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IDENTIFYING AN UNDERLYING RATIONALE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT
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IDENTIFYING AN UNDERLYING RATIONALE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE AGE-GRADED ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE WITHIN AMERICAN
PUBLIC EDUCATION

By

Richard George Owens

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

College of Education

1987

ABSTRACT

IDENTIFYING AN UNDERLYING RATIONALE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE AGE-GRADED ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE WITHIN AMERICAN
PUBLIC EDUCATION

By

Richard George Owens

The purpose of this study was to identify an underlying
rationale for the development of the age—graded organizational
structure within American Public Education. Identifying an under-
lying rationale through such a study would provide information re-
garding the apparent durability of that organizational structure. The
age-graded structure has endured for almost one hundred and forty
years with its underlying rationale apparently not having been
viewed as an important element in the study of educational system
development.

The method of inquiry utilized for this study was a Search of
the literature of education history. The primary sources of infor-
mation regarding the underlying rationale turned out to be secondary
sources found in the literature. These secondary sources - histo-
rians of education - as interpreters of events setting the stage for

the development of the age-graded organizational structure, have

Richard George Owens

provided insights and interpretations of historical events in
nineteenth-century America which produced an environment
conducive to the creation of the age-graded innovation within
American Public Education. The interpretations of educational
historians have provided clues to the structure's rationale and
seemingly inherent ability to survive even though American society
has changed considerably since the time of the origination of the
age-graded organizational structure within public education in this
country.

The findings of this study have shown that the industrial-
ization of nineteenth-century America, the influx of immigrants into
the country and the increases in population in and around the new
and developing manufacturing centers played an instrumental role in
setting a tone which emphasized the need for an improved educa-
tional system. The emphasis of the common school reformers was
that an improved educational system would solve the problems being
created as a result of the rapid and drastic social and economic
changes.

The literature provided information which led to an identi-
fiable rationale for the age-graded organizational structure based on
the concept of standardized and uniform efficiency. This rationale
was basically a mirror-image of the rationale underlying the rapid
and successful growth of American manufacturing.

The literature also provided information which shows that
the rationale has not changed significantly from the time the age-
graded organizational structure was developed in the middle of the

nineteenth century. The strong emphasis on standardized and

Richard George Owens

uniform efficiency, like that of the factory, has been carried through
the years in the organizational structure which emphasizes stan-

dardization in the processes within American Public Education.

This dissertation is dedicated to all those who have asked
questions about our system of public education and have attempted
to find answers for some of those questions. This work is also
dedicated to my Uncle, Dr. Richard Martin. He showed me, by his
example, that getting experience in the real-world can be extremely
helpful when attempting to figure things out in the world of

educafion.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge several people who have been
significant others in the development of this dissertation. Dr.
Charles Blackman, Chairman of my Dissertation Committee, because
of his belief that I had it in me to do this work and produce
something meaningful, and because he was patient and made me
discover things on my own. Also the other members of the
Committee, Dr. Ben Bohnhorst because he could always be depended
on to be there when my own processes got slightly foggy, Dr. Don
Hamachek because he helped me find myself and asked, "What do you
want to be when you grow up?", and finally, Dr. James Costar
because he was always there when I needed him.

Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the high level of
patience and ongoing support provided by my family, especially
Susan, who kept me going when l was tired and frustrated with the
whole thing. And Joshua because he kept asking, "When can I start

calling you Dr. Dad?”

vi

PREFACE

GETTING STARTED

During the time in which the proposal for this study was
being developed,, a wide variety of individuals, organizations, and
government agencies were publishing educational reform reports.
These reports seemed to be documenting that there was some
validity to much public opinion: ”Education in the public schools
falls short of providing students with what has become known as
‘excellence in education" (Cross, 1987, p. 496). As I reviewed some
of the major reports, and especially W
Account, I began to wonder why the reform reports did not seem to
be examining the organizational structure within public education in
relation to the suggested recommendations for improvement.

The reform reports, for the most part, did not seem to be
suggesting that the age-graded organizational structure of public
education might be a valuable resource area in which to look for
some potential solutions to the identified problems within public
education. The reports seemed to be concentrating more on the
operational dynamics of the interaction between the system and the
learner, the system's expectations of the learner, the system's
expectations of the public, the importance of homework, the length

of time in and/or out of school, and the basic requirements for

vii

completion of the school program.

Alternative school advocates had been looking at
organizational structure variations for years. i had never questioned
the age-graded structure while a student nor while a teacher in the
age-graded system. I began to wonder why'l had never thought to
question the structure. I have since talked with a wide variety of
people about the age-graded structure, from professors in
universities and colleges to average people on the street. I also did
a small research questionnaire process with a group of teachers in
one elementary school. This short questionnaire included questions
about the origins of the age-graded structure and the peOple who
influenced its development. The results appeared to indicate that
there was not a great deal of general knowledge, within the group of
teachers, about the origins of the age-graded organizational
structure within public education in this country. The small survey
results provided an informal and unofficial research base which
aimed this study towards reviewing the education literature in
hopes of discovering an underlying rationale for the age-graded

structure and possibly some explanation for its longevity.

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 1
Purpose of the Study ....................................................................... 2
Significance of the Problem ........................................................ 3
Limitations of the Study ............................................................... 5
Assumptions ....................................................................................... 6
Organization of the Study ............................................................. 6
II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ..................................................................... 7
Historical Explanations .................................................................. 8
Sources of Information .................................................................. 8
Research Process .............................................................................. 9
III. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .............................................................. 1 1
The First Fully Age-Graded School ........................................... 1 1
Acceptance of the Age-Graded Structure .............................. 14
Age-Graded School Antecedents ................................................ 16
Events Facilitating the Development of the
Age-Graded Structure ................................................................ 22
A Basis For A Rationale .................................................................. 47
An Identified Rationale ................................................................... 53
Acceptability of the Structure Based on the
Identified Rationale ..................................................................... 55
Modifications to the Rationale ..................................................... 62
Summary ................................................................................................. 65
IV. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .......................................... 69
Conclusions ........................................................................................... 69
Recommendations ............................................................................... 75
Summary ................................................................................................. 80
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 82

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The public educational system in this country is actually a
series of systems. This conglomerate system contains a wide
variety of organizational variations. There is, however, one striking
similarity within the majority of the smaller educational systems.
This one striking similarity is the majority usage of the age-graded
organizational structure, especially at the elementary level.

The organizational structure of the conglomerate system has
not always been based on the age-graded structure. It was, in its
early history, based on an ungraded structure. Approximately one
hundred and forty years ago the system began changing from an
ungraded structure to a fully age-graded structure (Martin, 1894, p.
192; Shearer, 1899, p. 20; Cowen, 1931, p. 29; Monroe, 1940, p. 257;
Cubberley, 1947, p. 311, Goodlad and Anderson, 1963, p. 44; Krug,
1966, p. 72; Miller, 1967, p. 6; Tewksbury, 1967, p. 13). This change
did not take place overnight and did not take place everywhere all at
once. It did eventually spread to become a nation-wide reality. It
does not, however, seem to have changed significantly from that
point of reorganization to the present.

Even though there is wide variation on this structural model,

schools organized on an age-graded structure are the primary

reality within public education in this country (Goodlad and
Anderson, 1963, pp. 2-3; Tewksbury, 1967, pp. 12-13). For this
reason, it would be beneficial to go back to the beginning of this
reorganizational period and discover an underlying rationale for the
change in the organizational structure which produced the first fully

age-graded school in this country in 1848.

W

The primary purpose of this study was to identify an under-
lying rationale for the development of the age-grade organizational
structure within American Public Education. The specific objectives
of this study were to find answers to the following questions:

1. What was taking place in the nineteenth century that
made the development of the age-graded organizational structure
possible?

2. Is there, in fact, an identifiable rationale for the devel-
opment of the age-graded organizational structure?

3. Is there, in the rationale, and in the history of the age-
graded organizational structure, information which supports its
widespread acceptability and its longevity as a functional organi-
zational structure?

4. What significant modifications, if any, have been made to
the rationale which may have helped the age-graded structure
remain as the primary organizational structure within American
Public Education.

The results of this study may prove to be useful to educa-

tional decision-makers in their efforts to examine the present

system of public education in relation to its general effectiveness
in meeting educational goals. Educational decision-makers may also
find the results useful in considering potential future changes to the

operational system of public education.

5' 'E' [II E II

To understand more fully the American Public Education
system, and its organizational structure specifically, a rationale for
the development of the age-graded structure needs to be identified.
The reasons behind making such a significant alteration to a system,
which had previously grouped learners according to their level of
educational attainment rather than according to their chronological
age, would have to be discovered.

’ Issues have been raised about the age-graded organizational
structure and its general effectiveness in dealing with develop-

mental differences among children. John Goodlad and Robert

Anderson. in MM state that.

The realities of child development defy the rigorous ordering
of children's auilities and attainments into conventional graded
structure. For example, in the average first grade there is a
spread of four years in pupil readiness to learn as suggested by
mental age data. As the pupils progress through the grades, the
span in readiness widens.

Furthermore, a single child does not progress all of a piece:
he tends to spurt ahead more rapidly in some areas that in
others. Consequently, a difference of one grade between his
reading attainment and his arithmetic attainment at the end of
the second grade classification may be extended to a three- or
four-grade difference by the end of his fifth year in school. The
presence of the graded structure may disguise or distort such
realities but it can not remove them. In brief, ...a fifth-grade
teacher, in spite of his designation, is not a teacher of fifth-

4

grade children. At a given time, he teaches third, fourth, fifth,
sixth, seventh, eighth, and even ninth grades, as far as learner
realities are concerned, even though all the pupils in his room
may be labeled “fifth grade.“ Any attempt to deal with these
children as fifth graders can only be Procrustean in its ultimate
effects (Goodlad and Anderson, 1963, p. 3).

The authors go on to explain that:

Our central problem, then, emerges out of the conflict
between long-established graded structure on one hand and
increasing awareness of variation in children's abilities and
attainments on the other. Our graded structure and parent-
teacher-pupil expectations are long established; they represent a
certain antique respectability (Goodlad and Anderson, 1963, p. 4).

Additionally, Goodlad and Anderson point out that:

An over-all plan of vertical school organization such as
grading or nongrading is a gross, in contrast to a sensitive,
educational technique. Grading facilitates the placement of
subject matter, the orderly progression of masses of pupils
through it, and the establishment of normative standards for
comparing schools and students. Grading sets a certain tone, a
way of thinking about and looking at school practices (Goodlad
and Anderson, 1963, p. 213).

This point of view, when contrasted with the findings of the
major educational reform reports would seem to establish an
important difference which bears investigation. The major reform
reports do not seem to suggest that the age-graded organizational
structure might be a valuable area to examine for potential
solutions to the identified problems within public education. An
investigation into the organizational structure would seem to be

especially significant in relation to one of the recommendations

found in W. Recommendation C:

Time, number 8 suggests that:

Placement and grouping of students, as well as promotion and
graduation policies, should be guided by academic progress of
students and their instructional needs, rather than by rigid
adherence to age (National Commission On Excellence In
Education, 1984, p. 76).

I"||' [II fill

The limitations of this study have been defined as follows:

1. The investigation has depended on secondary sources -
education historians - for interpretations of the processes and
systems established through the efforts of primary sources -
nineteenth century common school reformers .

2. Information regarding an underlying rationale for the
development of the age-graded organizational structure was based
more on significant historical events occurring in nineteenth-
century America than on specific information provided by the indi-
viduals responsible for the actual development of the structure
within American Public Education. Stanley K. Schultz pointed out, in
The Culture Factory, that "There is no adequate history of the evo-
lution of graded schools” (Schultz, 1973, p. 343).

Assumptions

Three essential assumptions underlie this investigation:

1. Events taking place in nineteenth-century America
created an environment which was conducive to the development of
the age-graded organizational structure.

2. There is an identifiable underlying rationale for the age-
graded organizational structure.

3. The identifiable rationale will provide information which
supports the widespread acceptability and longevity of the age-

graded organizational structure.

0 . I' E || SI I
Chapter One has included statements which indicate the
purpose of the study, the objectives of the study, the significance of
the study, the possible limitations of the study, and the assumptions
of the study. Chapter Two will present the research methodology

utilized in this investigation. Chapter Three will present the
findings of the review of the literature. Chapter Four will present
conclusions drawn from the review of the literature and some
recommendations which seem apprOpriate to the results of this

study.

CHAPTER II

RESEARCH METI-DDCIOGY

The age-graded organizational structure within American
public education seems to be more widely accepted than thoroughly
understood within educational history. Searching the history of edu-
cation literature proved to be both enlightening and disappointing,
enlightening from the standpoint that there was, in fact, some
mention of the topic and disappointing from the standpoint that
there seemed to be more recognition of the topic from an open
acceptance point of view than from a ”this is the way it was devel-
oped and this is why it was developed” point of view. The sources
for education history have a tendency to mention the existence of
the age-graded structure, but seldom go much deeper than that.
Other sources in the educational literature, ranging from curriculum
to the study of nationalism within the educational movement, tend
to do the same.

The search of the periodical indexes produced much the same
results. Writings about a rationale for the age-graded structure
were conspicuous in the literature only by their absence. The
reasons behind the age-graded structure appear to be viewed as less
important than the fact that the organizational structure does, in

fact, exist.

8

II'I'IEI |'

Historical events of the period preceding the development of
the age-graded organizational structure shed more light on the
reasons behind the organizational structure than the writings of the
creators of the age-graded structure itself. The historical events of
the period of American history between 1800 and 1848 provided
helpful information about the conditions within the country which
may have been instrumental in the development of the age-graded
organizational structure. It is pointed out in W
W that, ”By 1825 the United States had

achieved a certain amount of stability and the nation began to
develop rapidly. Rails were being laid and factories built. Immi-
grants were pouring into the country and the population was
increasing with concentration in the urban areas" (Callahan, 1960, p
125).

W

This study has depended on secondary sources - education
historians - for iraarpretations of the processes and systems
established through the efforts of primary sources - the common
school reformers - who effected changes on a system which they
believed to be both inefficient and ineffective. These interpreters,
as a result of previous and contemporary historians, have been able
to view the system over time and have been able to place the devel-
opment and growth of the system in a variety of perspectives which
allow for a more thorough understanding of the possible reasons for

the system's current organizational structure.

Primary information most often came from secondary
sources - interpretive accounts by historians - and perhaps more
importantly, from information contained in the notes and citations
by these historians. These educational historians, who have more
extensively researched and interpreted the events of education
history, became the primary sources for the development of a
rationale for the age-graded organizational structure within public
educafion.

One reference notation in particular identified the relative
importance which has been placed on the evolution of the age-graded
structure. This notation, found in Stanley K. Schultz's 1094201114119.
Eamon (1973), states that, ”There is no adequate history of the
evolution of graded schools” (p. 343). It was these reference
notations and footnotes which ultimately produced the road maps by

which the semblance of a possible rationale began to take shape.

W

The search of the literature was done in direct relation to
the research questions outlined in Chapter One. The search concen-
trated primarily on the State of Massachusetts and the city of
Boston. This emphasis seemed most appropriate due to the fact that
the Quincy Grammar School was established as a result of the
efforts of the common school reformers in that state and city. The
literature was first searched to identify historical events which
may have facilitated the development of the age-graded organi-
zational structure. The literature was next searched to identify a

rationale for the development of that organizational structure. The

10

third step in the search was to identify evidence which supported
the wide-spread acceptability and longevity of the age-graded

organizational structure. Finally, the literature was searched to
determine if there have been any significant modifications to the

identified rationale.

CHAPTER III

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

The information obtained from the search of the literature
will be presented under the following topic headings: (1) The First
Fully-Age—Graded School, (2) Acceptance of the Age-Graded
Structure, (3) Age-Graded Antecedents, (4) Events Facilitating the
Development of the Age-Graded School, (5) A Basis For A Rationale,
(6) An Identified Rationale, (7) Acceptability of the Structure Based

on the Identified Rationale, and (8) Modifications to the Rationale.

W

The first fully age-graded school in this country is consid-
ered to be the Quincy Grammar School in Boston, Massachusetts
(Martin, 1894, p. 192; Shearer, 1899, p. 20; Bunker, 1916, p. 25;
Cowen, 1931, p. 29; Russell and Judd, 1940, p. 257; Monroe, 1940, p.
257; Cubberley, 1947, p. 311; Goodlad and Anderson, 1963, p. 44;
Bayles and Hood, 1966, p. 130; Krug, 1966, p. 72; Miller, 1967, p. 6;
Tewksbury, 1967, p. 13; Schultz, 1973, p. 123; Ignaz and Corsini,
1979, p. 25; Ignaz and Corsini, 1981, p. 4). The Quincy Grammar
School was a significant change from any American school preceding
it (Reisner, 1930, p. 368; Krug, 1966, p. 73).

11

12

1. It was large. Up to this time a grammar school with 400
pupils was considered very large. This building had 660 seats
in its classrooms, exclusive of the hall.

2. It contained a separate schoolroom for each teacher, 12 in all,
and, of course, recitation rooms were not needed.

3. It contained a hall large enough to seat comfortably all the
pupils that could be accommodated in its school-rooms, and
even more.

4. It contained a clothes room attached to each school-room.

5. It contained a separate desk and chair for each pupil, this
being probably the first grammar schoolhouse, here or
elsewhere, so far as I know, into which this feature was
introduced.

6. It was four stories high - the first of its height - the hall
covering the whole of the fourth floor. Each floor below
carried four classrooms (Bunker, 1916, p. 29; Reisner, 1930, p.
368; Cubberley, 1947, p. 312).

The school building itself represented a new architectural
design. The classroom arrangement represented a complete depar-
ture from earlier arrangements. The furniture in the school was a
complete departure from what had previously existed in schools.
The number of teachers working in the school was more than had
ever worked in a single school before. The method of classifying
pupils in the school was a significant modification of previous
classification schemes. The new school was different in every way
from anything that had preceded it in this country.

The Quincy Grammar School represents the cornerstone of an
organizational structure which has had an enormous impact on the
entire concept of public education in this country (Goodlad and
Anderson, 1963, p. 48). It could be said that the impact of what took
place in Boston with the development of the Quincy Grammar School

can still be seen in the age-graded organizational structure of public

13

education today. The basic description of that school does not
appear to be significantly different from a basic description of any
elementary school in any town or city today, with the possible
exception of the height of the building.

The Quincy Grammar School became the principal school
design throughout the Boston system (Reisner, 1930, pp. 366-367;
Eby, 1952, pp. 566-567). The design of the school and the organi-
zational structure would be copied by other states and other cities
(Krug, 1966, p. 74). That the school was a complete success can be
seen in the historical sketch of the Quincy School done for the
dedication of the new Quincy School in 1859 (the original school had
been destroyed by fire in 1858).

The Quincy School was the first single-headed school
successfully organized in Boston. The schoolhouse was the first
constructed on the plan of a single room to a teacher. In six
years after its organization, not a double-headed school was left
in Boston, and now fourteen Grammar schoolhouses are built
substantially on its plan, and another is in process of erection
(McClusky; 1920; p. 143).

Schools in other parts of the United States adopting the
architectural and organizational plan of the Quincy Grammar School
showed that the innovation in education was effective. William T.

Harris, in talking about the schools of St. Louis, stated that:

In the system of schools of St. Louis after the adoption of the
Boston style of building, corporal punishment decreased from an
average of five hundred cases per week for seven hundred pupils
to three cases for that number. Judge of the benefit to the
schools of the Central Plain of the United States from this
architectural innovation of Boston. But another benefit of

14

almost equal magnitude arose from the close grading of classes
which the new system produced (McClusky; 1920; p. 145-146).

W

The current organizational structure within American public
education system was designed in the nineteenth century. From
where did the organizational foundation which makes up the current
public education system come? Surprisingly, it does not appear that
education historians have spent much time considering the whys and
wherefores of the actual organizational structure within the
American public educational system. Education historians seem to
have merely accepted the age-graded organizational structure as the
organizational way of doing things within the system of public edu-
cation. This attitude of acceptance can be seen in statements by

historian Ellwood P. Cubberley. He states that,

We merely evolved, as a result of something like a half-
century of gradual educational development, the common and
purely native American elementary school which we have known
for so long. The primary classes, in part due to the pressure of
numbers, gradually ceased to take pupils earlier than five, and
later earlier than six, outside of New England, and the present
eight-year elementary school (nine in New England), with a
teacher for each grade, was evolved. . . .This evolution was fully
accomplished by 1860 in all Northern States (Cubberley, 1947,
pp. 312-314).

Cubberley later states that,

The first step was the division of the school into two
schools, one more advanced than the other, such as lower and
higher, primary and grammar. Another division was introduced
when the Infant School was added beneath. The next step was
the division of each school into classes. This began by the
employment of assistant teachers, in England and America known

15

as ”ushers," to help the ”master,” and the provision of small
recitation rooms, off the main large school-room, to which the
usher could take his class to hear recitations. The third and
final step came with the erection of a new type of school
building, with smaller and individual classrooms, or the
subdivision of the larger schoolrooms. It was then possible to
assign a teacher to each classroom, sort and grade the pupils by
ages and advancement, outline the instruction by years, and the
modern graded elementary school was at hand (Cubberley, 1948,
pp. 756-758).

Prior to Cubberley’s explanation of the evolution of the age-

graded structure, the essential acceptance can be found in historical

remarks about the structure. In Wm William J.

Shearer states,

The first step toward the graded school was made possible
when the number of pupils increased so that several could recite
together in certain branches.

A second step still further simplified matters, by confining
all to a definite course of study. This did away with aimless
teaching and study, saved a great amount of useless repetition
and much time for both teacher and pupils....An increase in the
number of pupils makes possible a better classification.

A third step toward a proper plan of grading was taken when
the number of pupils increased sufficiently to warrant the
employment of two or more teachers. Then,for the first time,
was possible a division of labor. The classification and grading
of schools is but the application to education of the same law
of division of labor that prevails in every successful business.
It is not only the most economical way, but it is a prerequisite
to satisfactory progress upon any line....The teacher's time and
talents being concentrated upon certain work, it becomes
easier by repetition, and, therefore, is likely to be performed
more efficiently.

A fourth step toward the graded school was taken when the
number of pupils attending the schools of a district increased so
as to justify the employment of eight to ten teachers. This
desired and was often reached by the union of schools, where
such union was feasible. The course of study was then divided

16

into a series of ascending steps, each preparatory to the next
higher. The teachers were assigned definite portions over which
they were expected to take their pupils during the year. Under
such conditions the pupils could be closely classified, and those
about equal in ability and attainments could be instructed
together (Shearer, 1899, pp. 17-19).

These three brief descriptions of the evolution of the age-
graded organizational structure within the American system of
public education appear to be quite typical of the historical reports
in general (For example see also Martin, 1894, pp. 192-222; Reisner,
1930, pp. 365-369; Cowen, 1931; Burton, 1934, pp. 205-208; Monroe,
1940, pp. 255-260; Eby, 1952, pp. 564-568; Goodlad and Anderson,
1963, pp.45-49; Bayles and Hood, 1966, pp. 129-153; Tewksbury,
1967, pp. 12-13).

AoefitadedjcnooLAntonedenn
According to Frank Eby. in Warn
Education.

At the beginning of the 19th century there existed a variety
of schools to teach different things. The vast majority of these
were one-teacher schools to teach reading and religion. In cities
like Boston there were in addition more advanced schools of
three kinds: (1) Latin grammar schools, (2) English grammar
schools, and (3) writing schools in which expert penmanship and
arithmetic were taught. Until well into the century these
schools were ungraded and the curricula limited. Individual
instruction was the rule everywhere, and dependence on the
textbook was universal. In the Latin schools pupils were
classified by their stage of advancement in reading Latin
classics and in grammar, but in the English grammar schools and
the writing schools grading had not yet been introduced (Eby,
1952, pp. 564-565).

17

William Shearer presents, in W, a

statement by J. C. Boykin which describes the ungraded system of

the time. Boykin states that,

In the first part of this century the grading of elementary
schools was a thing unknown in this country. Instruction was
almost wholly individual. Whenever a pupil chose to present
himself for admission into school, no matter at what time of the
year, he was received. His studies were determined by the books
he brought. His first lesson was apt to follow the the last one
that his former teacher had given him. If he had been through
Webster's ”Blue-back” Speller twice, and had finished the last
column of the tenth page, on the third round, the first column on
the eleventh page would naturally be the first lesson that his
new teacher would give him. If a class already formed had
reached just that point he was put into that class. Otherwise he
would probably form a new class. It was thus by no means
uncommon to see a dozen or more classes in the same room
studying the same book, but at a dozen or more stages of
advancement in it; and, altogether, a teacher with a school of
moderate size, containing pupils of all ages, sexes, and sizes
might easily have fifty or sixty classes. Attend to them all?
Certainly; but what attention! The little fellows received but
little of it; especially those who had learned to read. Their
lessons would be heard every few days. The teacher's pet
classes were called to the recitation bench often; and his
favorite subjects received nearly all his attention. The rest of
the school whiled away the time as best they might. They ”did
their sums” on their slates, or droned over their ”blue-backs,"
until they were tired, and then turned their attention to each
other and to mischief, opportunities for which frequently
appeared in the open mouth or bare soles of a sleeping pupil; and
such opportunities rarely went unimproved (Shearer, 1899, pp.
11-13).

It is also pointed out by Tewksbury, in W
W, that prior to the middle 1800's:

...the predominant plan was the one-room school in which
instruction was nongraded. In this early type school, there were

18

children of various ages in the one classroom, and achievement
levels varied a great deal. Instruction was differentiated, that
is, the teacher gave different assignments to different children.
While one child or several pupils did certain work in a subject,
others who were ready for more advanced study were assigned
such work by the teacher. Thus a number of different levels
were being studied simultaneously by pupils in the same
classroom. Classes were often smaller that the typical class of
thirty today (Tewksbury, 1967, pp. 12-13).

An advancement which preceded the fully-age-graded school

was the monitorial school developed by Joseph Lancaster. However,

...prior to the monitorial schools, elementary-school practice had
been essentially that of the one-room rural schools that are well
within the memories of many adults living today. It was
individualized instruction (even possibly programmed because
each child has his book which he followed minutely), each child
going as fast as he could and reporting (reciting) individually to
the teacher. The teacher was a hearer of lessons; much of the
remainder of his work, as with lcabod Crane in lrvings's Illa.

WWW being whittling quill pens and hickory
sticks (Bayles and Hood, 1966, p. 130).

The monitorial school, developed by Joseph Lancaster, was a
step forward in the development of the age-graded structure in edu-
cation. The Lancasterian system was the first organized system to
utilize an approach to education where the master dealt only with a
small group of pupils (Cubberley, 1947, pp. 131-132; Bayles and
Hood, 1966, p. 130). The master taught the best pupils and then it
was these pupils, called monitors, who worked directly with the
rest of the pupils in the school. The efficiency within this system
resulted from the large body of pupils being divided into small
groups, under the direction of a monitor, with a set series of

knowledge units to be acquired. Movement from a lower group to a

19

higher group was dependent on the pupil demonstrating acquisition
of the required knowledge (Cubberley, 1947, p. 131-132; Monroe,
1971, pp. 366-367; Nasaw, 1979, p. 20). Small group recitation
replaced individual recitation under the Lancasterian system of
education. Monitor time for instruction greatly reduced actual
instruction time and the cost of education was reduced enormously
(Monroe, 1940, pp. 363-364). Under the monitorial system, Joseph
Lancaster claimed that the per pupil cost of education was a mere
$1.06 per year. Andrew Bell claimed that his monitorial system kept
the cost at $1.00 per pupil per year (Goodlad and Anderson, 1963, p.
45-46). The reduced cost of the monitorial system gave support to
the mass production mentality generating from the industrialization
of the economy. The common school reformers and the general
public could see that education for all children was distinctly
possible when viewed with an eye towards factory type efficiency
(Monroe, 1940, pp. 363-370; Cubberley, 1947, p. 134; Schultz, 1973,
p. 104, 116 & 131; Tyack, 1974, p. 72; Katz, 1975, pp. 32-37;
Kaestle, 1983, pp. 69-70).

The Boston School Committee knew of the organization and
high degree of efficiency and success of the Lancasterian system of
education. In 1828, the committee investigated the New York
Lancasterian schools. The report submitted by the investigators
told of a system that kept pupils interested and attentive by
allowing no idleness. The committee was impressed with the

methods and declared that,

...its effects on the habits, character, and intelligence of youth
are highly beneficial; disposing their minds to industry, to

20

readiness for attention, and to subordination, thereby creating an
early life of love of order, preparation for business (Spring,
1986, pp. 54-55).

The virtues of submission to authority, orderly behavior, and
industriousness were considered to be necessary for functioning in
the industrialized world of business. Efficiency within the school
system would create organized systems by which pupils would pass
through the educational factory. The increase in potential pupils
was a direct result of the significant change within the American
society from a rural/agrarian to a city/manufacturing economy. The
wage-labor force in and near the new manufacturing centers was
growing enormously. The monitorial system of Joseph Lancaster
was considered an ideal way to deal with the problems of educating
the children of the poor. The philanthropic societies and other
interested social groups saw, in the monitorial system, a way to
provide the poor with a required educational background and,
perhaps, more importantly, a much needed system by which the
moral character of the children could be trained in the appropriate
manner. The mecnanistic approach of the monitorial system was an
acceptable alternative to dealing with the poverty and crime issues
in the new urban environments (Monroe, 1940, p. 371; Davis, 1976,
pp. 146-148; Nasaw, 1979, p. 22). The common school reformers
could see that, even though the Lancasterian system had shown
itself to be efficient and economical, another, more comprehensive,
system was needed if the long-term benefits of an appropriately
educated populace were going to have a positive impact on reducing

poverty, crime, and immorality. A state funded and controlled

21

system would be a far more unified and comprehensive system of
schools and would be a far better alternative for educating all
children (Nasaw, 1979. pp. 22-37).

Bunker points cuts that

...primary schools in Boston, from the time of their

establishment (1818), had been conducted on the "ungraded plan"
- that is, the unit group taught by each teacher was a separate
and independent organization, occupying a separate building,
usually of one room. The course of instruction was divided into
six steps or classes, but each teacher had all six classes in her
room at the same time. She was fitting a class for the grammar
school, teaching a class of A-B-C-darians, and carrying on the
intermediate stages of the course, simultaneously. This
arrangement was gradually changed by carrying down into the
primary schools the “graded plan” of the grammar schools. This
led to the promotion of pupils every six months from one primary
teacher to another; which at that time, meant transferring from
one primary building to another. The primary schools of a given
attendance district came to have an organic connection with each
other, which made it necessary that some one should be charged
with the responsibility of supervising the group with respect to
the admission of pupils, their proper classification, and their
qualifications for promotion. This need became apparent about
the time the shift from the ”double-headed" to the "single-
headed" plan cf organization in the grammar schools took place
(1848, Quincy School). The solution of the twofold problem was
at once obvious - namely, to relieve the grammar-school master
of his teaching duties, and require him to exercise the duties of a
principal throughout his district, both in the grammar school and
in the primary schools tributary to it. By this arrangement a
higher degree of unity, harmony, and efficiency throughout the
entire system was secured (Bunker,1916, p. 30).

The ungraded school did not ”measure up to the important

requirement of the greatest good to the greatest number, in the

22

shortest time, at the least expense” (Shearer, 1899, p. 23). The

common school reformers believed that,

...the absence of grading and uniform schoolbooks had greatly
reduced the efficiency of the district schools. The reform
movement's economic feasibility required that children move
through the common school rapidly so as to free space and
teacher time for more children. The reformers considered that
widespread establishment of age-graded schools was one of
their prime accomplishments (Church and Sedlak, 1976, p. 59).

:. ._._|o .: I- -oo“:. .1 I: ;o:-‘.Vo:10 .00

As has been stated previously, the fully age-graded school
did not exist in this country prior to 1848. The dynamics of what
was taking place within the larger society in nineteenth-century
America, which precipitated the actual development of this inno-
vative organizational structure, were critical elements in creating
an environment in which that structure became both possible and
essenfiaL '

To develop a better understanding of the evolution of the age-
graded organizational structure, one must begin looking well in
advance of the first age-graded school. The seeds of the evolution
of the age-graded structure were sown when the new nation
accepted an industrialized way of doing things (Martin, 1894, p.
189-190; Bunker, 1916, p. 17 & 19; Cubberley, 1947, p. 148-149;
Bayles and Hood, 1966, p. 116; Hottleman, 1974, p. 92-93; Kaestle,
1983, p. 70). The movement to change the ways of education within
the new nation became known as the common school movement. This
movement took place roughly between 1830 and 1860 (McClusky,
1920, p. 36; Reisner, 1930, pp. 361-366; Russell and Judd, 1940, pp.

22

shortest time, at the least expense” (Shearer, 1899, p. 23). The

common school reformers believed that,

...the absence of grading and uniform schoolbooks had greatly
reduced the efficiency of the district schools. The reform
movement's economic feasibility required that children move
through the common school rapidly so as to free space and
teacher time for more children. The reformers considered that
widespread establishment of age-graded schools was one of
their prime accomplishments (Church and Sedlak, 1976, p. 59).

;. ._".'.. .: p: ;....;. o .; A.:-_..-. .n

As has been stated previously, the fully age-graded school
did not exist in this country prior to 1848. The dynamics of what
was taking place within the larger society in nineteenth-century
America, which precipitated the actual development of this inno-
vative organizational structure, were critical elements in creating
an environment in which that structure became both possible and
essenfiaL I

To develop a better understanding of the evolution of the age-
graded organizational structure, one must begin looking well in
advance of the first age-graded school. The seeds of the evolution
of the age-graded structure were sown when the new nation
accepted an industrialized way of doing things (Martin, 1894, p.
189-190; Bunker, 1916, p. 17 & 19; Cubberley, 1947, p. 148-149;
Bayles and Hood, 1966, p. 116; Hottleman, 1974, p. 92-93; Kaestle,
1983, p. 70). The movement to change the ways of education within
the new nation became known as the common school movement. This
movement took place roughly between 1830 and 1860 (McClusky,
1920, p. 36; Reisner, 1930, pp. 361-366; Russell and Judd, 1940, pp.

23

31-32; Cubberley, 1947, pp. 150-167; Bayles and Hood, 1966, p. 115-
119; Church and Sedlak, 1976, p. 70). The first half of the
nineteenth century was a period of economic and social change in
America. Industrialization, immigration, and urbanization combined
to have a significant impact on established social concepts which
had previously been built around an agricultural way of life (Martin,
1894, pp. 187-189; Reisner, 1930, p. 363; Monroe, 1940, pp. 222-
227; Cubberley, 1947, pp. 144-149; Bayles and Hood, 1966, p. 116;
Katz, 1971, p. 297; Church and Sedlak, 1976, p. 70; Kaestle and
Vinovskis, 1980, p.115; Kaestle, 1983, pp. 23-24 & 63-64). It was
believed that education could be a significant methodology by which
the changes could be dealt with in an effective manner (Schultz,
1973, pp. 68-69; Katz, 1975, p. 30; Davis, 1976, p. 140-146; Dale,
Esland and McDonald, 1976, p. 23; Nasaw, 1979, p. 36-38; Kaestle
and Vinovskis, 1980; p. 116; Kaestle, 1983, p. 70-73; Spring, 1986,
pp. 47-48).

Three significant historical events converged at the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century to produce an environment conducive
to the development of the age-graded organizational structure
embodied in the Quincy Grammar School. The industrial revolution,
the immigration of foreigners into the new nation, and urbanization
intertwined to produce a collective reaction to a perceived social
instability in parts of the new nation. According to many of the
school reformers of the period this social instability was a serious
threat to the nation (Cubberley, 1947, pp. 153-154; Schultz, 1973,
pp. 8-12 and 66-69; Hottleman, 1974, p. 6; Dale, Esland and

24

McDonald, 1976, p. 23). These threatening situations had been

produced by historical events.
Frank Carlton. in EcnnnmLInfluanceanoLEducatinnal
WW Pointed out that:

The immigration in the United States during the decade,
1820-1830, was 143,439; during the next decade, 599,125, and
during the period 1840-1850, it increased to 1,713,251. From
1830 to 1837 the immigration increased nearly three and one-
half times. A census of the city of Boston taken in 1845 stated
that 37,289 or 32.9 per cent. of a total population of 114,366
consisted of foreigners and their children. Many foreign
immigrants were finding homes in the North Atlantic States, and
many of the home stock were migrating westward (Carlton;
1965; p. 34).

In 1790 there were but 5 cities of over 8,000 population -
New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston. In
1840 the number of cities having 8,000 population or over was
44; in 1860 it was 141. Four out of every five of these were in
the North; for, owing to greater ease of transportation,
manufacturing had now come to be a dominant factor in the
growth of cities, whereas before this concentration of
population had been chiefly determined by commerce (Monroe,
1940, pp. 224-225).

According to Cubberley,

Up to 1807, the development of our country was almost
wholly agricultural. This had meant a scattered and an isolated
population, with few common ideas, common interests, or
common needs. Nearly all the manufactured articles not made in
homes or villages were made in Great Britain. The Embargo of
1807, laid by Congress on American shipping out off articles of
English manufacture and soon led to the rise of many ”infant
industries.” The War of 1812, the troubles with Napolean, and
the general westward movement of the population, all tended for
a time to build up manufacturing faster than agriculture. At the
end of the struggle with Napolean (1815) this country, due to the
lack of any adequate protective tariff, was for a time flooded

25

with manufactured articles from Europe. Hard times set in until
about 1820. This condition was corrected by the protective
tariff, and following its enactment a great industrial
development took place. The three decades from 1820 to 1850
were characterized by a rapid growth of cities, in which most of
the new manufacturing plants were established (Cubberley,
1947, pp. 144-145).

That these three circumstances were having an important
impact on nineteenth-century society can be seen in the early
reaction of the State of Massachusetts, and the city of Boston, to
the changes taking place in society even towards the end of the
eighteenth century. The state constitution of Massachusetts,
ratified in 1780, put great emphasis on the ”necessity of schooling
to promote social order in a society becoming increasingly urban"
(Schultz, 1973, p. 8). The principal designer of the- Massachusetts
constitution was John Adams. Adams had, for many years, been a
strong advocate of public schooling. ”Adams believed that the chief
purpose of education was to produce young men devoted to America
and to its political, moral, and religious institutions. Accomplishing
this task was especially important in Boston and other cities of the
commonwealth. There, mob riots showed most clearly the forces of
social disorder" (Schultz, 1973, p. 8). Adams strongly supported the
idea that the state was responsible for providing public schooling to
"inculcate all citizens with principles necessary for the
maintenance of social order” (Schultz, 1973, p. 9).

The development of the age-graded structure during the
middle-years of the nineteenth century was one of the results of an
educational reform movement responding to a series of historical

events which impacted significantly on nineteenth-century

26

American society. According to Frank T. Carlton, in Emmig

O O I
O
I 3| : col 0 . 0|. .0: I n: | :0 .: . 0-

1.8.5.0..

This period which was characterized by the development of
the industrial town, marks the rise of the urban school. The city
then assumed the educational leadership; development in
education during the nineteenth century was chiefly directed and
conditioned by the needs of urban life and by the changes in
industrial methods (Carlton, 1965, p. 96).

In direct relation to increases in population, it is pointed out
by Cramin. in W
1816.. that

...the American population diversified as it increased (from just
under 4 million in 1790 to almost 40 million in 1870), with
immigrants arriving in large numbers from various regions of
northwestern Europe, notably the British Isles, Germany, Alsace
and Lorraine, Switzerland, and Scandinavia, and in smaller
numbers from Africa via the West Indies and from China (Cremin,
1980, p. 7).

The growth of population in Massachusetts, and particularly

the population in Boston, is also described by Frank T. Carlton in

MIL-1.8.5.0.- He states that,

The entire period (1820-1850) is characterized by the rapid
growth of urban population, the development of manufacture, and
a multiplicity of inventions. The population of Massachusetts
increased during the two decades, 1800-1820, nearly 24 per
cent.; during 1820-1840, over 40 per cent.; during 1830-1850,
nearly 60 per cent.; but during the same periods the increase in
the population of the city of Boston was approximately 73, 115,
and 123 per cent. respectively (Carlton, 1965, p. 32).

27

In 1790 less than one-twentieth part of the total population
of Massachusetts lived within the limits of the city of Boston; in
1820, about one-twelfth part, and 1840, about one-eighth part
were inhabitants of that city. “Within ten miles of Boston there
is now (1846) one quarter of the population of the state,
amounting to more than 200,000, chiefly dependent on Boston as
the center of business; in 1790 the number was less than a ninth
part of the whole" (Carlton, 1965, p. 42).

Boston, and the State of Massachusetts, were setting the
tone for educational change throughout nineteenth-century America
(Reisner, 1930, p. 368). Massachusetts' influence on other states in
the new nation has been demonstrated by the frequent use of the
basic language from the state law of 1789 by other states in their
school laws and city school regulations (Martin, 1894, p. xii-xiii).
William T. Harris pointed out in George Martin's W
W that the 1789 Massachusetts

education law stated that,

Instructors of youth should exert their best endeavors to impress
on the minds of children and youth the principles of piety and
justice and a sacred regard for truth (Martin, 1894, Editor's
Preface, p. xiL-xiii).

The Massachusetts law provided a partial list of the
potential virtues to be cultivated in pupils as a result of their

attendance in school. The list included the following:

...love of country, humanity, and universal benevolence; sobriety,
industry, and frugality; chastity, moderation, and temperance;
and those other virtues which are the ornament of human society
and the basis upon which a republican Constitution is founded
(Martin, 1894, Editor's Preface, pp. xii-xiii).

28

Boston's concern for its system of schools is shown by a
willingness on the part of the city to spend money for education
even during times of financial difficulty for the city. During the
1780's there was a need for economy in public spending. The
citizens of Boston approved the spending of the largest sums of
money on highways, poor relief and public education (Schultz, 1973,
p. 9-10).

The schools of Boston had, for many years, been considered to
be superior. “Parents throughout New England sent their children for
instruction in the Boston schools and in the numerous private
academies and boarding schools of the city" (Schultz, 1973, p. 7).
The city of Boston passed its own education law a few months after

the state law had been passed. Boston's Education Act of 1789

...laid the foundation of the first comprehensive system of public
schools in any American city. In reorganizing the loose system
of schools already existing, the Act of 1789 dealt with male and
female schooling; the types of schools to be provided; revisions
in the curricula; the uniformity of instruction throughout the
city; and the formation of a permanent school committee
(Schultz, 1973, p. 14).

The Act also attempted to establish a system of schools,
each school having its own function. Continuing the tradition of
a classical education, the Act provided for at least one school to
teach Greek and Latin. This was to "fully qualify” pupils for the
universities. Separate reading and writing schools were to be
located at the south, the center and the north end of town. These
were to offer instruction in English grammar, spelling, writing,
and arithmetic, including "vulgar and decimal fractions.” Within
the vague educational hierarchy of the times, these could be
called secondary schools. No provisions existed for primary
schools. Students entered the grammar schools at the age of
seven and could remain until fourteen. Children under the age of
seven either attended a private "dame's school,” received training

29

as apprentices to a master, or learned from their parents at
home. The formulators of the Act saw little reason to interfere
with these arrangements (Schultz, 1973, p. 15).

Although experiencing mixed success, those responsible for
the Education Act of 1789 had tried faithfully to create a
uniform system of public education throughout the city.
Certainly they had attempted to follow the letter and the spirit
of the Massachusetts law recently enacted by the General Court.
This law has instructed public schoolmen "to impress on the
minds of children and youth committed to their care and
instruction, the principles of piety, justice, and a sacred regard
to truth, love of their country, humanity and universal
benevolence, sobriety, industry, frugality, chastity, moderation
and temperance, and those other virtues which are ornament of
human society and the basis upon which the republican
Constitution is structured (Schultz, 1973, p. 19).

Boston's Education Act of 1789 was the first sign of foun-
dation building for a comprehensive system of public schools .
anywhere in the new nation (Reisner, 1930, p. 378; Schultz, 1973, p.
11 & 14). The measures being taken were aimed primarily at dealing
with a perceived instability not only within education, but also
within the rapidly changing structure of society in Massachusetts,

as well as other rarts of the country.

According to Michael Katz,

For a complex variety of reasons, schools came to be
perceived as the key agencies for uplifting the quality of city
life by stemming the diffusion of the poverty, crime, and
immorality that were thought to accompany urban industrial
development. As Henry Barnard phrased the problem: ”The
condition and improvement of her manufacturing population, in
connection with the education of the whole people, is at this
time the great problem for New England to work out.” Schools
had to halt the degeneracy of the New England character and heal
the developing class gulf within New England cities, where

30

existed ”poverty, ignorance, profligacy, and irreligion, and a
classification of society as broad and deep as ever divided the
plebeian and patrician of Ancient Rome” (Katz, 1975, p. 30).

Boston's Education Act of 1789 established a permanent
school committee that would be responsible for making educational
decisions in Boston. The composition of the committee would
represent the 'phiIoSOphical, political, and moral interests”. This
committee was fully expected to engineer public morality and social
order through the inculcation of appropriate values and behaviors
under the auspices of education (Schultz, 1973, pp. 19-20).

In the Education Act of 1789 Boston officials believed they
had created an instrument for fashioning public morality. Public
schools would instill in youth the principles of piety, sobriety,
frugality, and industry. Schools would inculcate deference to
established authority (Schultz, 1973, p. 22).

Between 1800 and 1820 the population of Boston grew from
24,937 to 43,298. This increase in population included an increase
in the number of poor people within the city. It was believed that
the growing number of poor people were creating financial and moral
problems for the city. It was further believed that these problems
threatened the security and prosperity of the city (Schultz, 1973, pp.
24-25). The growing element of poverty and its associated element
of crime would need to be controlled and contained. The public
school was perceived, by many , as being the "most practical
container” (Schultz, 1973, p. 25).

The formulators of Boston's Education Act of 1789 had seen

no need for primary schools (Bunker, 1916, p. 2; Reisner, 1930, pp.

31

365-366; Cubberley, 1947, p. 138; Eby, 1952, p. 566; Katz, 1971, p.
324; Schultz, 1973, pp. 23-41). The growing population of the city
eventually convinced influential people that public education would
be able to solve some of the problems resulting from many pupils
not being granted entrance into the grammar schools as a result of
not having the required skills of reading and writing. In 1818 the
Boston School Committee created the Primary School Committee to
oversee the operation of a system of primary schools (Bunker, 1916,
p. 30; Cubberley, 1947, pp. 137-138; Katz, 1971, p. 324; Schultz,
1973, pp. 23-41; Pulliam, 1976, pp. 61-62). By 1820, Boston's
public taxation was paying for free public education for all children
between the ages of four and fifteen. Educational opportunity in the
rudiments was now available to all children. All children in the city
were, however, not taking advantage of this opportunity (Schultz,
1973, p. 43-44). The public of Boston had been successful in their
efforts to alter the negative impact of the grammar school entrance
requirement which called for each pupil to be able to read and write.
This requirement, which placed the responsibility for teaching these
skills on the parents - to either teach their children to read and
write or to be able to afford the necessary tutors to teach the skills.
Many of the city's parents were unable to accomplish this either as a
result of no interest, no abilities in this area, or not enough money.
The parents wanted the educational system expanded to provide a
level of schools within the Boston system where their children could
learn these essential skills. The children were to be sent to the
primary school to learn these skills, thereby being assured of

entrance to the next level of education (Reisner, 1930, pp. 365-366;

32

Eby, 1952, p. 566; Goodlad and Anderson, 1963, p. 48; Schultz, 1973,
p. 25; Pulliam, 1976, pp. 61-62).

The social instability was felt to be soluble through public
schooling, and especially through schooling for the children of the
lower-classes. Horace Mann proclaimed, “The Common School is the
greatest discovery ever made by man....Other social organizations are
curative and remedial; this is a preventive and an antidote" (Schultz,
1973, p. 48). By the 1840's, educators and school reformers in
Boston and other New England states had reached agreement on the
social role of the public school being one which promised social
stability in a time of dramatic change (Cubberley, 1947, pp. 148-
149; Greer, 1972, p. 55; Schultz, 1973, p. 68; Katz, 1975, p. 32;
.Davis, 1976, pp. 140-147; Spring, 1986, p. 109).

The social instability which was believed to be threatening
the society of the reformers was a direct result of the industrial-
ization of the new nation which, in turn, resulted in a significant
increase in immigration and further resulted in an increase in
urbanization. The changes taking place within education were
facilitated by reactions to the pressures of these three interrelated
historical events (Martin, 1894, pp. 187-189; Reisner, 1930, p. 363;
Monroe, 1940, pp. 222-227; Cubberley, 1947, pp. 144-149; Bayles
and Hood, 1966, p. 116; Katz, 1971, p. 297; Church and Sedlak, 1976,
p. 70; Kaestle and Vinovskis, 1980, p. 115; Kaestle, 1983, pp. 23-24
& 63-64).

The pressures of industrialization intertwined with immi-
gration and urbanization to produce an educational need. Educational

reformers of the time were emphasizing the need to develop a

33

consciously guided process by which immigrants could be assimi-
lated into the American way of life. The common school would be
the mechanism for this assimilation process. Calvin Stowe, in
1836, stated,

It is altogether essential to our national strength and peace
that the foreigners should cease to be Europeans and become
Americans (Davis, 1976, p. 146). The school-house is that
crucible (of social amalgamation), and the schoolmaster is the
only alchemist who can bring free gold out of the crude and
discordant materials (Davis, 1976, p. 146).

The reformers believed that the common school could protect

...society against the giant vices which now' invade and torment
it; - against intemperance, avarice, war, slavery, bigotry, the
woes of want and wickedness of waste... (Nasaw, 1979, p. 38).

The events of history provided the common school movement

with several distinct aspects which differentiated it from all
preceding educational developments. The first aspect was the
emphasis on educating all the children in a common school. The
reformers believed and presented the case that if all children
regardless of their religious, social, and ethnic background were
educated together, the tension between groups would be reduced.
_ Political conflict would also be reduced as a result of all children
receiving a common social and political ideology through their
common schooling. The reformers aimed to solve the political and
social problems of the nation through the common schooling of the
nation's children (Spring, 1986, p. 71).

The second aspect of the common school movement was the

emphasis of the reformers on the common school becoming a vehicle

34

by which governmental social, economic, and political policies were
passed on to the nation's citizens. According to the reformers, the
common school would be the vehicle through which society's
problems would be eliminated (Spring, 1986, p. 71).

The third aspect of the common school movement was its
resulting creation of state agencies for the control of education at
the local level. The reformers emphasized the need for centralized
control in order to effectively carry out governmental social,
economic, and political policies. Standardization of policy imple-
mentation could not be achieved, the reformers believed, when each
school district functioned without some form of centralized control
and guidance (Katz, 1975, pp. 33-35; Spring, 1986, p. 71-72).

These three distinct aspects of the common school movement
were not part of a revolution against previous educational thought,
but they were markedly different from the previous direction of
education in the new nation. The common school reformers wanted
to create an articulated, highly organized system through which the
problems of society (as they saw them) could be solved, and,
thereby, maintain social stability within a rapidly changing envi-
ronment (Spring, 1986, p. 72).

The essential beliefs of the common school reformers were
that schooling could solve the problems of society by eliminating
three primary elements of the problem: 1) poverty, 2) crime, and 3)
the tensions between social classes (Kaestle, 1983, p. 64). To
accomplish these things, the common school reformers were
attempting to organize a system of schools which would do the

following: 1) educate all children in a common schoolhouse, 2)

35

utilize schooling as an instrument of government social, political,
and economic policies, and 3) be controlled by state agencies rather
than local agencies (Cubberley, 1947, pp. 356-358; Wiggin, 1962, pp.
148-149; Schultz, 1973, pp. 113-114; Katz, 1975, pp. 33-35; Spring,
1986, p. 71-72). The independent natures of the schools were
keeping alive some of the social class differences that the
reformers believed were causing part of the social instability (Katz,
1975, pp. 33-34; Spring, 1986, pp. 56-57).

There was strong political disagreement regarding the
concept of government controlled schools. The two political parties
- the Whigs and the Democrats - were in opposition to each other on
the question of who should be controlling the schools. Most Whigs
were in favor of centralized government control of the schools. The
Democrats, however, were resistant to expanding the power of
government and stressed the need for democratic local control of
the schools (McClusky, 1920, pp. 132-135; Katz, 1971, p. 305-309).
The key figures in the common school movement stressed that there
was a distinct need to organize a centralized and cohesive system of
schools. The common school reformers believed this could not be
done under the concept of democratic local control (Reisner, 1930,
pp. 364-365; Bayles and Hood, 1966, p. 135; Katz, 1971, pp. 313-
314; Schultz, 1973, pp. 19-21). The need for a common school
system to impart the same basic information and knowledge to all
children required a centrally controlled system of schools .
Democratic local control would not insure uniformity. It would

merely perpetuate the same basic differences between schools and

36

educational programs as currently existed (Bayles and Hood, 1966,
pp. 135-136; Schultz, 1973, pp. 66-67; Katz, 1975, pp. 33-34).

The common school reformers were interested, for the most
part, in accomplishing three primary goals. The first of their goals
was to establish free elementary education for all children in a
common school system. The second goal was to develop a system
which would produce a trained corps of teachers. The third goal was
to centralize control of the educational system under the authority
of the state. An integral part of the centralized control issue was
the development of a graded system of schools. This graded system
would facilitate a system of standardization in instruction and
thereby produce a level of uniformity that would allow for great
efficiency within education (Martin, 1894, p. 222; Reisner, 1930, pp.
360-361; Wiggin, 1962, p. 149; Goodlad and Anderson, 1963, pp. 45-
47; Bayles and Hood, 1966, pp. 129-130; Katz, 1971, pp. 315-316;
Greer, 1972, p. 72; Schultz, 1973, pp. 107-108 and 116-131; Duke,
1975, p. 26; Davis, 1976, pp. 146-147).

Horace Mann and the other common school reformers were
working within a series of historical events which were assisting
them in their efforts to create a cohesive and unified system of
common schools. The events of history assisting them were the
industrialization of America, the influx of immigrants, the emi-
gration of native-born Americans from rural areas to the manufac-
turing centers, the Pestalozzian educational philosophy within the
Prussian educational system and its graded structure generating
considerable attention in this country, the efficiency and successful

reduction in educational cost of the Lancasterian system, the

37

willingness of the public to support a common school for all
children, and the political support of the Whigs in government, who
wished "to establish centralized, efficient agencies that would
superintend the moral development of the nation in much the same
way that the economic institutions they advocated would
superintend the development of the flourishing industrial economy”
(Church and Sedlak; 1976; p 70).

The common school reformers were very much aware of the
inefficiency of the one-room schoolhouse approach to educating
large numbers of pupils. The evidence of inefficiency was to be
found everywhere within the ungraded school system in nineteenth-
century America. The number of children needing to be properly
educated was increasing greatly. The success of the monitorial
system had shown that education could be delivered to large
numbers of children efficiently and cheaply (Monroe, 1940, pp. 363-
364; Cubberley, 1947, p. 134).

The growing emphasis on efficient organization within the
expanding industrial society found support within the ranks of
educational reformers. The interest in efficient educational insti-
tutions was partially spurred by reports about the highly efficient
educational institutions in Europe, and especially in Prussia. The
schools of Prussia first gained the attention of American
educational reformers with the publication of a report written by
the Frenchman, Victor Cousin, in 1831 and later translated into
English, in 1835. This report created great interest in the organi-
zation of the Prussian school system. Following the publication of

Cousin's report in the United States, the interest in school

38

organization and in traveling to Europe to view these highly
organized schools, first hand, increased dramatically. Even prior to
Cousin's report, there was interest in what existed in Prussia. In
1818, John Griscom, a physician and educator in New York, traveled
to Prussia and returned with praise for the organization of the
school system with its required attendance for all children, the
classifying of children by ages, and its government support for
schools. Griscom reported his findings and observations in mm
W319. Following the publication of Cousin's report,
1 Calvin E. Stowe traveled to Prussia and reported back approvingly on
what he had observed (Bunker, 1916, p. 24; Monroe, 1918, pp. 691-
692; McClusky, 1920, p. 38). Stowe's report, W
W was published in 1836 - the year before Mann
became Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Stowe's
journey to Prussia was at the request of the Ohio legislature and his
report, published by that body, was copied and distributed to every
school in Ohio. Stowe's report emphasized the requirement of
universal attendance by all children, the compulsory state support of
the schools, the professional training of the teachers, professional
supervision within the system of schools, and the expanded and
enriched curriculum. Armed with the information from these
reports, Horace Mann left for his personal tour of Europe's schools in
1843. Later that same year, Mann's W to the
Massachusetts Board of Education presented his findings while in
Europe, including his impressions of the Prussian system of schools
(Bunker, 1916, pp. 19-36; Monroe, 1918, pp. 691-694; McClusky,
1920, pp. 38-46 and pp. 132-145; Reisner, 1930, pp. 360-362;

39

Cowen, 1931, p. 28; Burton, 1934, pp. 205-206; Russell and Judd,
1940, pp. 31-32; Monroe, 1940, pp. 255-257; Cubberley, 1947, pp.
356-363; Eby, 1952, pp. 564-565; Wiggin, 1962, pp. 127-141; Bayles
and Hood, 1966, pp. 120-122; Krug, 1966, p. 73; Martin, 1972, pp. 30-
32; Schultz, 1973, pp. 126-128; Church and Sedlak, 1976, pp. 95-99;
Pulliam, 1976, p. 71; Barlow, 1977, pp. 165-166; Kaestle, 1983, pp.
72-73; Spring, 1986, pp. 134-135). Mann emphasized his beliefs
regarding the Prussian system's superiority to the system which

currently existed in Massachusetts, and, especially, in Boston. In his
SexentLAnnuaLBennn. Mann states that.

The first element of superiority in a Prussian school, and one
whose influence extends throughout the whole subsequent course
of instruction, consists in the proper classification of the
scholars. In all places where the numbers are sufficiently large
to allow it the children are divided according to ages and
attainments, and a single teacher has the charge only of a single
class or of as small a number of classes as is practicable. l have
before adverted to the construction of the school-houses by
which, as far as possible, a room is assigned to each class. Let
us suppose a teacher to have the charge of but one class, and to
have talent and resources sufficient properly to engage and
occupy its attention, and we suppose a perfect school. But how
greatly are the teacher's duties increased and his difficulties
multiplied if he have four, five, or half a dozen classes under his
personal inspection. While attending to the recitation of one his
mind is constantly called off to attend the studies and the
conduct of all the others. For this very few teachers amongst us
have the requisite capacity, and hence the idleness and the
disorder that reign in so many of our schools, excepting in cases
where the debasing motive of fear puts the children in irons. All
these difficulties are at once avoided by a suitable

classification, by such a classification as enables the teacher to
address his instructions at the same time to all the children who
are before him....There is no obstacle whatever, save

prescription, and that vis inertiae [sic] of mind which continues
in the beaten track because it has not vigor enough to turn aside

40

from it, to the introduction at once of this mode of dividing and
classifying scholars in all our large towns (Bunker, 1916, p. 25).

It was this mm which is said to have

caused the greatest public awakening to the common school move-
ment. Mann's report of his findings was reacted to by the school-
masters of Boston as though it had been a personal attack on their
competencies and abilities. A group of Boston's schoolmasters
combined their efforts and produced a 144 page book attacking Mann
and his report. Mann responded with a 176 page publication in
rebuttal to the Boston schoolmasters. The schoolmasters responded
to Mann's rebuttal, and Mann again responded to the schoolmasters.
The schoolmasters had been unable to refute effectively Mann's
ideas and ultimately dropped the debate. Through these public
written debates, more than the Wm itself, the
public became more aware of some of the issues regarding the
organizational operation of Boston's schools (McClusky, 1920, p.
135; Cubberley, 1947, pp. 361-363).

The public was becoming more aware that educational
improvement was possible and that there existed a model by which
educational improvement could be approached systematically. The
Prussian model called for more cohesiveness in control through a
centralized approach to system building. The people of Boston were
familiar with a form of centralized control as a result of the Boston
School Committee's establishment in 1789. The public had been suc-
cessful in getting what they wanted from the Boston School

Committee in 1818 and had seen their city's school system expanded

41

to include the primary schools (Goodlad and Anderson, 1963, p. 48;
Schultz, 1973, pp. 23-41).

During the years just preceding 1843 and the publication of
Mann's WW, an emphasis on the grading of schools,
as a way to develop a more complete and cohesive system, was
becoming an important issue. Henry Barnard, in Connecticut, and
Calvin Stowe, in Ohio, have been identified as leading characters in
the gathering and dissemination of information regarding the grading
of schools. Stowe had been sent to study the Prussian system of
schools in 1836 by the Ohio legislature. His report to this body had
been c0pied and sent to all the schools in Ohio. Ohio was also the
home of the Western Literary Institute and Samuel Lewis, the Ohio
Superintendent of Schools, belonged to this organization. Lewis was
instrumental in bringing attention to Stowe's report and in having it
presented to the seventh annual meeting of the Western Literary
Institute in 1838. Horace Mann was aware of Stowe's positive
reaction to the Prussian state-controlled system of schools. The
information in Stowe's report was later presented and discussed at
the Common School Convention in Hartford, Connecticut in 1839.
Attending this convention were such prominent school reform
figures as Calvin Stowe from Ohio, George B. Emerson from
Massachusetts, and Henry Barnard from Connecticut. Barnard used
his Connecticut Common School Journal to further discuss the
grading of schools as a form of educational improvement in
November, 1839. Barnard also included a discussion of graded
schools in his report to the Connecticut Board of Education. Mann's

trip to Europe in 1843 and his subsequent report to the

42

Massachusetts Board of Education strengthened the emphasis on
improving education through centralized control of the school
system and the grading of the schools (McClusky, 1920, pp. 38-46
and 134-139; Wiggin, 1962, pp. 145-148). This centralized control
would create a truly public system of education for all children and,
thereby, enable education to become a stabilizing factor in a society
which was becoming, by the reformer's standards, increasingly
unstable. Mann and the other common school reformers continued
their efforts at creating the common school and an organizational
system that would provide a comprehensive and cohesive system of
schools that they believed would accomplish the stabilization of
society. In their minds, the proper classification of pupils was
becoming a critical element in the reorganization of the schools.
Grading would, they believed, make teachers more effective and
would reduce the size of currently overcrowded classrooms. The
over-crowding and individual recitation procedures utilized within
these classroom environments were not producing the efficient
educational processes that the reformers felt would be produced
under a graded and centrally coordinated approach to education

The nineteenth-century educational reformers appear to have
been dramatically impressed with the Prussian system of schools.
They were impressed with the idea of state control and were
additionally impressed with the manner in which pupils were
classified within the system of schools (Barlow, 1977, pp. 165-
166). The educational reformers in nineteenth-century America
wanted one school system for all children. They wanted a system of

schools that would efficiently provide an education for all children

43

in the society regardless of their social and economic standing. The
society in which these reformers were working was one in which
efficiency and low cost production was becoming an extremely
important quality. The industrial revolution was creating a highly
efficient system by which manufactured goods were flooding the
marketplace. The United States was becoming a manufacturing
powerhouse. Manufacturing centers were increasing and efficient
productivity was becoming a sign of the times. Common school
reformers wanted educational institutions which would fall neatly
into the same efficiency-of-productivity scheme of things.

The general system of schools in Boston, and the rest of the
nation, had been ungraded - the one-room-school approach. The
pressure of industrialization and its associated immigration, emi-
gration, and urbanization, had created a population situation in the
cities which resulted in more and more children needing to attend
school. The system then in use, the ungraded system, tried to
accommodate large numbers of children of various ages and levels of
ability in one large classroom under the direction of a single
teacher. This unsystematic, and highly inefficient, approach was far
from the efficient approach to production which had become so suc-
cessful within the large-scale manufacturing environment in Boston,
and the rest of New England. The manufacturing emphasis was
changing from small to large operations and from skilled craftsmen
to economical mass production with an emphasis on the division of
labor so that each worker produced only a small part of the finished
product. The chief educational reformers in America were particu-

larly interested in creating a system which would reduce the

44

inefficiency of individualized instruction (Brubacher, 1931, p. 86;
Cubberley, 1947, pp. 148-149; Goodlad and Anderson, 1963, p. 204,
Tyack, 1974, p. 72; Nasaw, 1979, p. 36; Tyack and Hansot, 1982, p. 6;
Kaestle, 1983, p. 65).

The final development of the first fully age-graded school
took shape in the efforts of two key educational figures in Boston -
George B. Emerson and John D. Philbrick. A totally new concept
within the educational system of Boston was born out of their
efforts and agreement with Horace Mann and the other common
school reformers. Emerson had been at the Common School
Convention in Hartford, Connecticut in 1839, along with Mann. He
had described the efforts Boston had been making in creating graded
schools - the schools were graded according to levels - which did
not specifically classify students. When Mann and the Boston
schoolmasters had finished their public controversy over Mann's
W the Boston School Committee was not in a
position to ignore the operational issues that had come to public
attention. The School Committee would have to become even more
involved in seriously looking at the issues and finding ways to

improve the organization and operation of the schools of Boston:

George B. Emerson was appointed chairman of the annual visiting
committee of the the public schools of Boston for 1847 and
1848. His report on the condition of the school system dispels
any idea that one may have as to the existence of a system of
grading within those schools which was to blossom into the
rigidly graded, one-teacher-to-a-class, one-class-to-a-
compartment, plan that he set up the next year (1848) in the
Quincy Grammar School (McClusky; 1920; p 139).

45

Emerson expounded on his plan in a speech he gave at the

dedication of a new schoolhouse in Somerville in the same year:

What I desire to aim at in this plan is this, that, as far as is
possible, all who are at the same point in their studies and
progress, should be together, under the guidance of one teacher
and they only should be present, for illustrations on the
blackboard and all other direct instruction may be given to a
whole school at once, as well as to a single scholar, and if any
others than the class are present, they are an interruption to the
teacher and are themselves interrupted by him .....

If all in the same apartment were of one class, and under one
teacher, and with the same lessons to learn, much more might be
done, and better done, and in a shorter time. Under such an
arrangement, the difficulties of government would be nearly
annihilated, short sessions would take the place of long
sessions, and time would thus be gained for healthful exercise
and recreation in the open air.

Another advantage would be that the desire for advancement
from one grade of school to another would be a healthful
stimulus to exertion, and might take the place of personal rivalry
- the most pernicious evil, which now exists in schools.

Another advantage would be, that the progress of a child from
beginning to the end of his course would likely be onward
(McClusky; 1920; p 144).

The grammar schools in Boston, at that time, were classified
as reading and writing schools. Each school, generally located in the
same building, had its own headmaster. The reading and writing
schools were called tvvo-headed because there were, in fact, two
headmasters in the same building. Part of Emerson's 1847 report

dealt directly with this two-headed organizational situation:

Another evil of the system of two equal heads, is the
inequality and unfairness of its operation.

46

The arrangement of the children in classes would be more
just and more satisfactory if made by one master than it can be
if made by two. For it must often happen that one master will
place high in the first class a pupil whom the other master would
leave low in the second class. This must of necessity take place,
so long as the cpinion of one of the masters is formed from his
knowledge of one part of the mind and character of the pupil,
while the opinion of the other is formed from his knowledge of
another part of the mind and character. This must inevitably
happen, and inevitably lead to injustice towards the pupil. . . .
.Every pupil under the two-headed system, is now subjected to
considerable inconvenience from the necessity of conveying his
books from school-room to school-room ..... All this
inconvenience and injury would be saved under one system, as
each pupil might have one desk, which would be his for months
together ..... There is no necessary connection between the
different branches now taught in the writing school.

The most defective part of our system is, as has been already
stated, that which affects the condition of children in the lowest
classes in the grammar sonool - those recently promoted from
the primary schools ..... To many of the children it is a serious
misfortune to be promoted, as it is equivocally called, from the
primary schools, where they are doing well, to the grammar,
where they do nothing.

All parts of the system should be strictly and exactly
subordinated. The studies in each part should be arranged with
reference to those of every other part. Each lower department
should be preparatory to that above it, and every child should be
advanced according to his attainments. Especially should the
evil be avoideu of allowing a few bright children to remain, to be
made a show of, at the head of an inferior school or class, when
the effect is to delay their real progress, and to draw off the
attention of the teacher from the many who particularly need his
care, to the few who will most contribute to his reputation.

There is, therefore, one other defect to be noticed and it is
one which apparently admits of but one certain remedy. It is the
want of connection between the various parts of what we call
our system, but which in consequence of this want loses its
chief claim to be considered a system (McClusky; 1920; PP 139-
140).

47

The report submitted by Emerson provided the details of the
problems existing in the current system of schools in Boston. He
later described the single-headed system which he believed would
solve these problems. It was this single-headed system which was
put into operation in the Quincy Grammar School in 1848, under the
direction of John D. Philbrick as the school's headmaster.

The common school reforms, as evidenced in the Quincy
Grammar School were setting a new educational standard. The
beliefs of Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, Calvin Stowe, and the other

reformers were being born out in reality.

I B . E E B I' I
The common school reformers were convinced that the
reasons behind the schools not solving the problems of society was

not the fault of the educational institutions, but the fault of those
who were currently responsible for the day-to-day operations of
those loosely organized schools. Educational institutions had been
allowed to become inefficient agencies that were having no impact
at all on civilization (Nasaw, 1979, p. 38). Within industrialization
the school reformers found a design by which they believed an
improved system of education could be built. The reformers had in
their immediate grasp a successful organizational model which was
unquestionably working extremely well within Boston and all of New
England. Boston had become the New England capital of the American
manufacturing system. That system ”was the innovative combi-
nation of the separate processes of production with the use of

interchangeable parts - that revolutionized American industry"

48

(Schultz, 1973, p. 103). The new factory system had proven to be
enormously successful. The methods used in the organization of the
industrial enterprises were believed to be directly applicable to the
educational system in its attempts to successfully assimilate the
growing numbers of foreign immigrants and native-born American
emigrants from rural areas into the new urban ways of life (Martin,
1894, p. 188; Schultz, 1973, pp. 103-106, p. 116 & p. 130-131;
Hottleman, 1974, p. 93; Tyack, 1974, p. 72; Katz, 1974, pp. 32-36;
Rocks, 1975, p. 26; Davis, 1976, pp. 147-150; Tyack and Hansot,
1982, pp. 6-7; Kaestle, 1983, p. 72; Spring, 1986, p. 54-55 & pp.
133-134).

The reformers believed that the educational system could be
fashioned on the factory model. They worked diligently to design a
blueprint for the system which would produce the same efficient
operation in the school that had been established in the factory
(Schultz, 1973, p. 104151; Tyack and Hansot, 1982, pp. 6-7). The
public and private statements of these educators and reformers
regularly implied that the product of the educational system would
be the child, fully educated in the values and behaviors required for
their roles in the newly industrialized society. The reformers were
impressed with the organizational potential of this efficient and
economical approach to organizing the work-place. They saw, in this
organizational system, an application for the organization of the
educational institutions. The factory system had changed the
limited, and expensive, production processes of individual skilled
craftsmen to the mass production processes of divided labor. The

efficient and economical factory processes could be applied to

49

schools and result in an efficient and economical system by which
education could produce the kind of citizens required for the newly
industrialized way of life (Martin, 1894, pp. 221-222; Reisner,
1930, pp. 370-371; Schultz, 1973, pp. 130-131; Hottleman, 1974, pp.
92-93; Tyack, 1974, pp. 72-76; Duke, 1975, p. 26; Katz, 1975, pp.
32-36; Davis, 1976, pp. 147-150; Nasaw, 1979, pp. 35-37; Tyack and
Hansot, 1982, pp. 6-7; Kaestle, 1983, pp. 69-70; Goodlad, 1983, p.
466; Spring, 1986, pp. 54-55).

The efficiency of the factory was becoming a standard for
nineteenth-century educational endeavors, especially in urban
schools. The utilization of the Lancasterian system by social and
religious organizations emphasized, through charity schools, the
need to educate the children of the lower- and working-classes
(Davis, 1976, p. 146-147; Nasaw, 1979, p. 21). Prior to the devel-
opment and utilization of the. Lancasterian system education had
been an expensive process. It previously required an individualized
approach to instruction. The Lancasterian system demonstrated that
large numbers of children could be educated relatively quickly and
for very little money (Monroe, 1940, pp. 363-364; Cubberley, 1947,
p. 134; Monroe, 1971, pp. 364-368).

The economics of education in the middle of the nineteenth
century changed the role of women in education dramatically. The
quest for efficiency and reduced cost proved to be an important
factor in the development of a unified educational system (Reisner,
1930, pp. 384-388; Church and Sedlak, 1976, pp. 78-79). The
profession of teaching, once dominated by men, was beginning to

shift to one in which the dominant gender would be female. Male

50

dominance would be concentrated in the supervisory roles within the
profession of teaching. There were two interrelated social beliefs
at work regarding the concept of male supervisory dominance. First,
there was wide-spread belief that women were, by nature,
subordinate to men. In the nineteenth century, it was natural that as
the school system modeled the factory system. men would manage
and supervise, and the women would teach the pupils. Second, one of
the primary themes which ran through the Pestalozzian philosophy
being adopted by the common school reformers was that having
women teach young children was natural since women were prone to
emotional activities, like teaching, and men were prone to rational
activities, like management and supervision. ”From the perspectives
of nineteenth-century society, the rational male should govern the
school and provide limits and order to the emotional nature of the
female school teacher“ (Spring, 1986, p. 137).

Women had been employed as teachers primarily for the
youngest of school children. Women were usually employed to teach
during the summer sessions, when the younger children attended
school in greater numbers than the older students. The creation of
the primary school system in Boston, which spread throughout the
New England states, increased the employment opportunities in
education for women. As the common school movement gained
support and general popularity, the utilization of women became
more and more attractive, especially in relation to schools for
younger children. In 1833, Samuel Burnside spoke before the
American Institute of Instruction and said that, ”in the village of

Worchester, Massachusetts, six out of eight permanent schools were

51

ably taught by ladies, and he recommended that all primary schools
should be taught by members of that sex” (Reisner, 1930, p. 384-
385). Burnside presented a strong case for the moral advantage of
using women as primary school teachers. Additionally, Burnside
also stressed that women worked for far less money than did men.
An important economic aspect of the common school movement was
becoming an essential selling point. In 1838, Henry Barnard based a
great deal of his personal campaign to improve the schools of
Connecticut on the employment of women as teachers. Barnard felt
women were particularly suited for this teaching responsibility.

Barnard felt that elementary teaching

...required in the teacher a rare union of qualities, seldom found
in one in a hundred of the male sex, and to be looked for with the
greatest chance of success among females, in whose hearts,
love, hope and patience have first kept school (Reisner, 1930, pp.
385-386).

It is hardly a matter of wonder that with women teachers
possessing such manifest moral and professional superiority
over men and being employable at a fraction of the cost of men,
they should be preferred (Reisner, 1930, p. 388).

The fact that female teachers were working for far less than
male teachers can be seen in a report of the United States
Commissioner of Education in 1868. This report contained statis-
tics from 42 cities throughout the United States which showed that
in these cities, there were 901 male teachers and 8220 female
teachers. The average male teacher's salary per year was $1702.55.

The average female teacher's salary per year was $542.45. The

52

economics of efficiency in education was obviously working
(Reisner, 1930, p. 388).
Gerald A. Ponder points out in "Schooling and Control: Some

Interpretations of the Changing Social Function of Curriculum" that:

While the Lancastrian schools indicate the long-standing
appeal of the idea of efficiency, that doctrine asserted its
greatest influence in the late nineteenth century and early
twentieth centuries. The efficiency movement in these decades
developed as an artifact of an increasingly urbanized,
industrialized, and centralized society, and it was led by persons
in search of ways to control and order the new threats posed by a
society in transition. Throughout the nineteenth century, school
reformers had sought to systematize the apparent chaos they
saw. Creating and conserving an American character meant
unifying the people, and to unify the people, ”public education
must itself be unified and efficient." Unification and efficiency
meant standardization - of textbooks, the curriculum, teacher
training, and the grading of classes (Davis, 1976, p. 147).

Ponder further states that:

At least in rhetoric, if not in fact, a great deal of
standardization in the school program had been accomplished by
the last quarter of the nineteenth century, as indicated by the
“Statement of the Theory of Education in the United States of
America as approved by Many Leading Educators.” The school
program described in this statement emphasized homogeneity,
efficiency, and obedience to authority. It stated that, since the
"peculiarities“ of American society weaken the family's hold
over its children, a system of public education was necessary to
develop the discipline and morals required by the "modern
industrial community." Further, education had to coincide with
the ”commercial tone" of this industrialized community by
placing ”great stress" on "military precision ...punctuality,
regularity, attention, and silence as habits necessary through
life for successful combination with one's fellow men in an
industrial and commercial civilization” (Davis; 1976; pp. 147-
148)

53

The common school reformers, impressed with the organi-
zation of the Prussian schools and with the efficiency of the newly
industrialized manufacturing processes in this country, worked
diligently to create a system of schools which mirrored the
organized efficiency of the business world. The age-graded struc-

ture provided the educational system with that mirror image. In

1908, Frank Tracy Carlton wrote in Wow
WW that:

Today when industry is quickening her pulses, the demand for
efficient tax-supported schools is growing insistent. Manual
training and laboratory work were not placed in the curriculum
until subdivision of labor and the factory system made such
additions imperative. The demand for tax-supported schools
became strong and vigorous after the growth of the industrial
class and the development of the modern city with its
heterogeneous population. The evidence...shows that the tax-
supported, state-maintained public school is essentially an
outgrowth of industrial evolution (Carlton; 1965; pp. 141-142 -
reprinted in 1965 - originally published in 1908).

E || |'[' IBI' I
William Shearer stated that the age-graded school satisfied

the requirement of "the greatest good to the greatest number, in the
shortest time, at the least expense” (Shearer, 1899, p. 23). This
concept of the processes of education, when compared with the
general concept of efficiency, provides an excellent rationale for
what the age-graded organizational structure represented in the
nineteenth century and currently represents from a system stand-
point. A precise definition of efficiency, is the ”accomplishment of

or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time

54

and effort” (from The Random House Dictionary of the English
Language, 1967). Included in the concept of efficiency is the
concept of efficient, which according to the same source, is
“performing or functioning in the best possible and least wasteful
manner“. The common school reformers appear to have been almost
obsessed with the concept of efficiency. They were witnessing the
creation of a new level of efficiency in the world of manufacturing.
The situation in education, as they saw it, was not organized and
was, they believed, grossly inefficient. The new manufacturing
organizational methods were available to the reformers in their
efforts to establish a workable system within education. The quest
for efficiency in manufacturing provided the reformers with a
rationale for the creation of a system that would, they believed,
satisfy the requirements of assimilating, indoctrinating, and
educating future citizens of the new industrialized American
society. The common school reformers designed a foundation for an
educational system which they believed did, in fact, measure up.
The efficiency rationale for the age-graded organizational structure,
as evidenced in the organization of the Quincy Grammar School,
established a system which allowed for the processing of great
numbers of children through an educational environment based on
uniformity and standardization. A system rationale based on the
concept of providing the best possible education to the greatest
number of children, in the shortest period of time, at the least
expense, made excellent sense in the middle of the nineteenth

century.

55

The reformers believed, as well, that this new and highly
efficient system in education would solve the problems of poverty,
crime, and tension between classes. This effort on the part of the
common school reformers produced an educational system
foundation which, in comparison with what had preceded it, would
provide a sound educational base for all children. The reformers
believed that the welfare and future survival of the new nation
required an absolutely efficient process of getting all the citizens
involved in the processes of making the nation work. Education, they
believed, was the vehicle by which the nation's people would arrive
at their appropriate destiny. (Martin, 1894, pp. 221-222; Reisner,
1930, pp. 370-371; Goodlad and Anderson, 1963, p. 204; Davis, 1976,
pp. 18-19, p. 140, p. 142-143, pp. 146-147 & pp. 148-149)

“inn", 0 .; : :. ;. o. .; .;.":,. :....;
The basic acceptability of the age-graded organizational

structure within public education might be considered somewhat
obvious. The structure has been in existence for almost one hundred
and forty years. However, the reasons for that acceptance, while
also somewhat obvious, seem also to have been accepted more than
understood. The rationale of. efficiency, based on the manufacturing
model of standardization and uniformity, which produced the age-
graded organizational structure in the middle of the nineteenth
century, is still an essential part of American industry. It is
therefore, understandable that it would be a strong force within
public education. The manner in which that strength developed can

be seen in the reports of those educational historians who have

56

contributed to the body of knowledge which explains American

Public Education.
George H. Martin pointed out, in 1894, that the graded school
...has been worked on factory principles, with children as raw

materials to be worked up according to uniform patterns, by
uniform processes, to a uniform standard (Martin, 1894, p. 222).

William J. Shearer pointed out in 1899 that:

 

...the graded school merely applies the law of the division of
labor to education, and is, therefore, advantageous for many
reasons. Far better than the ungraded school, it measures up to
the important requirement of the greatest good to the greatest
number, in the shortest time, at the least expense (Shearer;
1899; p. 23).

Shearer also pointed out that,

The classification and grading of schools is but the
application to education of the same law of division of labor that
prevails in every successful business. It is not only the most
economical way, but it is a prerequisite to satisfactory progress
progress upon any line....The teacher's time and talents being
concentrated upon certain work, it becomes easier by repetition,
and, therefore. is likely to be done more efficiently (Shearer,
1899, p. 18).

The growth of the centralized state-supported school system
throughout the nation can be attributed to the creation of, as Cremin

puts it,

...a growing number of amateurs, semiprofessionals, and
professionals associated with schooling who in the very nature
of their enterprise became partisans of more schooling. By the
1840's and 1850's, many of them were well known to one
another. James G. Carter and Horace Mann in Massachusetts;
Henry Barnard in Connecticut; J. Orville Taylor in New York;

57

Charles Fenton Mercer and Henry Ruffner in Virginia; Calvin Wiley
in North Carolina; Caleb Mills in Indiana; Calvin Stowe, Albert
Picket, Samuel Lewis, and Catharine Beecher in Ohio; Ninian
Edwards and John Mason Peck in Illinois; John D. Pierce and Isaac
Crary in Michigan; Robert Breckenridge in Kentucky; William F.
Perry in Alabama; John Swet in California; and George Atkinson
in Oregon. They organized into associations like the American
Institute of Instruction, the Western Literary Institute and
College of Professional Teachers, and, more nationally, the
American Lyceum, and enlisted as many recruits as they could
attract, not only from the teaching profession, but also from
politics and public life. They published and edited numerous
periodicals like the American Journal of Education (1826-1830,
William Russel, ed.) and its successor, the American Annals of l
Education (1830-1839, W. C. Woodbridge, ed. [1831-1838]), the
Common School Assistant (1836-1840, J. Orville Taylor, ed.), the
Common School Advocate (1837-1841, E. D. Mansfield, L. Harding,
and Alexander McGuffey, eds.), the Journal of Education (1838-
1840, John D. Pierce, ed.), the Connecticut Common School
Journal (1838-1842, Henry Barnard, ed.), the Common School
Journal (1839-1852, Horace Mann and William B. Fowle, eds.), and
the American Journal of Education (1855-1881, Henry Barnard,
ed.), along with the various state common school journals that
began to serve the burgeoning teaching profession. They were
the prime movers at the public school conventions that
assembled in the several states and that often facilitated the
coalescing of opinion that eventuated in legislation; they
organized the coalitions that enacted legislation; and they
frequently ended up the political leaders and professional
managers of the public school systems that resulted. In effect,
they spearheaded the public school movement, articulating its
ideals, publicizing its goals, and instructing one another in its
political techniques; indeed, in the absence of a national

ministry of education, it was their articulating, publicizing, and
mutual instruction in politics that accounted for the spread of
public education across the country (Cremin; 1980; pp. 175-176).

This kind of close association between the architects and
supporters of a centralized, state-supported, age-graded system of

schools could not help but spread the word of efficiency. By virtue

58

of their efforts the concepts of organizational efficiency within
education became the hallmarks by which educational systems

Spread throughout the country.
It is pointed out in W that:

By the 1850's public discussion about educational policy
illustrated the complete acceptance of the industrial model by
education. In 1852, Nathan Bishop, the first superintendent of
Boston schools, reaffirmed the principle of the graded school by
explicitly drawing upon the example of the factory system. "The
proper size of a School House in a large city, where the
population is dense must be determined by the number of pupils
required in one building in order to make the best classification.
The best classification is nothing more than a wise application
of the principle of the division of labor, which has done so much
to advance and to perfect the various branches of industry.”
Children, Bishop implied, were the interchangeable parts of a
factory system of production, while the schools were the
factories themselves. Both educational policy and expediency
required ”organizing our System throughout on one uniform plan,
thus bringing the whole into harmony with the great practical
principles on which the best-managed business-enterprises are
carried forward.” Just as the products of industrialization added
to the comforts of life, so children, educated in uniform graded
schools, would contribute to the comfort and safety of American
society. At a time when social instability and 'a lack of respect
for authority seemed the hallmark of urban life and the leading
characteristic of the younger generation, Bishop affirmed that
the new organized schools would ”inspire the young with a
sentiment of respect for law, and should teach them by precept
to yield a cordial obedience to the regulations of Schools, the
ordinances of the City, and the laws of the Commonwealth and of
the nation."

There was little doubt in the minds of educational reformers
that the Uniformity System or the American System of
Manufacturing could be adapted to the system of public education
with the same beneficial results for citizenship as it had for
material prosperity. The graded school was to be one of the
chief tools used in the process of manufacturing good Americans.

59

By 1860, all of Boston's primary and grammar schools operated
on a graded system (Schultz, 1973, pp. 130-131).

It has been shown that nineteenth-century educational

reformers, as well as those directly responsible for the operation of

the schools, had quite emphatically accepted the factory model for
improved educational operation. Raymond Callahan, in mm

W POMS 0Ut that:

The procedure for bringing about a more businesslike
organization and operation of the schools was fairly well
standardized from 1900 to 1925. It consisted of making
unfavorable comparisons between the schools and business
enterprise, of applying business-industrial criteria (9.9.,
economy and efficiency) to education, and of suggesting that
business and industrial practices be adopted by educators.
Evidence of business influence appeared...in 1905 at the annual
meeting of the National Education Association; a symposium was
held on the question "What Are at Present the Most Promising
Subjects for Such Investigations as the National Council of
Education Should Undertake.” Significantly, the first topic was a
"Comparison of Modern Business Methods with Educational
Methods,“ and the first speaker, George H. Martin, secretary of
the State Board of Education in Massachusetts, told his audience,
”the contrast between modern business methods and the most
modern methods in education is so great as to suggest some
searching questions. In the comparison, educational processes
seem unscientific, crude, and wasteful.”

By 1907, there were indications that aspects of the business
ideology had been accepted and were being applied by educators
themselves. In that year, William C. Bagley, one of the leaders in
American education for the next three decades, published a
textbook on education entitled Classroom Management, which
was saturated with business terminology. Bagley stated, for
example, that the problem of classroom management was
primarily a "problem of economy: it seeks to determine in what
manner the working unit of the school plant may be made to
return the largest dividend upon the material investment of time,
energy, and money. From this point of view, classroom
management may be looked upon as a ‘business' problem.” In this

 

60

book, which was written for teachers in training and which went
through more than thirty reprintings between 1907 and 1927,
Bagley, in stressing the need for ”unquestioned obedience” as the
”first rule of efficient service,” said the situation was "entirely
analogous to that in any other organization or system - the army,
the navy, governmental, great business enterprises (or small
business enterprises, for that matter)” (Callahan; 1962; p. 6-7).

Callahan further explains that:

Although much of the pressure was applied through the
journals and through the appearance of businessmen before
educational meetings, it also came very directly through school
boards, which were dominated increasingly by businessmen.
Before 1900, most city school boards had been large, unwieldy
organizations governed to some extent by politics. Gradually
they were reorganized...This meant not only a reduction in
membership (in Boston from twenty-four to five) but, in the
spirit of municipal reform, a change in composition over to
businessmen who were to run the schools along business lines.
Thus the superintendent of schools was hired and fired by and
responsible to a small group of businessmen. All these changes
were to have important and far-reaching consequences for the
schools and especially for the administrators. The self-image of
these men began to change. All through the nineteenth century
leading administrators such as Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, and
William T. Harris had conceived of themselves as scholars and
statesmen and, in professional terms, the equal of the lawyer or
the clergyman After 1900, especially after 1910, they tended to
identify themselves with the successful business executive.
That this business orientation was a prerequisite for success
and tenure on the job was clear, and the schoolmen knew it. As
early as 1900, for example, the President of the National
Education Association prophesied that ”the real educational
leaders of the age whose influence will be permanent are those
who have the business capacity to appreciate and comprehend the
business problems which are always a part of the educational
problem" (Callahan; 1962; pp. 7-8).

Callahan points out also that:

61

Between 1915 and 1929 thousands of men had received
professional training at the master's degree level and had gone
into important educational positions all over the country. More
important, hundreds had received their doctor's degrees in
educational administration and had gone into even more
important positions as superintendents of large cities, as
officials in state departments of education, and most important
of all as professors of education in teachers colleges and
universities where they taught teachers and other student
administrators and directed research studies even for the
doctor's degree.

In order to document this great diffusion, career studies
were made of forty-three individuals who received their doctor's
degrees in educational administration between 1910 and
1933....By far the greater majority of the forty-three became
associated with some institution of higher learning at one time
or another. Thirty-nine of these men held positions as
professors of education in colleges or universities, thirty-three
on a full time basis and the others part time or in summer
school. In administrative posts, five became chairmen of a
department of education, nine became deans of schools or
colleges of education, two were college or university vice-
presidents, while one was an acting president and three were
presidents. Within individual school districts, eighteen of these
men held administrative positions and seven became
superintendents. Twelve had at least one administrative post on
the state level. Six of the forty-three men held positions in the
U. S. Office of Education and four were on national, government-
sponsored committees studying educational problems. Three held
positions in thu National Education Association. Eleven held
educational research posts (outside of governmental positions)
and one worked in an educational capacity for the Russell Sage
Foundation. There were seven who held some type of editorial
post with an educational journal or other professional
publication, some of these holding more than one such position.
Four engaged in "private practice” as educational consultants.

In addition to the direct influence these men had upon their ‘
students and upon the school systems in which they worked some
of them wrote books through which the business-managerial
conception of administration was conveyed to the new generation
of administrators. One of the most prominent of these men was
Fred Engelhardt....Fred Engelhardt had finished his doctoral work
in administration at Teachers College in 1925 and had written

 

62

his thesis on forecasting school population, in the course of
which he adapted the Bell Telephone Company's technique for
predicting population trends in education. Shortly after he
received his doctorate, he became professor of educational
administration at the huge state University of Minnesota. In
1931 his book Public School Organization and Administration
was published - a book in which the keynote was sounded in
these opening lines of the preface: "The characteristic which
distinguishes a successful enterprise from others is
management. Businessmen hold that the success of a corporation
is dependent nine parts on management and one part on all other
factors, including luck, a maxim equally applicable to a public-
school system.” ...the entire volume was devoted to the legal,
financial, organizational, and mechanical aspects of education
(Callahan, 1962, pp. 248-250).

II If I' I II B l' I

It might be safe to make an assumption at this point that the
age-graded structure, in light of its longevity, has been based, for
the most part, on a very simple rationale that has not required much
in the way of modification. The essential simplicity of a rationale
which emphasizes ”the greatest good to the greatest number, in the
shortest time, at the least expense“ would make modification a
rather difficult task.

John Goodlad reported, in "A Study of Schooling: Some Findings and
Hypotheses“, that:

Our findings reveal that schools differ in their ambiance. But in
the how and what of teaching, a school is a school is a school.
Why?

Teachers teach as they were taught. They employ the techniques
and materials modeled during their 16 or more years they were
students in schools. Relatively late in this learning through
modeling, they experienced a modicum of professional
preparation to teach - presented largely in the same telling mode

63

to which they had become accustomed. Probably the most
significant part of this professional preparation was the student
teaching, during which the neophyte practiced under supervision
what he or she had previously observed teaching to be. The
future teacher probably talked and read about alternative
teaching practices (such as those advocated by John Dewey) but
had no opportunity to practice them. Moreover, as part of the
early socialization into teaching, he or she probably came to
realize that a job would depend more on the mark received for
student teaching than on the mark for a course in educational
philoSOphy or psychology.

Professional education is intended to immerse the neophyte in
the state of the art and science of teaching and simultaneously
to separate him or her from the myths and anachronisms of
conventional practice. Teacher education appears to be organized
and conducted to assure precisely the opposite (Goodlad, 1983, p.
469).

Goodlad adds that:

Teacher education programs fail to separate teachers from what
they have come to perceive teaching to be. Their formal and
informal experiences as teachers and the messages they receive
from the internal and external context of schooling all conspire
to reinforce the status quo. The cards are stacked against
innovafion. ‘

The irony is that every statement of goals for schooling -
whether those we extracted from official state documents, those
formulated by legislative committees trying to define basic
education, or those put together by parent or teacher groups - is
broad and comprehensive in its implications for classroom
practice. Yet pedagogy and curricula are geared, it appears, to
only a small fraction of these goals - to the lowest common
denominators. Schools and those who work in them are not
chastised for perpetuating this discrepancy. Rather they are
reinforced for doing so and run a serious risk of censure if they
try to do otherwise (Goodlad, 1983, p. 470).

64

In ”The Carnegie Report - A call for Redesigning The Schools",
an article published in 1986, Marc Tucker and David Mandel point out
that:

Much has changed as a result of the education reform movement
of the past three years. States and local school boards have
raised standards for students and teachers alike, substantially
raised teacher salaries in many locales, created career ladders,
and instituted merit pay plans. But little has changed in the
ways schools operate -- how time is spent, how decisions are
made, how professional educators relate to each other and to
their charges (Tucker and Mandel, 1986, p. 24).

The public education system in this country has undergone a
great deal of scrutiny in the last several years as a wide variety of
individuals, organizations, and government agencies have inves-
tigated the problems within education. The results of these investi-
gations have been the reform reports which provide a variety of
paths towards improvement of the educational system. It seems
unremarkable that W contains under the title 'Call to

Action”, the following:

From the late 18005 through the mid-20th century, American
schools provided the educated workforce needed to seal the
success of the Industrial Revolution and to provide the margin of
victory in two world wars. In the early part of this century and
continuing to this very day, our schools have absorbed vast
waves of immigrants and educated them and their children to
productive citizenship National Commission On Excellence In
Education, 1984, p. 81).

The emphasis seems to be that what worked in the past will
continue to work in the future. The recommendations contained in

the reform report continue to emphasize the uniformity and

65

standardization of the age-graded organizational structure. The
rationale of efficiency based on the simple concept of ”the greatest
good to the greatest number, in the shortest time, at the least

expense“ continues within American Public Education.

Summant

The common school reformers were attempting to build a
system of schools which would provide free education for all
children, be tax-supported, controlled by state government agencies,
and still be economically operated. There were several basic
elements within their campaign which fell neatly into place as they
worked to develop support for the centralized system of schools.
Industrialization, immigration, and urbanization had created an
environment in which the previous system of unconnected schools
was not felt to be dealing effectively with the problems of poverty,
crime, class tension, and immorality. The schools were disorganized
and not in a position to combat the societal instability which was
'developing. There was no logical path by which all children could
learn the appropriate values and modes of behavior required in the
newly industrialized nation. There was no unification of schools
into a logical progression from lower to higher that would carry all
children from beginning to end. Educational opportunity was wide-
spread, but, since there was no comprehensive and cohesive system
yet in existence that met all of the reformers needs, only those who
could afford the tutors or the private schools had a complete educa-
tional path available to them. The need for a single unified and

highly organized system of education was obvious. The

66

manufacturing processes of the new industrialized nation required
disciplined and educated workers who would be willing to fulfill
their roles. The mass production model worked well when the
workers followed the rules and were willing to defer to the
established authority. The reformers saw the same potential mass
production requirements and benefits as being directly applicable to
the processes of education. The number of students had been
growing and had created overcrowded classrooms. The pauper school
had successfully utilized the Lancasterian system of one master and
many monitors. Pupils had been divided into small work groups for
group recitation purposes. The cost of educating the poor had been
reduced considerably. The economics of education was again
improved by the influx of women into the profession of teaching.
The knowledge of the Prussian system of education greatly assisted
the reformers in designing a system which would meet the needs as
they saw them. The elements of efficiency were at hand. All that
was needed was the actual organizational structure within the
schools themselves. The age-graded organizational structure would
be the final piece of the puzzle. The Quincy Grammar School
provided the final puzzle piece.

The Quincy Grammar School introduced the fully age-graded
organizational structure to this country. A preliminary form of this
structure had already been shown to be extremely efficient when
utilized within the Lancasterian system. Dividing children according
to specified knowledge units, and utilizing single teachers for each
group had been the forerunner of the fully age-graded structure. The

Lancasterian system did not satisfy the common school reformers'

 

67

desire to build a comprehensive, cohesive, and centralized system.
There were significant problems within the system due to its
dealing primarily with children classified as poor. Middle- and
upper-class children were not attending the Lancasterian schools.
The reformers knew that, based on what they had seen, and/or read
about, in the Prussian system, grouping children according to age and
attainments was a far more efficient way to structure the schools.
The inefficiency of the ungraded structure, with its demand for

individual recitations could be tolerated when the number of pupils

 

in the school was small. However, as the number of pupils in school
began to increase, over-crowded classrooms were becoming routine.
The overcrowding was obviously not making individualized
instruction any more efficient. The reformers were convinced that
the system which the Prussians were using, and they believed the
Prussian system to be superior, was applicable to education in the
United States.

Mann and the other reformers believed that the proper classification
of pupils was a key element in the building of an educational system
that would efficiently move each student through a standardized and
uniform educational production process in logical steps, and would,
thereby, produce an educated individual who would be ready and
willing to fulfill his role in society.

The underlying rationale behind the efforts which produced
the age-graded organizational structure seems to be the simple
rationale of standardized, uniform production efficiency. This
rationale is best summed up as being, "the greatest good to the

greatest number, in the shortest time, at the least expense”(Shearer,

68

1899, p. 23), which results in ”children being worked up according to
uniform patterns, by uniform processes, to a uniform standard"
(Martin, 1894, p. 222). When viewed from the perspective of
nineteenth-century educational reformers, this rationale was, more
than likely, seen to be a requirement to improve the systems of
education. It produced an organized, cohesive, and uniform system
of education which, for all intents and purposes, continues be based

on the same rationale of efficiency-of-production.

CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The purpose of this study was to identify an underlying
rationale for the development of the age-graded organizational
structure within American Public Education as a result of reviewing
the literature of education history. This chapter will present the
conclusions drawn from that search and some recommendations
which seem to follow from the results of this study. The conclu-_
sions will be presented as responses to the research questions
presented in Chapter One. The recommendations are based on those

responses.

Conclusions
Bosoanoofluostionflmborl

What was taking place in the nineteenth century that made the
development of the age-graded organizational structure possible?

The findings resulting from the search of the literature
present, through various interpretations, American society in the
nineteenth century as being affected by several significant
historical events; the industrialization of America, the increase in

immigration into the country, and the increase of population in and

69

70

around manufacturing centers. These events were not found to be
specifically causal factors in the development of the age-graded
organizational structure. They were, however, found to have been
instrumental in setting a tone within nineteenth-century America
which emphasized the concept of a common education for all
children being a potential solution to the problems which these
events were creating.

The common school reformers, reacting to a perceived insta-
bility within society, were pressing for increased availability of
education for all children, as well as more centralized control of the
educational institutions. Their belief seemed to be that universal,
common education within an organized and cohesive system of
educational institutions would greatly assist in solving society's
problems.

The reformers saw schools of all types and all levels being
under-utilized especially by those who, they believed, needed the
proper education the most. The system of schools was, for the most
part, disorganized and catering to wealthier citizens than to the
majority of the populace. The autonomy and independence within the
wide variety of schools would not, the reformers believed, help
solve the problems as they perceived them. The growing knowledge,
within the ranks of the common school reformers, about the
Prussian system of education assisted the reformers' efforts to
change the processes of education in this country. The success of
the Lancasterian monitorial schools also assisted the reformers'
efforts. The Lancasterian schools had shown that the education of

large numbers of children was not only possible, but that it could be

71

accomplished cheaply when done in accordance with a strict division
of labor concept. The growing success of the division of labor
concept within the newly industrialized system of manufacturing
can also be seen to have greatly assisted the efforts of the
reformers to standardize and organize a uniform and cohesive

system of public educational institutions.

Bosoamhfiuostionfiumbooz:

Is there, in fact, an identifiable rationale for the develop-
ment of the age-graded organizational structure?

That the reformers emphasized organization, centralization,
and efficiency as the ways to develop effective educational insti-
tutions is completely understandable. They were witnessing a
massive change in the economic productivity of American society as
a direct result of manufacturing enterprises becoming standardized,
organized, centralized, and efficient. The logic of producing the
same situation within education, and thereby, improving the social
conditions, as a result of a systematic common education for all
children, appears to make sense. A rationale based on standard-
ization and uniformity, when non-standardization and non-
uniformity was previously all that was available, can not be looked
upon as undesirable. The system of educational institutions which
resulted from this rationale of efficiency, though years in the
making, was a significant improvement over the highly disorganized,
inefficient, loosely coordinated, educational institutions which

preceded them.

72

The rationale of standardized and uniform efficiency dictated
that the work to be done by each individual would be separated into
specific segments to be completed within specific time frames. As
Shearer stated, the age-graded organizational structure met the
requirement of ”the greatest good to the greatest number, in the

shortest time, at the least expense.”

BosoaronfiuostiomblumboLo:

Is there, in the rationale, and in the history of the age-graded
organizational structure, information which supports its widespread
acceptability and its longevity as a functional organizational
structure?

The age-graded organizational structure remains, for the
most part, the standard by which students acquire the knowledge
required for completion of the public school program. The common
school reformers, interested in improving the schools through a
system based on standardized and uniform efficiency of operation,
designed a system which was capable of processing large numbers of
children quickly and cheaply.

In line with the common school reformer's efforts to consoli-
date and centralize the educational system, and thereby, improve
education's overall efficiency, Daniel Duke, points out that the

resulting educational institutions can be seen to fall neatly into
...six basic qualities of a bureaucracy as outlined by Max Weber:

1. Division of labor and specialization of tasks.

2. Hierarchical authority structure.

3. Formal system of rules and regulations governing official
decisions.

73

4. Separate administrative and productive staffs.
5. Impersonal, universalistic orientation to clients.
6. Career employment for bureaucratic officials.

That public schools conform to these traits is attested to by
most researchers. In a typical reference, Ronald Corwin's A

W the author writes:

“Authority tends to be organized along hierarchical lines in
public schools. In large systems there are several levels of
authority, perhaps including a department head, assistant
principals, system-wide supervisors, and other assistants to the
superintendent, school board members, lay advisory committees,
and county and state supervisory agencies. Officials at each
level face the dual problem of satisfying their subordinates and
their superiors.

In the conventional public school, the teacher's role is that of
a ‘functionary.’ Sloan Wayland argues that the teacher is a
‘replaceable unit in a rationally organized system, and most of
the significant aspects of work are determined for him.‘ Rising
teacher militancy and union activity are resulting in more power
for teachers as a group; yet individual teachers still function
largely at the discretion of the school administration. That
students, in turn, are accorded so little responsibility by
teachers is due partly to the fact that they themselves are
delegated so little.

Citizens are not any better off than teachers. The power they
exercise is largely negative. They can reject board members,
bonds, and budgets, but rarely can they exert a positive or
innovative influence over the school system. Parent-teacher
organizations and citizens' advisory groups seem to exist more
for the efficient dissemination of information from above than
the generation of pressure for educational improvement from
below" (Duke, 1976, p. 35-36).

It can be stated at this point that the actual widespread
acceptability and longevity of the age-graded organizational struc-
ture itself is one of the best testimonials to the age-graded organi-
zational structure. The system of public schools developed on the

age-graded structure and based on standardized and uniform

74

efficiency, mirroring the general success of industry, has
accomplished what it set out to accomplish - to process large
numbers of children through a series of educational institutions in a
short period of time at the least expense. Prior to this organi-
zational structure, education for the majority was concentrated on
primarily providing no more than the rudiments of reading and

writing.

Bosoambfiuostiomflumboua

What significant modifications, if any, have been made to the
rationale which may have helped the age-graded structure remain as
the primary organizational structure within American Public
Educafion?

It would appear that there have been no significant modifi-
cations to the original underlying rationale for the age-graded
organizational structure within public education in this country. It
would also appear that this is based on the extreme simplicity of
the rationale itself. The rationale, whether developed during the
creation of the age-graded structure itself or added on after the
fact, presents itself well in regard to what the system apparently
aimed to provide in the way of a public educational system. The
literature shows that there have been movements to modify the
system's organizational structure since before the end of the
nineteenth century. However, in light of the fact that the age-
graded organizational structure is still the predominant form within
public education, the original rationale appears to be as strong now

as it was in the nineteenth century.

75

There has been a wide variety of change in such things as
required classes, non-required classes, enriched learning opportu-
nities , and in a wide variety of additional programs for students.
However, for all intents and purposes, the process of moving pupils
through a series of highly defined learning periods, which last
approximately one school year, with the general expectation that all
pupils will learn basically the same amount of material in basically
the same amount of time is still the dominant feature of the age-
graded organizational structure within American public education.

The nongraded and alternative school enthusiasts have gained
considerable ground over the years, and have shown that the age-
graded structure is not necessarily a requirement for success. Yet,
the large system of public education has not changed drastically
from the form that was designed in mid-nineteenth-century
America. The rationale of standardized and uniform efficiency still
applies and maintains the essential public educational institution as

a functional reality.

Booommonoations
The recommendations presented in this section are based on
the findings of this study and are provided as an appropriate next
step in the process of investigating the age-graded organizational
structure within American Public Education. The recommendations

are as follows:

1. Changes taking place within the world of business and

industry, or manufacturing, appear to have been instrumental in the

76

development of the age-graded organizational structure. It would
appear also that the world of business and industry in this part of
the twentieth century is facing the potential need for significant
change. Additional research into the dynamics of the relationship
between change in education and change in the world of business and

industry might be in order. Peters and Waterman, in their book In

W, have provided the world of business and
industry with significant research results regarding excellence in

the management of American corporations. Some of the results of
the research done which produced their findings may very well be
applicable to public education. An example of their findings is as

follows:

Weick suggests that organizations learn v-e-r-y slowly.
They pay obsessive attention to habitual internal cues, long after
their practical value has lost all meaning. Important strategic -
business assumptions (e.g., control versus a risk-taking bias) are
buried deep in the minutiae of management systems and other
habitual routines whose origins have long been obscured by time.

Weick supposes that the inflexibility stems from the
mechanical pictures of organizations we carry in our heads; he
says, for insta'ce: ”Chronic use of the military metaphor leads
people repeatedly to overlook a different kind of organization,
one, that values improvisation rather than forecasting, dwells on
opportunities rather than constraints, discovers new actions
rather than defends past actions, values arguments more highly
than serenity and encourages doubt and contradiction rather than
belief” (Peters and Waterman, 1982, pp. 6-7).

The authors also point out that,

The problem in America is that our fascination with the tools
of management obscures our apparent ignorance of the art. Our
tools are biased toward measurement and analysis. We can
measure the costs. But with these tools alone we can't really

77

elaborate on the value of...going that extra mile for the ordinary
customer (Peters and Waterman, 1982, p. xxiv).

This would seem to be especially appropriate in light of what
Frank T. Carlton stated, in 1908:

If generalization is warranted by the data before us, the
conclusion is warranted that, in modern times, the trend of
educational advance is determined by economic evolution. On the
one hand, the student of educational problems, who is striving to
improve the work of the public schools, must study the trend in
industrial and social evolution; and on the other hand, the
political economist and social scientist must consider the
economic and social significance of uniform advance in
educational and industrial evolution (Carlton, 1965, p. 145).

If there is, in fact, a close linkage between the dynamics of
change within business and industry and education, then it maybe
worthwhile to develop a strategy for attempting to identify some of
the specifics concerning that linkage. This area of investigation
may provide valuable information regarding organizational changes
within business and industry, which seem to emphasize the limi-
tations of the conventional bureaucratic organizational structure in
direct relation to how these changes may, or may not, be applicable
to educafion.

2. It would appear that efforts to modify significantly the
age-graded organizational structure have been generally unsuc-
cessful except on a small scale. The belief that change in organi-
zational structure within public education is needed is not new. It
has been supported almost as long as the age-graded structure
itself. William J. Shearer identified, in 1899, a rationale behind

modifying the age-graded organizational structure.

78

Though the graded school has many advantages, we should not
close our eyes to the fact that it is open to the serious charge
that it does not properly provide for the individual differences of
the pupils; that it is not sufficiently pliant to accommodate
itself to the pupils, but demands that the pupils accommodate
themselves to it; and that grading, which was intended to serve
the children, has now become the cruel master (Shearer; 1899; p.
23-24).

Shearer further points out that:

In a late issue of The Educational Review, Dr. Prince,
Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, speaks as
follows on this subject:

“There is no question of school organization at present more
important than that of a proper adjustment of conditions to the
needs of individual pupils. The assumption upon which most
courses of study seem to be based, that just so much ground
must be gone over with equal thoroughness by all pupils in the
same time, is the greatest bane of our public school system”
(Shearer; 1899; p. 95).

These reactions to the age-graded organizational structure
have been carried into our current educational arena by a wide
variety of individuals and organizations. Additional research into
the dynamics of the relationship between learner needs and educa-
tional system needs would seem to be in order. Research, which
investigates the possible reasons for the failure of educational
approaches based on other than age-graded organizational structure
to achieve widespread national acceptance, may provide further
understanding regarding the general level of success of the age-

graded organizational structure.

79

3. The concept of standardized and uniform efficiency which
seems to have produced the age-graded organizational structure has

recently been examined within the world of business and industry.
In the W, Walter Adams states that:

Efficiency is a multifaceted concept. There is operating
efficiency. Here the question is whether giant corporations are
producing mousetraps at the lowest possible cost. Then there is
innovation efficiency. Are corporate giants in constant quest for
a better mousetrap? Finally, there is social efficiency. Perhaps
mousetraps should not be produced at all. Perhaps rodent control
should be effectuated through superior pesticides or a greater
investment in feline capital (Quoted in ”A Case Against Bigness";

MW Vol. 6 No. 2; Winter, 1987; p. 10).

Research into the types, or levels, of efficiency which might
be most productive in public education would also seem to be in
order. This area of research might provide information that would
bridge the apparent gap between the schools of thought regarding the
benefits of the age-graded structure and the benefits of the
nongraded or alternative structure in public education. The apparent
shift, within business and industry, toward examining the concept of
large-scale organizational efficiency may offer educational
decision-makers some additional information regarding the manner
in which high levels of efficiency may be maintained while, at the
same time, place further emphasis on the overall effectiveness of

accomplishing educational goals and objectives.

4. This study has focused on the development of the age-
graded organizational structure within public education in the

United States. The age-graded structure become, however, an

80

almost universally accepted model throughout the world. A series of
comparative studies might be conducted to explore the possible
rationales for the adoption of this organizational structure model in

other countries.

5. The age-graded organizational structure, while widely
accepted, is not actually a pure form. There are, as stated in
Chapter One, a wide variety of variations within this model. The
variations developed to accommodate specific populations of
learners - physically impaired, special education, and gifted (to
name a few) - might have developed for reasons which do not allow
for utilization of the age-grading model. A study which examines
the variety of organizational structures developed to meet the needs
of these other learner populations might be in order. Examining the
rationales for adaptions to the age-graded stucture by these other
structural models might shed additional light on potential change

opportunities within the age-graded structure itself.

Summon:

The purpose of this study was to identify an underlying
rationale for the development of the age-graded organizational
structure within American Public Education. The literature of
education history has provided information regarding events taking
place in the nineteenth century which seem to have been instru-
mental in the development of that structure. The literature has also
provided information which helped develop an identifiable rationale

for the creation of the age-graded organizational structure. That

81

rationale still appears to be the basis for the predominant organi-
zational structure within public education in this country.
Recommendations for further research have been offered to
encourage further investigation into the organizational structure
which places learners into school programs based primarily on their

chronological age.

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