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Mar 31, 2020 · A key problem in providing this free education was that rural areas did not have enough schools, even though large numbers of the population lived in such areas; however, with the help of reformers such as Mann, by the end of the 19th century, there were a great many public schools.
- Overview
- The social and historical setting
- The early reform movement: the new educational philosophers
- The pedagogy of Pestalozzi
- The influence of Pestalozzi
From the mid-17th century to the closing years of the 18th century, new social, economic, and intellectual forces steadily quickened—forces that in the late 18th and the 19th centuries would weaken and, in many cases, end the old aristocratic absolutism. The European expansion to new worlds overseas had stimulated commercial rivalry. The new trade had increased national wealth and encouraged a sharp rise in the numbers and influence of the middle classes. These social and economic transformations—joined with technological changes involving the steam engine and the factory system—together produced industrialism, urbanization, and the beginnings of mass labour. At the same time, intellectuals and philosophers were assaulting economic abuses, old unjust privileges, misgovernment, and intolerance. Their ideas, which carried a new emphasis on the worth of the individual—the citizen rather than the subject—helped to inspire political revolutions, sometimes successful, sometimes unsuccessful. But, more importantly, they worked to make it impossible for any government—even the most reactionary—to disregard for long the welfare of common people. Finally, there was a widespread psychological change: people’s confidence in their power to use resources, master nature, and structure their own future was heightened beyond anything known before, and this confidence on a national scale—in the form of nationalism—moved all groups to struggle for the freedom to direct their own affairs.
All these trends influenced the progress of education. One of the most significant results was the gradual acceptance of the view that education ought to be the responsibility of the state. Some countries, such as France and Germany, were inspired by a mixture of national aspiration and ideology to begin the establishment of public educational systems early in the 19th century. Others, such as Great Britain and the United States, under the spell of laissez-faire, hesitated longer before allowing the government to intervene in educational affairs. The school reformers in these countries had to combat the prevailing notion that “free schools” were to be provided only for pauper children, if at all; and they had to convince society that general taxation upon the whole community was the only adequate way to provide education for all the children of all the people.
From the mid-17th century to the closing years of the 18th century, new social, economic, and intellectual forces steadily quickened—forces that in the late 18th and the 19th centuries would weaken and, in many cases, end the old aristocratic absolutism. The European expansion to new worlds overseas had stimulated commercial rivalry. The new trade had increased national wealth and encouraged a sharp rise in the numbers and influence of the middle classes. These social and economic transformations—joined with technological changes involving the steam engine and the factory system—together produced industrialism, urbanization, and the beginnings of mass labour. At the same time, intellectuals and philosophers were assaulting economic abuses, old unjust privileges, misgovernment, and intolerance. Their ideas, which carried a new emphasis on the worth of the individual—the citizen rather than the subject—helped to inspire political revolutions, sometimes successful, sometimes unsuccessful. But, more importantly, they worked to make it impossible for any government—even the most reactionary—to disregard for long the welfare of common people. Finally, there was a widespread psychological change: people’s confidence in their power to use resources, master nature, and structure their own future was heightened beyond anything known before, and this confidence on a national scale—in the form of nationalism—moved all groups to struggle for the freedom to direct their own affairs.
All these trends influenced the progress of education. One of the most significant results was the gradual acceptance of the view that education ought to be the responsibility of the state. Some countries, such as France and Germany, were inspired by a mixture of national aspiration and ideology to begin the establishment of public educational systems early in the 19th century. Others, such as Great Britain and the United States, under the spell of laissez-faire, hesitated longer before allowing the government to intervene in educational affairs. The school reformers in these countries had to combat the prevailing notion that “free schools” were to be provided only for pauper children, if at all; and they had to convince society that general taxation upon the whole community was the only adequate way to provide education for all the children of all the people.
The late 18th and 19th centuries represent a period of great activity in reformulating educational principles, and there was a ferment of new ideas, some of which in time wrought a transformation in school and classroom. The influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau was profound and inestimable. One of his most famous followers was Pestalozzi, who believe...
In spite of the quantity of his writings, it cannot be said that Pestalozzi ever wrote a complete and systematic account of his principles and methods; an outline of his theories must be deduced from his various writings and his work. The foundation of his doctrine was that education should be organic, meaning that intellectual, moral, and physical education (or, in his words, development of “head, heart, and body”) should be integrated and that education should draw upon the faculties or “self-power” inherent in the human being. Education should be literally a drawing-out of this self-power, a development of abilities through activity—in the physical field by encouraging manual work and exercises, in the moral field by stimulating the habit of moral actions, and in the intellectual field by eliciting the correct use of the senses in observing concrete things accurately and making judgments upon them. Words, ideas, practices, and morals have meaning only when related to concrete things.
From these overarching principles there followed certain practical rules of educational method. First, experience must precede symbolism. There must be an emphasis on object lessons that acquaint the child with the realities of life; from these lessons abstract thought is developed. What one does is a means to what one knows. This means that the program should be child-centred, not subject-centred. The teacher is to offer help by participating with the child in his activities and should strive to know the nature of the child in order to determine the details of his education. This means that the stages of education must be related to the stages of child development. Finally, intellectual, moral, and physical activities should be as one.
“The art of education,” Pestalozzi claimed, “must be significantly raised in all its facets to become a science that is to be built on and proceeds from the deepest knowledge of human nature.” Through his own efforts in this direction, Pestalozzi stimulated pedagogical theory and practice to an enormous degree in many parts of the Western world. Through his philanthropic efforts on behalf of the poor, he advanced pedagogical theory and practice in three pivotal ways: (1) he inspired new movements toward the reform of philanthropic educational institutions and the pedagogy applied to such institutions, (2) he created a new methodology for elementary education that was introduced not only into schools but also into programs of teacher education in Europe and America, and (3) by his own example he gave teachers a high professional ethos. Pestalozzi, like few others at any time, recognized and sincerely tried to alter the misery existing in the world. If the Enlightenment saw its pedagogical mission as the spreading of the light of reason, then Pestalozzi showed that it was not reason alone but love above all that would show a way out of the “mire of the world.”
It is hardly possible to name all of Pestalozzi’s disciples—the Pestalozzians—for almost all the pedagogical figures of his time literally or figuratively went to his school. His influence was most profound in Germany, especially in Prussia and Saxony. Generally speaking, in the first half of the 19th century the English school system was completely under the influence of the disciplinarian monitorial systems of Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster. Pestalozzi, for most Englishmen, was “a distressing type of the German” and “an idealistic dreamer,” as some critics put it. Nevertheless, he exercised some influence in England through James Pierrepont Greaves and the London Infant School Society and through Charles and Elizabeth Mayo and the Home and Colonial School Society. In the United States Pestalozzianism was introduced by Philadelphia scientist and philanthropist William Maclure, one of the sponsors of the utopian colony at New Harmony, Ind., and by Joseph Neef, who opened a school near Philadelphia.
The public education reform movement in the 19th century was a significant effort to improve and expand access to education in the United States. During this time, there was a growing recognition of the importance of education for individual and societal development.
Jul 15, 2013 · The establishment of school systems across Canada during the 19th century followed a strikingly similar form and chronology due to the complex and often competing ambitions of both official educators and parents.
In the 19th century, there were several leaders who spearheaded the education reform movement. One prominent figure was Horace Mann, often referred to as the “Father of American Education.” Mann advocated for free public education and implemented various reforms as the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education.
Jul 20, 2017 · During the 19th century, college education in the United States was offered largely for free. Colleges trained students from middle-class backgrounds as high school teachers, ministers and community leaders who, after graduation, were to serve public needs.
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Progressive education, movement that took form in Europe and the United States during the late 19th century as a reaction to the alleged narrowness and formalism of traditional education.
