleges,” 135–137, 143; Roger Geiger, “Introduction,” in The American College in the Nineteenth Centur?, 23–25.
Geiger, “Era of Multipurpose Colleges,” 128–133, 141, 147–151; Roger Geiger, “The Crisis of the Old Order: The Colleges in the 1890s,” in The American College in the Nineteenth Centur?, 271.
Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, lxx.
University of Michigan, The President s Report to the Board of Regents for the Year Ending June 30, 188? (Ann Arbor: Published by the University, 1881), 5.
See Veysey, Emergence of the American University? Brubacher and Rudy, Higher Education in Transition? Christopher J. Lucas, American Higher Education: A Histor? (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1994); Reuben, Making of the Modern Universit?, 5–6, 67–69, 189–191.
Geiger, To Advance Knowledg?, 4–12, 16; “Introduction,” 31–35; “Era of Multipurpose Colleges,” 127–128; “Crisis of the Old Order,” 275–276.
McCosh, “Upper Schools,” 22–23.
Daniel Read, “Discussion,” in The Addresses and Journal of Proceedings of the National Educational Association, Session of the Year 187? (The National Educational Association, 1873), 38.
James B. Angell, “Inaugural Address,” in Thirty-Fifth Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Michiga? (Lansing: W.S. George & Co., 1872), 213.
Henry S. Frieze, “President’s Annual Report,” in Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Michiga? (Lansing:
W.S. George & Co., 1870), 207. 42. Carpenter, “The Relation of the Different Educational Institutions,” 86.
“Education,” Atlantic Monthl? 33 (May 1874), 638.
Hugh Hawkins, Between Harvard and America: The Educational Leadership of Charles W. Elio? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 228.
Edwin C. Broome, “A Historical and Critical Discussion of College Admission Requirements” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1902), 72–73; Reese, Origins of the American High Schoo?, xiii, 50, 70–72, 80.
Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1887–8?, 494; Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1890–9?, 792–795; Report of the Commissioner of Education, 187?, xlvii–xlviii.
Krug, Shaping of the American High Schoo?, 5–6; Reese, Origins of the American High Schoo?, 17, 90–94, 107.
Charles W. Eliot, “Present Relations of Mass. High Schools to Mass. Colleges,” Journal of Educatio? 21 (January 8, 1885), 19.
George W. Peckham, “President Bascom and the High School,” Wisconsin Journal of Educatio? 11 (July 1881), 302–303.
See Reese, Origins of the American High School?
Geo Hays and Committee, “Intermediate (or Upper) Schools,” in The Addresses and Journal of Proceedings of the National Educational Association, Session of the Year 187? (The National Educational Association, 1874), 14.
Ibid., 13.
Andrew West, “The Relation of Secondary Education to the American University Problem,” in The Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Educational Association, Session of the Year 188? (New York: J.J. Little & Co., 1886), 201; Broome, “College Admission Requirements,” 72–73; Reese, Origins of the American High Schoo?, 68.
University of Wisconsin, Annual Report o th? Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 187? (Madison, WI: E.B. Bolens, State Printer, 1875), 27–28; University of Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 187? (Madison, WI: E. B. Bolens, State Printer, 1876), 30–31; University of Michigan, The President’s Report to the Board of Regents for the Year Ending June 30, 187? (Ann Arbor: Published by the University, 1872), 9; University of Michigan, The Presiden?’s Report to the Board of Regents for the Year Ending June 30, 187? (Ann Arbor: Published by the University, 1873), 7–8.
John Elbert Stout, The High School: Its Function, Organization and Administratio? (Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., Publishers, 1914), 66.
Brubacher and Rudy, Higher Education in Transitio?, 12, 245–246; Krug, Shaping of the American High Schoo?, 7.
Harvard College, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1878–7? (Cambridge: University Press, 1880), 12–13.
Broome, “College Admission Requirements,” 48–53; Brubacher and Rudy, Higher Education in Transitio?, 12, 245–246; University of Wisconsin, Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the University of Wisconsin, for the Academic Year, 1876–? (Madison: Democrat Printing Company, 1876), 53–54.
Harvard College, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1872–7? (Cambridge: University Press, 1874), 19.
“Annual Meeting of the Classical and High-School Teachers,” New England Journal of Educatio? 5 (April 12, 1877), 175.
William C. Collar, “The Action of the Colleges upon the Schools,” Educational Revie? 2 (December 1891), 426.
Cecil F. Bancroft, “The Service Rendered by the Secondary School,” in Sixty-Second Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Instruction, Lectures, Discussions, and Proceedings, Bethlehem, N.H., July 6–9, 189? (Boston: American Institute of Instruction, 1891), 66–67.
Arthur Cohen, The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary Syste? (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998), 137–141.
Jurgen Herbst, The Once and Future School: Three Hundred and Fifty Years of American Secondary Educatio? (New York: Routledge, 1996), 7; Broome, “College Admission Requirements,” 73.
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© 2008 Marc A. VanOverbeke
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VanOverbeke, M.A. (2008). Changing Expectations for American Education. In: The Standardization of American Schooling. Secondary Education in a Changing World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230612594_2
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