Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
In October, 1832, William C. Woodbridge noted with alarm a phenomenon that was “producing in our own country, at this moment, a scene of contest, and slander, and falsehood, and violence, which should make the patriot tremble, and the Christian weep.” The source of this catalogue of evils was the encouragement of competition — or “emulation,” as it was then termed — in American schools. The most dangerous form this encouragement took was the awarding of prizes for scholarship. Woodbridge, though more alarmed than most, was not alone in his denunciation of emulation; the effects of competition were discussed in the new journals of education, in manuals for teachers, at teachers' institutes, and finally in normal schools throughout the 1830's and 1840's.
1. Woodbridge, Wm. C. (ed.), American Annals of Education, 2 (1832): 550. Woodbridge edited this journal from 1831 to 1837, using it as a forum for the most advanced educational ideas of the time.Google Scholar
2. Emulation is mentioned briefly by Curti, Merle, Social Ideas of American Educators (1935 1st. ed.; New York, 1959), p. 59; Katz, Michael, The Irony of Early School Reform (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1968), pp. 137–144; and Church, Robert, Education in the United States (New York, 1976), pp. 100–102.Google Scholar
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9. Some teachers rejected the use of prizes while retaining systems of ranking students. Ebenezer Bailey, for example, employed an elaborate system of merits and forfeits to arrange the graded seating of students, but rejected the use of rewards or medals. At his High School for Girls (Boston), he used no means “for promoting punctuality or exciting emulation, but such as are congenial to the legitimate objects of a school. If such means are sufficient to produce the desired effect, it would seem worse than useless to appeal to mercenary motives.” Google Scholar
10. Woodbridge, William wrote a number of articles for his American Annals of Education on Fellenberg's school at Hofwyl; Horace Mann of course was an exponent of the ideas of Pestalozzi.Google Scholar
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19. Abbott, Jacob, a leading popularizer of evangelical beliefs, spent some time as principal of Mt. Vernon Female School, Boston; he used many illustrations from his experience as a teacher of girls in his manual, The Teacher, or Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and Government of the Young (Boston, 1834). Emerson, George B. headed a girls' school in Boston from 1823 to 1855, was a member of the Boston School Committee (1847–48), and was a close associate of Horace Mann. His manual, The Schoolmaster, was published in 1843. Hall, Samual R., whose Lectures on Schoolkeeping (Boston, 1829) was the earliest and most widely-circulated of antebellum books of advice for teachers, was also the founder of the first teacher-training school in America, Concord Academy (1823).Google Scholar
20. Hall, Samuel R., “Emulation,” American Annals of Education, 2 (1832): 206.Google Scholar
21. Putnam, , “Prizes in School”: 38.Google Scholar
22. In the 1830's the dominant forum for their views was the American Journal of Education, edited by Russell, William, and its successor the American Annals of Education , edited by Woodbridge, William. Both of these men were prominent in the education of girls, Russell as a teacher and Woodbridge (whose father had called himself “the Columbus of Female Education” —Woody, A History of Women's Education, Vol. I, p. 154) as a publicist. During the 1840's, while a number of other journals published articles attacking emulation, the most vociferous was the Common School Journal under the editorship of Horace Mann. Mann's dislike for emulation may be traced to his acceptance of the ideas of Pestalozzi, but was undoubtedly strengthened through his long and close association with Emerson, George B. Google Scholar
23. Emerson, G. B., “On Motives to be Addressed in the Instruction of Children,” Part II, Common School Journal, 1 (1839): 373.Google Scholar
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39. Rev. Nathan Lord, who became president of Dartmouth in 1828, decided in 1835 that there should be no prizes or prize commencement orations. Hill, Ralph N., The College on the Hill: A Dartmouth Chronicle (Hanover, 1964), p. 75. Lindsley, Philip, President of the University of Nashville, allowed no student honors. American Annals of Education (1835): 444 and, Barnard's, American Journal of Education (1859), p. 33. See also an address by the President of Middlebury College, Bates, Joshua. “Intellectual Education in Harmony with Moral and Physical,” Lectures and Proceedings of the American Institute of Instruction, 9 (1840): 1–27.Google Scholar
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44. Warren, , “On the Importance of Physical Education”: 39.Google Scholar
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48. Burton, Warren, “On the Best Mode of Fixing the Attention of the Young,” Lectures and Proceedings of the American Institute of Instruction, 5 (1834): 44.Google Scholar
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50. Mattingly, Paul H., The Classless Profession: American Schoolmen in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1975); Tyack, David B., The One Best System (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1974).Google Scholar
51. It remained for a later generation to become aware that girls could learn to compete in situations, and to the degree, that social expectations allowed without betraying to the world the conflicts this caused for them.Google Scholar
52. Woody, T., A History of Women's Education, Vol. II, p. 148.Google Scholar
53. Bernard, and Vinovskis, , “The Female School Teacher”: 332–345.Google Scholar
54. Russell, Wm. (ed.), American Journal of Education, 3 (1828): 525.Google Scholar