CHAPTER XV. THE FIGHT FOR FREE SCHOOLS. FREE SCHOOLS THE RESULT OF A EVENTS THAT LED TO THE STRUGGLE. It is 1831, Trial has been a teacher, his in- augural address has proven him to be a warm friend of education, Of the various projects which present themselves, as tending to contribute most essentially to the welfare and happiness of a people, and which come within the scope of legislative action and require legislative aid, there is none which gives more ample promise of success, than that of a liberal and enlightened system of education, by means of which the light of knowledge will be diffused throughout the whole community, and imparted to every individual susceptible of partaking of its blessings, to the poor as well as to the rich, so that all may be fitted to participate in, and to fulfil, all the duties which each one owes to himself, to his God, and to his country. The Constitution of Pennsylvania imperatively enjoins the establishment of such a system. The state of public morals calls for it; and the security and stability of the invaluable privileges which we have inherited from our ancestors, requires our immediate attention to it. In bringing this subject to your notice on the present occasion, I am aware that I am repeating that which has been the theme of every inaugural address, and of every annual executive message at the opening of each successive session of the Legislature, since the adoption of the Constitution. I know, too, that the necessity which has existed, and which has given occasion for the repeated, anxious and pressing executive recommendations, in reference to this important subject, arose from the extreme difficulty which presented itself, at every attempt, to strike out a system adapted to the existing circumstances of the Commonwealth, and which might be calculated to accomplish the end contemplated by the framers of the Constitution. But difficult as the task may be, it is not insurmountable; and I am thoroughly persuaded that there is not a single measure of all those which will engage your deliberations in the course of the session, of such intrinsic importance to the general prosperity and happiness of the people of the Commonwealth, to the cause of public virtue and of public morals, to the hopes and expectations of the rising generation to whom the future political destinies of the republic are to be committed, or which will add so much to the sum of individual and social improvement and comfort, as a general diffusion of the means of moral and intellectual cultivation among all classes of our citizens. In the Legislature, there is an increased number of the friends of education. Joseph B. Anthony, of Lycoming, is placed at the head of the Committee on Education in the Senate, and at the head of the House Committee stands N. P. Fetterman, of Bedford. The Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Public Schools has sent in a strong memorial in favor of a general system of education, and the proceedings of several public meetings in different parts of the State have been presented to the same effect. Petitions asking for the establishment of a better system of public education have come to the two Houses from Philadelphia, Allegheny, Fayette, Huntingdon, Cumberland, Lancaster, Bradford, Washington, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Chester, Cambria, Susquehanna, York, Tioga, McKean, Greene, Northampton, Indiana, Venango, Clearfield, Somerset, Luzerne, and Franklin. These are accompanied by a few remonstrances, showing that the question is before the people, and that nothing but a test of strength between the opposing forces will settle it. Mr. Fetterman's report from his Committee, read in the House January 27, presents the issue fully, and takes the advanced ground in favor of schools free to all classes of children. The following extracts from it embrace the most important points: So early as the year 1770, our sister State, Connecticut, then a Province, led the way in the establishment of a general system of education. Common schools were opened to every child within her territory, able and competent teachers were secured, and a fund established adequate to the support of their system. In 1789 the Legislature of Massachusetts provided by law for the instruction of her youth; since then she has been followed by New York, Ohio, and several other States. With the Legislatures of these States all other considerations have been held as only secondary to the right instruction of their citizens, and they have consequently provided ample means for their education. But during this time what has Pennsylvania done? She has been engaged in the encouragement of industry, in promoting her agriculture and manufactures, in increasing the physical comfort and convenience of her citizens, in improving the face of her territory, or withdrawing from the earth the wealth that has been secreted for ages within her bosom. But in the strife of contending States as to which should be foremost in the cultivation of mind, or which should lead in the improvement of the human heart, she has scarce been seen, or felt, or heard. * * * Several special enactments have been made at different periods, limited however to the city and county of Philadelphia, and to the cities of Lancaster and Pittsburgh. So far as your Committee have become acquainted with their effects, they believe they have been highly beneficial. Appropriations have also been made annually in aid of Colleges, Universities and Academies, but from their nature, the benefits of these institutions can only be enjoyed by the few; the great mass from many causes being necessarily excluded. The private schools throughout the State have been found inadequate to the wants of our people. In many places some inducement is wanting to an uneducated people, to persuade them to educate their children. In others, the population is too sparse to support schools; and where schools have been established, complaints are made of their inefficiency, owing to the want of competent teachers, and of some system by which their better regulation may be secured, and the periods during which they are open may not only be longer, but succeed each other with more certainty. To remedy these evils, the unremitted attention of your Committee has been directed to the labor of compiling the details of a system of common schools, in which eventually all the children of our Commonwealth may at least be instructed in reading and a knowledge of the English language, in writing, arithmetic, and geography, subjecting them to such regulations as may best promote their future usefulness; securing competent and able teachand providing for their support. And accompanying this report they have respectfully submitted a bill, comprising the result of their labors, which, although not so perfect as desirable, if adopted, may serve as a ground-work to be improved upon, from time to time, as experience may suggest, and the wisdom of future Legislatures may devise. ers, Bills providing for the establishment of a general system of edu cation are considered in both Houses, but their friends, while greatly encouraged, are not yet strong enough to pass them. The result is the passage of an Act to create a school fund. The proposition to create such a fund was not new. As early as 1827, William Audenried, of Schuylkill, had introduced into the Senate a bill "to provide a fund in support of a General System of Education in Pennsylvania." Senator Audenried pressed the subject with much zeal both during that and the succeeding session, and the bill finally passed the Senate by a majority of five, against the protest of eight It was defeated in the House, but the bread thus cast upon the waters returned in a few years in the following Act, passed on the second of April, 1831: senators. SECTION I. That there shall be and there hereby is established a fund, to be denominated a Common School Fund, and the Secretary of the Commonwealth, the Auditor General and the Secretary of the Land Office shall be commissioners thereof, who, or a majority of them, in addition to the duties they now perform, shall receive and manage such moneys and other things as shall pertain to such fund, in the most advantageous manner, and shall receive and hold to the use of said fund, all such gifts, grants and donations.as may be made; and that said commissioners shall keep a correct record of their proceedings, which, together with all papers and documents relative to said fund, shall be kept and preserved in the office of the Auditor General. SECTION II. That from and after the passage of this Act, all moneys due and owing this Commonwealth by the holders of all unpatented lands; also all moneys secured to the Commonwealth by mortgages or liens on land for the purchase money of the same; also all moneys paid to the State Treasurer on any application hereafter entered, or any warrant hereafter granted for land, as also fees received in the land office, as well as all moneys received in pursuance of the provisions of the fourth section of an Act entitled 'An Act to increase the county rates and levies for the use of the Commonwealth,' approved the twenty-fifth day of March, 1831, be and the same are hereby transferred and assigned to the Common School Fund; and that at the expiration of twelve months after the passage of this Act, and regularly at the expiration of every twelve months thereafter, the State Treasurer shall report to the said commissioners the amount of money thus received by him during the twelve months last preceding, together with a certificate of the amount thereof, and that the same is held by the Commonwealth for the use of the Common School Fund, at an interest of five per cent. SECTION III. That the interest of the moneys belonging to said fund shall be added to the principal as it becomes due, and the whole amount thereof shall be held by the Commonwealth, and remain subject to the provisions of an Act entitled, 'An Act relative to the Pennsylvania canal and railroad,' approved the twenty-second of April, 1829, until the interest thereof shall amount to the sum of $100,000 annually, after which the interest shall be annually distributed and applied to the support of common schools throughout this Commonwealth, in such a manner as shall hereafter be provided by law. It was a safe beginning to provide the money before establishing the schools, but in the end the schools came before the money thus provided, and an annual appropriation for the support of common schools made directly from the State Treasury took the place of the revenue to be derived from the fund created by the Act. The creation of a common school fund, which, it was calculated, would in about ten years amount to two millions of dollars, was a great advance on any action previously taken by the State in behalf of public education, and rendered the establishment of free schools certain at no distant day. And, now, while the forces are gathering for the final struggle which came three years later, in 1834, it will be profitable to go back and review the course of events that led the State forward to the position in its educational affairs it is about to assume. The establishment of free schools in Pennsylvania was not the work of a day or a year, or of any one man or set of men. Nor was the system finally adopted a direct importation from any other State or country. The principle of free education was of course not new, but our system had from the first peculiarities belonging to no other. grew up on our own soil, the product of native forces and influ It 294 ences. The causes that produced it were as old as the Commonwealth, and had been gathering strength for more than one hundred and fifty years. It is easy to discover its germs in Penn's first Frame of Government for his Province, providing for the establishment of public schools, and the flowering out began in the establishment of the Friends' Public School at Philadelphia, in 1697, as seen in the petition asking for a charter wherein it is stated that all "children and servants, male and female" should be admitted into the school," the rich at reasonable rates, and the poor to be maintained and schooled for nothing." The practice all through the colonial times, both with the church and neighborhood schools, was to instruct poor children gratuitously and require all others to pay for their instruction. This practice was formulated into the articles on education incorporated into the Constitutions of 1776 and 1790, and for many years the State's lawmakers hoped to be able to secure universal education by simply providing for the gratuitous instruction of the poor, and long continued to make labored efforts to that end. But the sense of equality that had been engendered by free institutions was such that all attempts to educate poor children at the public expense, in schools with other children or in schools by themselves, completely failed. The class distinctions that had been broken up in general society could not be preserved in the school. Poverty could deaden self-respect in few parents to the extent of allowing their children to attend schools where they were liable to be looked down upon and humiliated as an inferior class. Nor could a system of separate schools for indigent children be maintained. Such schools either failed outright, as in some of the counties where the experiment was tried, or they were gradually merged by the drift of circumstances into schools open to all without distinction, as in Philadelphia under the Act of 1818. And what happened in Philadelphia is in substance what happened in the State at large. Out of the failure of the efforts to educate the poor as a class, but in most cases without the intermediate step of separate schools for them, arose the free school idea of educating all the children in the State at the public expense, without reference to their pecuniary condition. This remarkable evolution is the grand fact in Pennsylvania's educational history. The people were compelled to wander in a wilderness during one hundred and fifty years, and to learn wisdom from its hard lessons, before they were permitted to enter the promised land of universal education. All this is made clear |