McGuffey's Readers were some of the first textbooks used in the common school system in the United States that taught subjects such as the alphabet, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, articulation, and morality to students in grades one through six. When describing the writings in McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader from 1836 and its teachings, the textbook tells that all students must have "a distinct articulation, which is the first requisite for good speaking" (Fraser, 76). This statement shows the emphasis that these textbooks had on teaching the youth of America how to be great speakers.
William Holmes McGuffey, the original author of the McGuffey Readers, adopted the ideas of Horace Mann when creating a common curriculum for all students within his textbooks that included stories from the Bible in order to please those who wanted their children to have a formal education that included their faith and talked of God. Members of the North in the United States, "Democrats and Whigs, workingmen and capitalists, and country folk and urban dwellers joined forces...to create what many consider to be the indispensable institution of American democracy" (Urban, 105). McGuffey's Readers played a massive role in uniting these Americans to support the idea of a common school in the United States.
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Horace Mann had an extremely unique style of education that he heavily advocated for in the state of Massachusetts: the common schooling system. Mann served as the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education while advocating for this style of education. Common school values included curriculum that would "embrace a variety of educational innovations" (Urban, 93), as well as provide the same level of education to all children in the state of Massachusetts, no matter income level.
Alongside this notion that all children should be taught the same as each other, Mann also used the Christian religion to convince citizens of Massachusetts to send their children to school. Mann used Christianity to explain that God places a right of education for every child that is born into the world (Fraser, 45). Due to the state of Massachusetts having such a high Protestant population, many people bought into this idea presented by Horace Mann, and therefore helped to establish what he sought out to create in his home state: a common school. 9/10/2019 Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, and Noah Webster: Educational Planning (1770-1820)Read NowThree of America's most influential men in the foundation of education in the United States believed in strong academia for citizens of the country. They supported education for all, no matter their race or gender (mainly women, Native Americans, and African-Americans) although the majority of the country disagreed with this opinion (Fraser, 20). Webster produced works that helped create a general understanding of language, Jefferson pushed for state schools and public libraries, and Rush was a founding member of the Young Ladies' Academy.
When it came to Enlightenment ideals, Jefferson believed that after their victory during the American Revolution people would support those ideals. On the other side, Rush and Webster believed that it would take time for the people of the United States to adopt those ideals to follow with the change in government following the American Revolution (Urban, 66). The change from being British colonies to an independent nation was drastic for all involved, and affected people differently. 9/4/2019 Colonial governments taught different literacies to Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans.Read NowDuring the settlement of the Americas between 1620-1770, different colonies of people were formed through the land, however, Europeans forced their influence upon other groups of people such as the Native Americans and the Africans. In the Americas, Europeans built schools and designed them in order to ensure that all people in the colonies were inducted into a common culture (Fraser, 1). This common culture is in reference to educating everyone in the European ways and attempting to turn them towards the Church.
Those who resided in the present-day southern United States lived in a culture where slave-owning was extremely common, especially the owning of African slaves. Even though those in the south believed that men were supposed to educate the children in their own home (Urban, 19), they also believed that slaves couldn't have too large of an understanding of freedom because they would be entitled to their own freedom from their owners. To keep their slaves' knowledge minimal, slave-owners didn't allow their slaves to read. |
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