Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T14:14:58.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Rise of the Academies: Continuity or Change?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In his book, The Age of the Academies, Theodore R. Sizer argued that academies represented a significant break from the relatively narrow schooling that had been previously available to students in the early Latin grammar schools. In his view, the proliferation of academies heralded a new age in education, one more reflective of the Enlightenment values promoted by such Republican leaders as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Rush. After thirty-five years of additional scholarship on academies, does Sizer's thesis still stand? This essay investigates the range of educational institutions that provided some form of advanced schooling to Americans just preceding and concurrent with the founding of the earliest academies. It examines the differences and similarities among a number of northern and southern early nineteenth-century schools in order to address the following question: to what extent did schools calling themselves academies represent a distinctly new turn in the history of American education? By clarifying the relations between the various types of institutions during the post-colonial period, I conclude that the historical significance of the early academy movement is broader than the intellectual or curricular reform discussed by Sizer.

Type
Symposium
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by the History of Education Society 

References

1 Sizer, Theodore R. The Age of the Academies (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1964).Google Scholar

2 The venture schools and academies comprising the sample for this study placed advertisements in the following newspapers: The Columbian Centinel (Massachusetts: 1827, Jan., 1831-Mar. 1833); The American Mercury (Connecticut: Jan., 1820–28); The Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser (Pennsylvania: 1824); The New York Evening Post (New York: Aug. 1, 1835-May 31, 1836); The Richmond Enquirer (Virginia: Sept. 29, 1835-Nov. 17, 1837); The Maryland Gazette (Maryland: Jan. 5, 1832-Oct. 22, 1835); The Baltimore Sun (Maryland: Aug. 12, 1842-Aug.23, 1842); The Globe (Washington, D.C.: 1831); The Daily National Intelligencer (Washington D.C.: 1825). Another important source are the newspaper advertisements included in North Carolina Schools and Academies 1790–1840: A Documentary History ed. Charles L. Coon (Raleigh, NC: Edwards & Broughton, 1915).Google Scholar

3 Dame schoolteachers operated schools from their homes during the seventeenth century and flourished among such groups as the Quakers. See Joan Jensen, “Not Only Ours But Others: The Quaker Teaching Daughters of the Mid-Atlantic, 1790–1850,” History of Education Quarterly, 24 (Spring 1984): 3–19; Andrea Wyman, Rural Women Teachers in the United States: A Sourcebook (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996).Google Scholar

4 Kett, Joseph The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties: From Self-Improvement to Adult Education in America, 1750–1990 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996); Patricia Cline Cohen, A Calculating People: The Spread of Numeracy in Early America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); Edward W. Stevens, Jr., The Grammar of the Machine: Technical Literacy and Early Industrial Expansion in the United States (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

5 Tolley, See KimGeography Opens the Door,“ in The Science Education of American Girls, 1784–1932, ed. D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1996, 1160.Google Scholar

6 Sklar, Kathryn KishThe Schooling of Girls and Changing Community Value in Massachusetts Towns, 1750–1820, History of Education Quarterly, 33 (Winter 1993): 511539.Google Scholar

7 For a brief discussion of the venture schools in colonial Boston, see William J. Reese, The Origins of the American High School (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

8 Nash, Margaret A.Academies,“ in Historical Dictionary of Women's Education in the United States, ed. Eisenmann, Linda (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 36.Google Scholar

9 Baumgarten, NikolaCatholic Education,“ in Historical Dictionary of Women's Education in the United States: 6871. See also Baumgarten's “Education and Democracy in Frontier St. Louis: The Society of the Sacred Heart,” in History of Education Quarterly, 34 (Summer 1994): 171192.Google Scholar

10 Smaby, Beverly Prior The Transformation of Moravian Bethlehem: From Communal Mission to Family Economy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988).Google Scholar

11 Nybakken, ElizabethIn the Irish Tradition: Pre-Revolutionary Academies in America,“ History of Education Quarterly, 37 (Summer 1997), 163183.Google Scholar

12 Sizer, See Age of the Academies; Paul E. Belting, The Development of the Free Public High School in Illinois to 1860 (New York: Arno Press, 1969); Reese, Origins of the American High School, 29ff.Google Scholar

13 The 1860 census reported 398 academies in Virginia. See Dale Greenwood Robinson, The Academies of Virginia, 1776–1861 (Richmond, VA: Dietz Press, 1977), 55–56.Google Scholar

14 Knight, Edgar W. ed., A Documentary History of Education in the South before 1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), vol. 4, 1.Google Scholar

15 Barnard, HenryEducational Statistics of the United States in 1850,“ American Journal of Education, I (1855), 368.Google Scholar

16 See Frederick Miller, George The Academy System of the State of New York [1922] (New York: Arno Press, 1969); see also Nancy Beadie, “From Student Markets to Credential Markets: The Creation of the Regents Examination System in New York State, 1864–1890,” History of Education Quarterly 39 (Spring 1999): 1–30; and idem., “Market-Based Policies of School Funding: Lessons from the History of the New York Academy System,” Educational Policy 13 (3): 296–317.Google Scholar

17 Burgess, CharlesAbiding by the “Rule of Birds”: Teaching Teachers in Small Liberal Arts Colleges,” in Places Where Teachers are Taught eds. Goodlad, John I. et al. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1990), 87135.Google Scholar

18 Ferner, William Warren Ninety Years of Education in California, 18461936 (Oakland, CA: West Coast Printing, 1937).Google Scholar

19 See Clarence Bane, Laverne The Development of Education in Utah, 1870–1895. (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1940).Google Scholar

20 Reese, See Origins of the American High School, 3031.Google Scholar

21 Sizer, See Age of the Academies, 7071.Google Scholar

22 Miles, Wyndham D. and Abrahams, Harold J.America's First Chemistry Syllabus-and-Courrse for Girls,“ in School Science and Mathematics, 58 (1958): 111118. For a general overview of Enlightenment reformers, see Lorraine Smith Pangle and Thomas L. Pangle, The Learning of Liberty. The Educational Ideas of the American Founders, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993.)Google Scholar

23 Quoted in Woody, Thomas A History of Women's Education in the United States, 1 (New York: The Science Press, 1929), 225.Google Scholar

24 “A New School,” The American Mercury (Hartford, Connecticut: June 15, 1824).Google Scholar

25 “A Card,” in ibid., June 13, 1820.Google Scholar

26 “Writing Academy,” in ibid., May 1820.Google Scholar

27 “Music School,” in ibid., October 1824.Google Scholar

28 For example, “Mrs. Grovesnor and Mrs. Sheldon's School for Young Ladies,” in ibid., March, 1820, and “Miss Spellman's School for Young Ladies,” in ibid., April 1820.Google Scholar

29 News & Observer clipping, September 27, 1831, in M.C.S. Noble Papers, fol. 37, Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill, NC.Google Scholar

30 Nye Hutchison Diary, Susan Aug. 1, 1827, in Southern Historical Collection.Google Scholar

31 See Historical Dictionary of Women's Education in the United States, ed. Linda Eisenmann, 5.Google Scholar

32 See ibid., p. 38.Google Scholar

33 “C & M Beecher's School for Girls,” in The American Mercury (Hartford, Connecticut: April 20, 1824).Google Scholar

34 News clipping: “The Academy: the Forerunner…” in M.C.S. Noble Papers, fol. 37, Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill. For a discussion of academies in New York, see Nancy Beadie, “Defining the Public: Congregation, Commerce and Social Economy in the Formation of the Educational System, 1790–1840,” (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1989.)Google Scholar

35 Maria Florilla Flint Hamblen Reminiscences, September 1860-June 1861,” in Flint Papers, fol. 1, Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar

36 North Carolina Schools and Academies 1790–1840: A Documentary History ed. Charles L. Coon (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1915). See the newspaper advertisements for the following male academies: Pittsborough Academy (1800), 35; Hillsborough Academy (1801), 280; Caswell Academy (1802), 18; Franklin Academy (1804), 84; Edenton Academy (1805), 326; Hyco Academy (1805), 22–3; Salisbury Academy (1807), 346–7; Kilpatrick's School (1809), 382. Several North Carolina female academies or seminaries also offered geography during the first decade of the nineteenth century: Fayetteville Academy, Female Department (1801), 60–1; Raleigh Academy, Female Department (1806), 396; Mordecai's Female Seminary (1808), 595; Mrs. Milligan's School (1807), 229; Mrs. Gregory's Boarding School (1808), 295.Google Scholar

37 “Herndon Academy,” in Raleigh Register, December 13, 1836.Google Scholar

38 Miller, George Frederick The Academy System of the State of New York (Albany, NY: J. Lyon Col, 1922).Google Scholar

39 This point was noted by Sizer in Age of the Academies, 36.Google Scholar

40 Academy, Union Catalogue for the year, ending September 4, 1834 (Bennington, VT: J.C. Haswell, 1834), 13.Google Scholar

41 Catalogue of the Officers and Members of the Utica Female Academy, During the Year Ending August 6th, 1840 (Utica, NY: Bennet, Backus & Hawley, Frankline Square, 1840), 21.Google Scholar

42 Quoted in Maurice Whitehead, The Academies of the Reverend Bartholomew Booth in Georgian England and Revolutionary America; Enlightening the Curriculum (Lewiston, ME: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996), 102.Google Scholar

43 Shmurak, Carole B. s.v. “Mary Lyon,” Historical Dictionary of Women's Education in the United States, ed. Linda Eisenmann (1998): 253255.Google Scholar

44 Baumgarten, Nikola s.v. “Catholic Education,” ibid., 68–71.Google Scholar

45 “Carmelite Sisters’ Academy,” Baltimore Sun (Maryland): August 12, 1842.Google Scholar

46 Madison, James The Writings of James Madison Comprising his Public Papers and his Private Correspondence, Including Numerous Letters and Documents Now for the First Time Printed, ed. Hunt, Gailla (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1900–10), 8: 133.Google Scholar

47 Leslie, See BruceWhere Have all the Academies Gone?“ in this issue.Google Scholar