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REFORMING THE PRESENT BY RETELLING THE PAST:
THE PROGRESSIVE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IDEAS IN NINETEENTH-
CENTURY HISTORY TEXTBOOKS
By

Edward Cromwell McInnis

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of History

2006

ABSTRACT
REFORMING THE PRESENT BY RETELLING THE PAST:
THE PROGRESSIVE SOCIAL AND POLICAL IDEAS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY
TEXTBOOKS
By
Edward Cromwell McInnis

Scholars have characterized nineteenth-century America before the Civil War as a
time of major social, economic, and political change. They have also argued that
curricula, especially public school curricula, reflected this change by conveying a wide
range of complex, and sometimes contradictory, set of values to students. While early
school curricula sometimes reinforced traditional social ideals such as the acceptance of
hierarchy and obedience, they at other times reinforced visions of a more democratic and
egalitarian republic.

One might think that school history textbooks in the United States, a teaching
tool many earlier studies of nineteenth-century education list as the backbone of that
century’s curricula, would reflect this complexity in democratic education. However,
most studies of early American education portray textbooks as literature that featured
primarily conservative ideas. Textbooks, many researchers contend, convey passive
notions of citizenship to students that encouraged unquestioned acceptance of ideas
presented. These textbooks, they argue, also sought to conceal social conflict, promote
the acceptance of social control, and encourage students to accept traditional hierarchies
rather than invite students to consider more egalitarian and democratic ways of

organizing republics. There is a certain amount of truth in these conclusions. However,

these conclusions also conflict with the more complex set of attitudes toward democratic

and egalitarian ideals that researchers contend nineteenth-century schools advocated.

This dissertation revisits the nature of the social, political, and economic values
embedded within antebellum-era history textbooks. My work examines how these values
intersected with tensions between artisans and emergent capitalists, and informed debates
regarding westward expansion, the place of women in a republic, and the appropriate
levels of social control in American society. My study seeks to reconcile this apparent
difference between the more complex ideas school curricula set out to teach students, and
the seemingly conservative and straightforward values earlier studies claim that school
textbooks presented. My work demonstrates that there existed a clearly reformist
dimension to history textbooks, complicating what earlier studies have reported about
democracy and history textbooks. My method differs from earlier studies not only in that
I analyze secondary school textbooks, but also in that I focus on the social and political
values conveyed through histories of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as history of the
United States. My decision to analyze these specific textbooks is significant because, as I
will show, both ancient republics had become metaphors for the kind of republic
antebellum Americans were trying to build.

My dissertation concludes with a section that explores how early textbooks also
exposed students to significant egalitarian and democratic social relationships that
represented alternatives to the status quo. In this sense, rather than being what Ruth
Elson labeled “The Guardians of Tradition,” my study will show how textbooks ofien
functioned as agents for reform by subtly encouraging the growth of a more democratic

republic.

Copyright by
EDWARD CROMWELL MCINNIS
2006

To Patty, Molly, and Sean

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

I am indebted to my advisor, Dr. David Bailey, for his excellent guidance,
encouragement, and support that made completion possible. I am also very grateful to Dr.
Mark Kornbluh, Dr. Ann Austin, and Dr. Robert Bonner for their wonderful service on
my committee and for their suggestion on how to transform my dissertation into a book.

I am very grateful to Dr. Richard Golf who first encouraged me to pursue my
dreams of graduate study and teaching college history, a career that was always close to
my heart, and who conveyed an unwavering belief that I could realize this dream.

I am very thankful to the McInnis, Fayette, Reno, families for their enthusiastic
support. I am especially thankful to my mom and dad, Doug and Ann McInnis, whose
faith in my abilities kept me going during the valleys as well as the peaks and to the late
Dr. Paul Weber whose note of encouragement in his last month of his life helped
convince me that I could finish.

Most of all I am thankful for the support of my wife, Dr. Patty Payette, who
convinced me to continue when all seemed to be lost, who believed in me, who checked
out books for me, who watched the kids so I could research and write, and who provided

moral support by attending my defense.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 1
CHAPTER 1

EMERGENT PUBLIC SCHOOLS ................................................... 14
CHAPTER 2

HISTORY IN AMERICAN CULTURE DURING THE

ANTEBELLUM PERIOD ............................................................. 62
CHAPTER 3

THE IDEA OF HISTORY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL

EDUCATION ............................................................................ 84
CHAPTER 4

SPARTA AND PATRIOTISM ...................................................... 114
CHAPTER 5

DEFINING SOCIAL EQUALITY THROUGH GREECE ...................... 139
CHAPTER 6

SOCIAL EQUALITY AND ROME ................................................. 153
CHAPTER 7

TEACHING CITIZENS WITH AMERICAN HISTORY ........................ 172
CONCLUSION ...................................................................... 197
ENDNOTES ............................................................................. 204
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................... 226

vii

Introduction

In nineteenth-century America, conflict defined social and political culture as
intellectuals embraced different and sometimes competing visions of what a republic and
what a citizen should be. Some advanced notions of a republic where only marginal
differences in wealth separated citizens. Others, however, happily accepted a republic
with significant differences in wealth so long as it preserved political equality and
individual freedom. Some writers believed a republic like the United States should
expand westward while others saw this expansion as antithetical to republican ideals.
While many American writers envisioned women serving the republic as empathetic and
nurturing mothers, a few advanced images of more stoic and physically fit republican
matrons willing to confront frontier dangers. Finally, while some writers advocated a
nation of orderly, obedient, and physically fit citizens, others valued intelligent and
independent citizens who could exercise good judgment.

Supporters of schools added to this complex mix by not only advancing their own
competing republican visions, but by also offering contrasting ideas on how to instruct
students and organize schools to fulfill these visions. Some school proponents, for
example, favored state-controlled institutions while others wanted locally controlled ones.
Education supporters who valued obedient citizens favored schools that employed
corporal punishment while those who preferred more sentimental notions of citizenship
favored moral suasion as an approach to controlling students. Some believed that schools
should list self-control as their main educational Objective while others favored academic
achievement. Thus, different ideas on how to teach children the responsibilities of a

citizen mirrored the number of visions of what a republic should be.

Many nineteenth-century schools built their curricula around textbooks. However,
only a few scholars have studied these texts in much detail. Furthermore, despite the
plethora of conflicting values in both nineteenth-century education circles and in
American society as a whole, existing studies have focused primarily on how textbooks
concealed social conflict, taught conservative values, and presented a linear narrative of
the rise of America. For example, Ruth Elson’s 1964 study presents narratives that
praised hierarchical societies, empowered subordinate roles for women, and rejected
communal and less market-driven economies. More resent studies echo Elson’s
conclusions that textbooks functioned as a form of propaganda which touted the United
States’ greatness. Reese’s cursory analysis reports that textbooks taught readers why the
United States was “republican, Christian, and the greatest nation on earth.”1 Kaestle
writes that textbooks “glorified” American institutions.2 Stuart Cooke's 1986
dissertation, which focused on United States history textbooks during the antebellum
period, features examples that Show how authors reinforced a positive image of the
United States and its values by publishing histories that ignored conflict in American
society such as slavery and Shays's rebellion.3 This study shows something else. Rather
than simply glorifying America’s past, textbooks featured narratives that reinforced
reforms of the present.

More recently Nina Baym hints at the possibility that textbooks functioned as
something more than a tool for propaganda. Baym’s American Women Writers, written
in 1995, examines ancient and world history textbooks to a greater degree than other
studies and shows how antebellum-era female textbook authors used narratives from

ancient history to teach their society morals. However, Baym, while writing extensively

about the historical philosophy of Peabody and Willard, limits her study to female
writers and constructs her interpretations around passages from just a few textbooks.

One can find numerous examples in antebellum era history textbooks which
support the arguments of Elson, Cooke, Reese and Kaestle. However, the large number of
textbooks produced and the size of their narratives suggests that history textbooks may
contain more complex values than these studies show. In addition, these previous scholars
approach the use of textbooks through the prism of narrowly framed questions, asking
primarily how textbooks portray communal societies, how textbooks promoted loyalty to
country, and how they reinforced the dominant gender or social roles. In my study, I
reframe these questions more broadly by examining their overall attitude toward equality
and social hierarchy. I also approach the more general questions of how the texts
envisioned notions of citizenship for men and women, what was their attitude toward
social control, and what was their attitude toward an aggressive foreign policy or the
place of empire in a republic? When simultaneously examined through the lens Of these
more broadly cast questions, and in the context of their time, these textbook narratives
reveal deeper insights into the kind of republican visions antebellum writers desired. This
dissertation takes on these larger, more general questions Of what textbooks convey about
antebellum American social equality, notions of citizenship, and empire. It focuses on the
extent to which textbooks, by addressing these concepts, functioned as agents of social
reform and reminders of reality rather than agents of social control and promoters of
myths. When studied in this way, some narratives appear to actually advance fairly

progressive ideas that conflict with the dominant antebellum values.

I not only build my study around a broader set of questions than what earlier
scholars have asked, I also base my analysis on a set of assumptions that correspond more
closely to how people thought during the antebellum period than those considered by
other studies. First, I contend that nineteenth-century authors such as Marcuis Willson,
Elizabeth Peabody, Emma Willard , Joseph Worcestor, and William Pinnock held a more
sophisticated idea of history and the lessons it taught than other studies of textbooks have
claimed. Only a few authors explore how textbook authors define history in their preface
and introduction to their textbooks. Nietz claims that textbook authors described history
as knowledge which inspired patriotism, and Reese contends that textbook authors like
Samuel Goodrich viewed history as a moral lesson.4 Only Baym indicates that antebellum
writers held a more complex idea of the past. For example, she suggests Peabody had a
fairly complex view of history by describing how she used millennial theory to interpret
the past and by noting that Peabody believed only free people could write history. I build
on this argument by explaining how not only Peabody but also other authors conveyed a
sophisticated notion of citizenship through their discussions of history.

In addition, I focus more on ancient and world history textbooks than previous
studies, examining twenty six of approximately forty ancient and world history textbooks
published in the United States from 1800 to 1860. I focus on these textbooks because they
feature narratives Of Sparta, Athens, and Rome, episodes which appear frequently in other
written tracts that comment on social and political issues during the antebellum period.
For many writers, ancient republics - especially Sparta - signified controversial solutions
to antebellum social, political, and economic problems. For example, writers in journals

that supported strong militias invoked Sparta and Rome as the republics to emulate.

However, writers who associated civic virtue with more sentimental ideals such as
benevolence and sympathy viewed Sparta and Rome as examples to avoid. I also examine
eighteen of the approximately twenty-five American history textbooks published between
1800 and 1860 for the social and political ideologies they reinforce. I focus on narratives
of the Pilgrims and Puritans since they, too, symbolized values many writers wanted
citizens to emulate.

I base my argument around the assumption that most students who read the
history books I examine came from neither very rich nor very poor families. As Reese and
Labaree Show, most students who attended public high schools and academies during the
antebellum period came from the middle class.5 This is important because the emerging
middle class, as a group, responded favorably to plans to redistribute property, promote
an austere lifestyle, and produce highly disciplined citizens as a way to maintain social
tranquility and preserve liberty. I exclude bankers and wealthy merchants from my
definition from the emergent middling class but include artisans and small farmers as part
of the middle class because other scholars of nineteenth-century America add artisans and
small farmers in their definition. Stuart Blumin defined the term middle class fairly
narrowly, arguing that a middle-class collective self awareness emerged among
Americans who worked little with their hands such as clerks, teachers, and salesmen but
lacked the wealth to be considered part of the merchant elite. Because he never discusses
their ideology in much detail, it is difficult to determine whether individuals he describes
would have favored or rejected a republic like Sparta.

Labaree and John Gilkeson included shop keepers and craftsmen in his definition

of the middle class.6 Gilkeson not only includes professionals such as medical doctors

and lawyers, but also artisans and small shopkeepers who forged a middle-class identity
not so much from common work place experiences, but by participating in various
humanitarian reform movements.7 Although these Americans favored property rights and
embraced small scale capitalism, Gilkeson explains that they also favored a relatively
homogenous society where citizens differed little in wealth because this would reduce the
potential for social disorder and conflict among citizens.8 It is easy to see how those
Americans who meet the standards for Gilkeson's definition Of middle class might view
Sparta's approach to cultivating virtue favorably. While Gilkeson, Labaree, and Blumin
differ on whether to include artisans in their definition, all three exclude affluent
merchants from their definition along with unskilled workers. This indicates that, when
authors such as Willard, Willson, and Lord praised the virtue of the middling sort in their
histories, they most likely praised the virtue of small farmers, artisans, clerks and
shopkeepers. In addition, when textbook writers described the benefits of Sparta's practice
of limiting disparities of wealth or when they praised Puritans for assigning little
importance to wealth, they echo values similar to those espoused by the emergent middle
class in the United States. When these textbooks warn readers of the dangers speculators
pose to a republic through narratives of financial panics, I argue that they are in fact
warning readers of the values of citizens outside of the middle class.

Many studies write little about who might read history textbooks. Those that do
address this topic suggest that very young students read them. Cooke, for example,
indicates that young students used them. However, I contend that authors wrote their
histories for teenagers who already had some education rather than young primary school

students attending common schools. While not all textbook authors listed the target

audience, Jon Nietz identified most textbooks I use in this study as designed for
secondary schools. Marcuis Willson wrote in Outlines of Histom that college as well as
high school students could use his textbook. Reese reports that high schools used
textbooks authored by Samuel Goodrich and Marcuis Willson. Several other studies show
that high schools and academies during the antebellum period made both histories of
Greece and Rome and United States history part of their curriculum.9 Thus students
between twelve and sixteen most likely read these textbooks.

A significant minority of American children would have read the textbooks this
study analyzes since not all children attended high school during the antebellum period.l0
Many Americans had attended academies or early public high schools before the Civil
War. By 1865, there were 165 public high schools and 1,007 academies in New England
and 1,636 academies in the middle Atlantic states.” According to Edward McClellan,
over 10% of the antebellum population attended a high school or an academy.12

Acknowledging that older students read these textbooks is an important
consideration. Rather than receiving a very basic education, Michael Sedlak and Frank
Church contend that high schools and academies during the antebellum period trained
students for leadership positions in their communities.‘3 Similarly, Emma Willard and
Sarah Pierce, who both directed schools for women, used their textbooks to teach women
who would one day become teachers. Thus the students who read the textbooks I analyze
attended secondary schools and could have grasped relatively sophisticated political and
economic ideas that textbooks conveyed through their histories.

Textbook Author Ideology

Scholars contend that most textbooks have reinforced the vision of well-ordered
communities that meshed Christian morals with secular civil society often associated with
the northern Whigs. While opposition to Andrew Jackson and the Democrats often
constituted the main unifying ideal of southern and northern Whigs, the vision of moral
society, promoted and protected by an active state and national government, was much
more reflective of northern Whig attitudes. Whigs in other regions of the United States
during the 18303 were ofien defined by their positions of local or state issues. 1’ Several
facts about the social and economic backgrounds of textbook authors point to a northern
Whig origin. Many textbook authors held strong connections to northern Protestantism
and the middle and upper middle classes, groups often associated with the Whig political
party. For example Marcuis Willson, Emma Willard, and Samuel Goodrich all made
substantial amounts of wealth selling textbooks. Both Charles and Samuel Goodrich
supported the Federalist party, with Samuel Goodrich serving as a Whig state senator.

However other facts about the backgrounds of authors explain why they might
entertain political views that deviated from what Daniel Howe labeled the Whig ideology
of economic diversity that accepted some disparities of wealth while embracing cultural
uniformity.15 Little information is known about the political persuasions of early textbook
authors. Maver, Robinson, Pinnock, Gough and Goldsmith published their textbooks in
Great Britain during the eighteenth century and would have been unaware that their
narratives of Greece and Rome paralleled social conflicts in North America." However,
Emma Willard, who came from a family with clear J effersonian leanings, and Marcius
Willson, who supported the Democrats, praising Eugene Jennings Bryon later in life,

might have. This indicates that some authors could have been supportive of non-Whig

political agendas. In addition, some, such as Charles Goodrich held more humanitarian
type occupations such as teachers and ministers, rather than as merchants or
businessmen.l7 Finally, most textbook authors lived in New England with a few in New
York and Pennsylvania where other historians have documented conflicts between
farmers and large land holders occurred. Living in close proximity to social conflict
would have increased the probability that they knew of the agrarian struggles in New
England and other northern states which paralleled those they described in their
textbooks. They also might have been aware Of Regulator activity on the frontier and
possibly have been sympathetic to those settlers without land. In addition, historians
explain that, during the antebellum period, New England extended only moderate support
for both the war of 1812 and United States' war with Mexico. Thus it is reasonable to ask
the broader question of how supportive authors were of an aggressive foreign policy.

Finally, I entertain the possibility that when writers describe radical approaches to
achieve social equality, even those they Oppose, they can still sow the germ Of reform. In
their attempt to produce an accurate account of the past, textbook authors featured
narratives-possibly inadvertently- that reinforced arguments against the ideologies they
supposedly promoted. For example, in presenting the history of Sparta, many writers
featured narratives that questioned the desirability for a highly controlling and orderly
society. The irony in this is that many Whig reformers embraced such a society when
promoting the common school as a tool for socializing new immigrants.

The Structure of My Analysis
I lay my argument out in five chapters. Chapter One shows how ideas emanating

from the Enlightenment, the Second Great Awakening, from the Whig and Democratic

parties, and from supporters of public education, shaped the cultural and intellectual
context in which textbook authors wrote their histories. This context featured numerous
and sometimes competing ideas on the broader questions Of how egalitarian a republic
should be, what role women should play in a republic, how much social control should a
republic exercise over its citizens, and how acceptable is expansion to a republic.

While Chapter One lays out the different and sometimes competing republican
visions that colored the environment in which authors wrote, Chapter Two illustrates how
writers in the broader popular culture used history to reinforce their respective visions.
For example, it shows that opponents of the war with Mexico often used Rome as a
symbol of how an empire might lead to a republic’s decline. I will also show that Greece
and Rome were polarizing symbols in antebellum society. Writers who favored greater
discipline, physical fitness, and social order often viewed these republics as an ideal
model while those who favored a less stoic and more sentimental notion of citizen viewed
these republics as models to avoid. Thus history became an indispensable tool for
promoting many visions during the antebellum period.

In chapter three I illustrate the emergence of a wide range of notions of history in
textbooks and how they reinforced skepticism and highlighted history’s more secular
function. While some writers describe history as the story of God’s judgment, others
describe it as a science and as knowledge which sometimes rests on limited amounts of
evidence. In addition, textbooks made statements implying that history taught important
economic and political lessons as well as the need to inspire a love of country or fear Of
God. Finally, after 1830 many textbooks described history as an imperfect body of

knowledge and a few authors directly questioned its use as means to inspire patriotism.

10

This more complex idea of history explains why one can interpret textbooks as conveying
a sophisticated set of ideas that prepped readers to receive a complex set of lessons rather
than simple set of morals. Presenting history as narratives containing a complex set of
lessons as I do, also indicates that schools sought to create more informed and
independent- minded citizens.

Chapter four shows how narratives about Sparta and Athens' methods of
socializing citizens exposed readers to a complex model of citizen that also manifested
the tensions over social control in antebellum society. Authors Often praised the
discipline, physical fitness and courage of Spartan and Roman citizens, yet responded
critically to their excessive attempts to inculcate patriotism, suppress sentimentalism and
individualism to achieve these qualities. Finally, this chapter shows how some textbooks,
through their narratives of how Sparta educated boys and girls, invited students to
consider the benefits of a more egalitarian education for women.

Chapter five and six examine the economic, social, and political values textbook
authors conveyed through a portrayal of Greece and the extent to which the authors
advanced highly egalitarian notions of economic and social equality. It also explains how
authors conveyed ambivalence toward the market and social inequality by their response
to Sparta’s and Athens's methods of promoting virtue and maintaining social tranquility
among its citizens. Other studies contend that history textbooks expressed a hostile
attitude toward communal societies. However, this chapter shows that most authors
expressed a mixed rather than a hostile attitude toward communal societies such as
Sparta, even though Sparta redistributed land and wealth as a way to promote virtue and

social tranquility. Most even acknowledged that Sparta succeeded at its goal of producing

11

virtuous citizens. This chapter also demonstrates that textbook authors expressed much
more ambivalence toward gross inequality and social hierarchies than other studies
indicate through their criticism of Rome's elite citizens' unwillingness to address
economic inequality.

Chapter seven focuses on the ideas and lessons textbooks conveyed through
American history. Other studies of United States history textbooks primarily argue that
authors glorified America's past rather than discuss the social and economic values they
taught students. This chapter illustrates how textbooks, through narratives of the Puritans,
the Panic of 1837, and even the American Revolution, expressed their opinion toward
different economic and social values. Authors promoted values conducive to small scale
capitalism, expressed concern with the pursuit of wealth to excess, and evinced
confidence in the middling sort along with celebrating America's past. It also illustrates
how a few textbooks conveyed a more ambiguous attitude toward patriotism primarily as
martial valor by describing the tragedies of the American Revolution.

My Argument

After examining history textbooks in both the context of their time and under
assumptions that differ from earlier studies, I conclude that these textbooks capture,
rather than conceal, the tension between different and sometimes conflicting visions of a
republic. By featuring narratives of ancient Greece, textbooks exposed readers to a
society that successfully maintained discipline and order, qualities which many
antebellum era reformers valued. However, by featuring these same narratives they also
reinforced concerns about the maintenance of discipline, virtue, respect for elders, and

physical fitness since to produce these qualities in citizens meant exerting excessive

12

social control and stifling individualism. Textbooks, through narratives of ancient
Greece, Rome, and even the United States reinforced the emergent middling class’ virtue
and praised societies that limited disparities of wealth while at the same time
disapproving efforts to limit commerce. By exposing readers to polarizing symbols in
American society, textbooks exposed readers to antebellum era tensions that existed
between civic virtue, capitalism, individualism and the responsibilities of a citizen to a
republic.

While exposing nineteenth-century readers to narratives that revealed the
emerging tensions in American society, textbooks also featured histories that represented
alternatives to the dominant social and economic ideals of antebellum America. For
example, while many textbooks featured histories that reinforce sentimental notions of
citizenship for women, a few offer a less sentimental alternative through narratives Of
ancient Greece. In addition, they invited students to acknowledge the importance of
economic equality to a republic and to consider how the United States’ territorial
expansion endangered republicanism and civic virtue. In this way, they reinforced a blend
Of Democratic and Whig ideals. Thus, by featuring narratives that represented alternatives
to the status quo, textbooks functioned as a tool for change as well as the maintenance of

traditional social and political values.

13

Chapter One
Emergent Public Schools

Many Americans before the Civil War viewed education, especially public
education, as a cornerstone of society because it represented a solution to a myriad of social
and political problems that beset the United States. Educational institutions could bridge
seemingly conflicting ideologies. It could promote equality and empower the masses without
encouraging revolution, threatening property, or destroying existing social hierarchies. It
could strengthen religious convictions and fealty to God while also inspiring patriotism and
loyalty to a nation founded on secular ideals. In short, nineteenth-century Americans,
especially those living in the North, viewed public education as an institution that could
transform the fragmented and diverse society that was America and produce a harmonious
republic while preserving the existing power structure.

Ironically, however, despite the near universal belief that education of some kind
could solve most of the nation’s social and political problems, Americans hardly agreed on
the form education should take. Some believed it should be administered locally while others
believed it should be administered nationally. Some wanted to emphasize college and high
school education while others did not. Public school supporters often disagreed on what to
teach, how to teach, and who to teach. While many Americans shared a general belief that
their republic needed education to sustain it, they often disagreed on what education should
be and, by extension, what the United States Should be. And in the South, most political
leaders opposed public education of any kind, even demanding that northern history books to
stay clear of their region. Thus education, the quintessential solution to producing harmony

and consensus in American society, often was the source of considerable social conflict.

l4

Reformers drew on a range of philosophies, ideas, and values to justify public
education in the United States. Republicanism exerted perhaps the greatest influence on their
thinking. This ideology addressed a range of political ideas; including one’s place in society,
how a country should be governed, what a country’s relationship to other countries should
be, and what relationship inhabitants of a country should have to their government. Although
republicanism as an ideology had influenced Americans since the colonial period, numerous
variations had emerged by the time the colonies had become the United States.

Scholars have described several strains Of republicanism, some of which supported
reform while others reinforced the status quo. Gordon Wood labeled the strain Of
republicanism that influenced Americans before the Revolution as classical republicanism,
an ideology with origins in classical Greece and Rome. According to classical republican
thought, a country’s citizens differed from those considered only c country’s inhabitants in
that citizens governed themselves and chose their leaders as a collective group or a polity.
Along with running their government, citizens defended their country as soldiers. Non-
citizens living within a republic such as women and slaves had fewer rights than citizens and
could not vote or participate in the affairs of government.1

For a republic to survive it needed citizens capable of exercising public virtue. During
the American Revolution and the Early National period of United States history this often
meant the ability of a citizen to place the interest of the whole republic above his own self-
interest. Garry Wills describes this idea of classical virtue, which originates from the ancient
Greek city states, as the rejection of ambition, a willingness to give up power, and a
willingness to sacrifice one’s own personal possessions, including family members, for the

good of the republic.2 He also notes that public virtue during the Early National period was a

15

secular idea that incorporated this notion of self-sacrifice. Leaders from classical Greece and
Rome such as Cincinnatus, Lycurgus, Solon, and Numa exemplified these kinds of ideals and
became models that Americans such as Washington sought to exemplify.

According to descriptions by Wood and McCoy, the Greeks and Romans believed
that economic independence allowed people to exercise their duties as citizens and that
individuals gained economic independence primarily through land ownership.3 Usually, only
well-off men enjoyed the privilege of citizenship since land was limited and women were not
permitted to participate in politics. Thus, while equality existed between citizens, citizens
comprised only a small percentage of a country’s inhabitants. Republics also promoted virtue
among citizens by remaining geographically small so as to produce a homogenous
population. This would limit the range of Opinions and curb dissent. Despite limiting
citizenship to a small percentage of the population, most political thinkers still viewed
republics as fragile entities vulnerable to party factions, charismatic leaders, and the self-
interest of its citizens.

Americans living in Britain’s North American colonies, having practiced self-
government, viewed republicanism as the essence of who they were. They embraced many
tenets of classical vision of a republic from the time of their founding up to decades of the
American war. Throughout their history, the classical republican language of decline and
decay had always permeated the critiques colonies put forth of themselves and other nations.
For example, Bernard Bailyn shows how this ideology characterized the way colonists
described their grievances with Great Britain’s more aggressive role toward the colonies on
taxes during the decade preceding the Revolution and notes that they looked to the arguments

of British Opposition leaders such as Harrington when making the case for Revolution.4

16

Bailyn also notes that the colonists viewed Britain’s colonial policy as analogous to the rise
of corruption and the decline of republicanism in classical Greece and Rome.5 The colonists
also invoked the history of these early republics as examples of their notion of virtue and the
forces they believed caused a republic to decline. Samuel Adams for example spoke of a
“Christian Sparta” in Boston.6 Political commentators and writers often invoked the image of
Rome when describing the dangers that empire and luxury to a republic. Many of these
writers thought such a republic was within their grasp in 1775.

This ideology mirrored political views of Americans during the decades preceding the
American Revolution which held that republics were fragile and survived only when citizens
effectively exercised civic virtue and placed the community’s wellbeing above their own
self-interest. Many essayists and political theorists believed republics could cultivate civic
virtue only with great difficulty, especially in the United States where expanding markets and
trade encouraged the pursuit of worldly pleasures, and impulse that precluded the realization
of virtue in citizens. Pocock writes that Florentine writer Polybius, using ancient Greece and
Rome as examples, argued that republics passed through a natural cycle of birth, growth and
decline.7 Many Americans believed this and believed that their republic would also
ultimately decline.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, economic, social, and political changes
produced a new set of ideologies that conflicted with classical republicanism. A commercial
culture began to emerge in colonial American that made the pursuit of self-interest rather
than the public interest more desirable for many Americans. Louis Hartz argues that the
absence of feudalism allowed elements of this philosophy to take root during the colonial

period, laying the foundation for a market economy early in America’s history.8 This

17

experience made the United States unique from European countries in that most of its
citizens supported property rights. Even those Americans without property supported
property rights, believing they too would someday own property.9 Drew McCoy also notes
that even before the Revolution, self-interest connected to commerce characterized colonial
American society. '0 Thus the idea that governments exist to protect citizens’ property as well
as provide a space for the exercise civic virtue had historical roots in America. This led many
tO doubt that Americans, with their penchant for commerce, could create a republic
resembling the classical republican model.

In addition, a strand of liberalism championed by Thomas Jefferson led to calls for
more social equality and inspired Americans to question ideologies structured around a
hierarchical worldview that characterized early notions of republicanism. Jefferson ushered
in a period Of greater social and political equality by urging states to grant political rights to
more citizens. Before he became president, property qualifications for both voting and
holding political office still existed in many states. Jefferson’s call for limited government at
the national level and greater power for local government represents a strand of liberalism
that challenged hierarchy by directing governance away from traditional power centers.
During the 17908 the F ederalists, who represented the interest of elite Americans, controlled
national government. Limiting the national government’s influence reduced the power of
affluent Americans.

Jefferson also planned to expand the United States’ geographic size to increase
Opportunities for economic equality and new political opportunities as new communities

formed in the new American West. While this created new opportunities for self-governance,

18

it also contributed to a large and increasingly dispersed United States. Such conditions were

hardly ideal for classical notions of republicanism.

New Ideas

During the period following the War of 1812 writers continued to draw fiom a range
of ideologies when articulating their vision for the United States, including liberalism,
religious revivalism, and the Enlightenment. This period witnessed the expansion of
capitalism in a way that differed from the post-revolutionary period. During this time
politicians and investors increasingly harnessed society’s political, social, and cultural
institutions to facilitated America’s transformation into a more market-driven economy.
Many entrepreneurs such as John Astor and Nicholas Biddle supported a very broad
interpretation of the Constitution so that the federal government could legitimately become
involved in developing the economy. This led to the emergence of the Second National Bank,
a push for a stronger central government and a call for greater internal improvements.

Despite the emergence of a capitalistic economy supported more directly by the
actions of government, Americans continued to embrace republicanism. Its adaptability helps
to explain how republicanism coexisted with an increasingly capitalistic society. Kasson
contends that the improved transportation brought the nation closer together and thus helped
republicanism thrive during a period of capitalist expansion. Improved transportation brought
a consistency of culture to a diverse and a geographically large nation. 11 Improved
technology also led citizens to travel and interact more, thus producing a homogenous

republic in a geographically large country with a large population.

19

Republicanism of the antebellum period also adapted to more cultural changes by
acquiring more sentimental and intellectual strains that coincided with the ideology of
domesticity and new theories about child rearing that shunned corporal punishment. When
expressing their views on ideas related to republicanism, nineteenth-century writers
expressed a commitment to democratic principles, morality and community as much as they
championed patriotism and martial valor that typified classical republicanism. Statements

made in several New England election-day sermons illustrate this.

These millions, though spread over so great a surface-living in different

climates-pursuing different avocations, are yet members of one family;

speak one language; embrace the same religion; are bound together as

one brotherhood by the same political principles and laws, and must inevitably
be affected in their interests and character, through time and eternity, by the same
public measures.12

In this 1828 sermon Nathaniel Bouton not only contends that citizens adhered to similar
principles, laws, language, and religion, but also contends that uses the term “brotherhood”
and “family” characterize the relationship between citizens. Bouton’s likening of American
society to a family indicates that Americans during the antebellum period viewed a republic
as a close-knit community where members held similar values and beliefs. This in many
ways resembles Wood’s idea of the natural affection or love and benevolence that individuals
held for others and became the face of tum-of-the-century republicanism.l3
Another essay in The New England Magazine advances an idea of patriotism centered
around “tenderness and love” toward family and neighbors rather than martial valor.
Although the author never dismissed valor as a legitimate form of patriotism, the essay states

that one seldom has to “command armies” or “hazard life on the field of slaughter” to

demonstrate it.14 In writin that atriotism should mean love, benevolence and a concern for
g P

20

the universal justice for all people, the unnamed author advances both a more intellectual and
sentimental version of republicanism that resembles Wood’s idea of the natural affection.
T.B. Fox's sermon published in The Common School Journal in 1841 also likens

society to a family when discussing a variation on republican ideas.

Do they not say that our heavenly father meant that we should live

together, like a great affectionate family, in which all his children should

live together, in which every member, should do all he can to assist

other members?....If they are only huddled together in a crowd, if

everybody thinks only of himself, then there is no peace or order; all

is confusion. But when people love their neighbors, and every one remembers that he
has somebody to live for besides himself, then

families, and schools, and towns are happy and good.”

Although this sermon never mentions republicanism per se, F ox nevertheless, praises many
qualities commonly associated with republicanism during the antebellum period. First, he
explicitly states that it is God’s will that people live together in a way that resembles “a great
affectionate family.” He then writes that people are “happy and good” when they help their
neighbor and live for themselves. The importance of helping one’s neighbor and contributing
to one’s community is also an idea that Wood links to post-Revolutionary republicanism in
the United States. He contends that, while Americans often associated virtue with valor
during the eighteenth century, they associated it more frequently with self-control and
benevolence to one’s neighbors and community members during the nineteenth century.16 In
addition, Fox’s use of the term “affectionate family” represents a more sentimental notion of
republicanism than the very stoic classical notion of republicanism.

Taylor Lewis' sermon published in 1842 also conveys a desire to be part of an

organized community.

Man, follows the law of organization which prevails throughout the
physical and moral universe, and which requires, that the perfection

of the parts can only be obtained as a member of the whole....As the
foot, says he, or the hand, when severed, no longer retain their perfection
as members of an organized system, and are no longer strictly entitled

21

to their former name, so man, when the organic whole of which he forms

a member is gone, is therefore no longer strictly man, but loses his

distinctive humanity, and sinks even below a brute. ’7
Lewis’ analogy of man’s membership in an organic whole or society to the hand or foot to
the whole body underscores the tightness he sees in the bond between the individual and the
community. The tightness of this bond also reflects the fact that he sees it as part of the “law
of organization which prevails throughout the moral universe.” The reference to “law”
indicates that Enlightenment has influenced Lewis’ idea of republicanism rather than
classical ideas. While Lewis’ view that man favors life as part of an “organic whole”
resembles some elements of early notions of republicanism, the absence of patriotism or as
martial valor as part of this community illustrates indicates that Lewis envisioned a variation
from classical republicanism.

One might conclude that the ideas in these sermons potentially threatened elements of
capitalism that included competition, the acceptance of self-interests, and the pursuit of
wealth. Sean Wilentz explains that individuals who sought to question the negative effects of
capitalist expansion on traditional trade and morals often framed their critiques in the
language Of republicanism.18 However, Ann Douglass’ study of sentimentalism and
domesticity indicates that arguments put forth by women and ministers that capitalism might
threaten the caring, benevolent, and compassionate qualities of a republic never gained
enough traction to significantly limit capitalist expansion. In addition, the hard work and
thrift that a market economy required of many individuals decreased the likelihood of
idleness, a behavior that some place at the root of corruption.

Republicanism during the antebellum period had one other distinct difference from

earlier variations. During the Revolutionary period, Americans associated republicanism with

22

limited government power. Thomas Jefferson would also embrace this idea. However, during
the antebellum period, many Americans, especially northern Whigs, associated
republicanism with a very active government since the government could play an important
role in maintaining a moral and virtuous society. This concept of republicanism manifested
itself in the idea of public schools since schools represented a govemment-sponsored
approach to promoting morality and virtue.
The Enlightenment and the Second Great Awakening

The Antebellum era idea that ordinary men could exercise virtue represents a shift
away from classical notions Of republicanism. This new thinking rested on ideas emanating
from the Enlightenment and Second Great Awakening, two movements that shaped
nineteenth-century republicanism. One, the Enlightenment, was an intellectual movement
that embraced science, logic, and rational thinking and rejected religious and supematural
explanations for events. This movement lauded some classical republican virtues of Greece
and Rome. Garry Wills’ description of the Enlightenment’s influence on Washington
illustrates how these particular Enlightenment values produced both a classical and secular
notion of republicanism during the nineteenth century. According to Wills, the United States
leaders, especially Washington, modeled their image after the classical values of ancient
Greece and Rome rather than on religion.19 Washington likened himself to leader in the
classic republican mode such as Cincinnatus since many American leaders believed the
classical models inspired much stronger loyalty and allegiance to the states than other more
religious models.20 For example, Wills explains that Washington purposely exposed his
home to the British as an act Of self-sacrifice and a model that would inspire others to engage

in self-sacrifice for the new American state. He attributes Washington’s decision to

23

voluntarily surrender the presidency after two terms as a way to gain popularity indirectly.
Washington, Wills contends, hoped to become a secular symbol of government close to the
vision held by his fellow Virginians.21 The desire to model his image around secular
governments and heroes from antiquity illustrates how the secular values of the
Enlightenment inspired a more classical idea of citizen during the antebellum period.

While reviving classical notions of republicanism represented one side of the
Enlightenment that followers in America embraced, they also embraced another part that
emphasized new ideas about human nature. Like John Locke, they believed individuals
resembled blank slates that could be trained and educated. Intellectuals such as Jefferson,
Benjamin Rush, and Noah Webster, inspired by these new ideas and assumptions about
human nature, took greater stock in the possibility of creating virtuous citizens through
education.22 Enlightenment ideas also broadened the spectrum of who could be trained as
citizens. Kim Tolley argues that educators believed women performed better as mothers and
auxiliary citizens with an education, including instruction in the natural sciences.23 Educators
such as Horace Mann increasingly believed that such an education was not only possible but
also essential to America because they believed knowledge could be biologically transferred
from one generation to the next.24 By educating women, a nation could increase the
intelligence and morality of its population. Thus in the United States, the Enlightenment
manifested itself in the idea of education, especially public education, as a tool for
maintaining the survival of a more egalitarian idea of republicanism in nineteenth-century
America.

The Enlightenment, although a secular movement, complemented other ideologies

shaping the American cultural landscape such as the religious evangelism. Many scholars

24

have already shown how religious evangelism and Enlightenment ideas complemented each
other. Henry May illustrates how a more religious centered variant of the Enlightenment, or
what he called the didactic variant of the Enlightenment, animated the thinking of most
Americans. According to May, this variant of the Enlightenment comprised a blend of
scientific and religious ideas where science was invoked to rationalize God’s existence.25
More specifically, this strand of the Enlightenment operated on the assumption that, by
improving one’s logic and reasoning skills through education, one could become more moral.
This idea manifests itself in American society in several ways. In the introductions of
many antebellum-era textbooks, the authors often described history as a science or a source
of truth that led students to appreciate God’s will. It also inspired reformers who called for a
system of public schools to increase the religiosity and morality of students by improving
their intelligence and capacity for logical thinking abilities. Finally, it influenced the way that
intellectuals and reformers spoke about the qualities of a community and a nation. Society
increasingly was defined as a community of people who subscribed to similar religious and
philosophical principles. Such an idea produced a more intellectual and religious notion of

virtue than the more martial classical notion.

The following sermon illustrates how intellectuals drew on ideas rooted in religion
and the Enlightenment when advancing ideas of what a republic should resemble during the

nineteenth century.

But there is an exalted and permanent condition of society, I call it the
highest condition, which is perfectly accordant with distinct and complete
individualism. It is where the whole man is developed, and the higher
powers of his nature exercise their lawful supremacy. In this case he acts
not like a barbarian from his passions and his will, but from reason and
conscience. The one refuting the idea, that men are held together merely
by a gregarious instinct, shows him the true foundation of social union

in those broad principles of brotherhood revealed by Christianity. The

25

other declares his eternal obligations to the right. He preserves his

individualism in accordance with the state because he is himself

a state. He has learned self-government and he knows how to rule

and how to obey.26
Chapin, like other writers, never explicitly uses the word republic. However, he contends that
society reaches its highest condition when individuals follow their “reason and conscience.”
Through self-government (both personal and public) virtue, so important to a republic, means
acting in a rational and thoughtful manner. Such a notion Of virtue, with its emphasis on logic
and reason, reflects the Enlightenment’s influence on nineteenth-century republicanism.
Chapin’s allusion to Christianity as the source of social union and brotherhood also indicates
that religiosity, as well as reason, had crept into the meaning of virtue. The merging together
of Christianity, brotherhood, and reason illustrates how the nineteenth-century would witness
a more intellectual, moral, but much less martial notion of civic virtue. This more intellectual
idea virtue would influence the notion of citizenship antebellum era schools sought to teach
students, especially high schools.

D.D. Huntington's 1859 election-day sermon also reflects a more intellectual notion
of republicanism that places less value on unquestioned loyalty to the state.

It is not attachment to the parchment of a constitution, to the letter of

an instrument, to the visible insignia of authority, to a strip of painted cloth

at a mast-head....It is not a personal interest in the people of the nation,

for most of one's fellow citizens are unknown, and the few that are met

awaken no special regard. Instituted ideas,-as justice, power, protection,

organized into a government, and lifted up for the defense of the country,

are what inspire intelligent loyalty, and at the same time have their perfect veneration
in the person Of God.”
Huntington expresses his ambivalence toward a more martial notion of patriotism

characteristic of classical republicanism by rejecting loyalty driven by an attachment to a

flag, a constitution, or some other symbol of a nation state. He instead praises loyalty as

26

“instituted ideas” such as “justice” and Christianity, thus conveying a more intellectual
notion of virtue that is rooted in religion as well as in the Enlightenment.

While the Enlightenment facilitated the emergence of a new kind of republicanism
built around the idea that many could acquire virtue, it also allowed characteristics of
classical republicanism to thrive. Many educators believed that requiring students to exercise
and live healthier lives increased their intelligence and morality. Although no writer
promoting physical education explicitly mentions Larnarck, his idea that one can improve an
individual’s intelligence and morality through exercise and health are ofien repeated.28 Thus
by using science to increase morality and virtue not to mention a citizen’s ability to serve
effectively in the military shows how ideas associated with the Enlightenment might
complement ideas associated with republicanism. This strain of republicanism more closely
resembled the martial and patriotic idea of virtue that typified classical republicanism than
the more sentimental version. Thus reformers such as Mann, who believed that educational
institutions Should become places that promote exercise, wove together elements of the
newer idea of republicanism with the older classical ideal.

The Second Great Awakening and Republicanism

The religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening created the social
conditions for a brand of republicanism that emphasized social equality. According to Nathan
Hatch, the Second Great Awakening appeared on the American landscape at the turn of the
century when a growing market economy, working in tandem with a more mobile
population, led to the spread of new religious ideas. These new ideas also spread during the
early nineteenth century when denominations associated with the Great Awakening

organized schools to increase their membership. Lawrence Cremin illustrates this by

27

explaining that the Methodist church established schools to increase its membership during a
time of denominational competition. This use of schools by the Methodists and other
Protestant denominations laid a framework for a system of common schools.29 David Tyack
explains that in rural areas, denominational competition coupled with a market driven
economy propelled the spread of schools during the nineteenth century; and with it the spread
republican ideology. Connected to the expansion of church associated schools was the
Sunday school movement or efforts of volunteer teachers to teach children who could not
afford the academies how to read. Part Of this came about from the fear of the spread of
Catholicism.

Defined by a number of charismatic individuals such as Joseph Smith, father of the
Mormons, and up—state New York preacher Charles Finney during the Early National Period,
religions associated with the Second Great Awakening embraced ideals similar to
Enlightenment assumptions and values related to equality. Perfectionism, the notion that
anyone can be saved, comprised one of the fundamental tenets of this religious movement.
This fit well with the Enlightenment idea that all individuals are blank slates who can be
educated. It is this idea that made the Protestant denominations of the Second Great
Awakening different from earlier American Protestantism rooted in Calvinism with its idea
of innate depravity and man’s inability to change. In addition, its adherents organized camp
meetings, embraced religious experimentations, and accepted non-traditional clergy. As a
result, greater numbers of peOple rejected the authority of clergy associated with more
established churches and embraced the ideas of itinerant ministers.

Many followers of the Second Great Awakening also embraced greater social, racial

and gender equality.30 God, they believed, saw men and women of all races and social classes

28

as equals. Utopian societies such as the Shakers created communities that distributed
governing power equally among members. Followers of the new values associated with the
Second Great Awakening subscribed to the idea that good works rather than membership in
the elect determined whether one would be saved. Such a movement contributed to a milieu
of minimal tolerance of established inequality.

A new idea of virtue emerged from reformers inspired by the Second Great
Awakening that in some ways resembled classical notions of virtue yet in other ways differed
from it. Self-control, especially when exercising military virtue, comprised an important part
of classical notions of virtue. Discipline and self-control also comprised an important
component during the antebellum period. However, North Americans defined virtue as the
resistance to indulgence, liquor, friendliness and respect to neighbors, and the pursuit of self-
improvement rather than military bearing. Thus the meaning of citizen had begun to evolve
from the eighteenth-century idea of martial valor to an idea of martial valor to one that
emphasized self-control.

During the 18305 and 18405 the Second Great Awakening, which had inspired camp
revivals and other non-traditional religious practices, became more respectable as members
of the middle class began to embrace its tenets. Paul Johnson writes that the idea of
perfectionism gave birth to the temperance movement, a reform that the middle class valued
since it facilitated social control and order.31 Wilentz shows that evangelism during the 1820s
and 1830s attracted artisans since its connection with temperance made it a tool to improve
workplace efficiency and productivity in the emerging market economy. 32 Evangelism also
inspired middle-class Americans to launch the common school movement, prison reform, the

abolitionist movements as well as other reform. Tyack writes that reformers wanted to create

29

a “God’s Kingdom on earth” through their reform efforts that included the establishment of
schools.33 Women made up the ranks of many of these reformers, especially in the
temperance movement, the abolitionist movement, and the push for common schools. As a
result of these reforms, notions of citizen also changed to include those actively involved
with social reform. This new notion even included women who exercised virtue as reformers,
though not as voters.

Many ideas associated with the Second Great Awakening clashed as well as
complemented nineteenth-century republicanism. Sometimes loyalty to country, an idea
associated with republicanism, conflicted with fealty to God. For example followers of the
Latter Day Saints left the United States and formed their own community in present-day
Utah. This conflict also manifested itself in the refusal of abolitionists to recognize the
legitimacy of the Constitution since it protected slavery. In these instances the religious
convictions of individuals led them to question their loyalty to the United States, an act
which conflicts with republicanism. The decision of some reformers to place their religious
principles ahead of loyalty to the state illustrates how the idea of equality associated with the
Second Great Awakening sometimes conflicted with loyalty to the republic. However, as
many scholars note, schools during the nineteenth century played an important role in
equating loyalty to God with loyalty to the United States by teaching students that the United
States was God’s chosen nation.34 This illustrates another way that the Second Great
Awakening, through education, reshaped republicanism in antebellum America from its
American Revolution era character.

Education during the nineteenth century served many functions. It created a shared

set of values around the ideology of republicanism, the Great Awakening, the Enlightenment,

30

and market-place values such as sense of community among Americans, a respect for
property, a respect for law, a respect for reason, and a desire, for discipline, and obedience
among citizens. Justification for public education rested on the Second Great Awakening and
the Enlightenment belief that all people had the capacity to become moral, intelligent, and
productive citizens. Public education, by increasing literacy among the masses, also
represented a solution to reducing social and economic inequality without the need to
redistribute property or wealth. This solution appealed to both major political parties during
the antebellum period.

Nevertheless, tensions between the principles of republicanism and Christian .
evangelism, the Enlightenment philosophies, and economic liberalism economy permeated
all facets of American life. By promoting public education, an institution that embodied all of
these philosophies, education supporters also promoted an institution that amplified larger
tensions between competing notions of virtue and citizen. For example, the question of
whether public schools should promote virtue by instilling discipline or fostering intellectual
achievements mirrors the larger tension in antebellum America over the idea of the citizen as
obedient and compliant subject or the citizen as the intelligent and vigilant protector of good
government. In addition, debates over whether to make physical fitness part of the
curriculum points to tensions between classical notions of the hardy, physically fit citizen and
the more intellectual notions of citizen advanced by the Common School Journal and writers
such as Chapin.

Debates over the nature of education brought other national conflicts out into the
open. Conflicts on whether public schools should be administered locally also mirrored

larger debates in American society such as that between Northern Whigs and Democrats on

31

the level of government involvement in promoting civic virtue in a republic. Tensions over
the degree to which religion, especially Protestant Christianity, should be a part of school
curricula reflected the greater tension in antebellum society over the role that religion should
play in cultivating virtue in citizens. Reformers with nativist sentiments also made common
schools into controversial institutions by promoting them as tools to limit the influence of
Catholic immigrants on cultural life and religion in the United States. On a whole, public
schools became a microcosm for the tensions between different and competing notions of
what a citizen and what a republic should be in the United States.

During the antebellum period numerous intellectual, political, and religious
movements produced a milieu where Americans could more readily accept a more
egalitarian, less martial, and more sentimental republic. This milieu in which public
education emerged also allowed schools to accommodate a range of republican visions and
function as agents of reform. To be sure, schools conveyed some republican visions that
reinforced the traditional structure of society. However, they also featured visions of what a
republic could be and what a citizen could do that potentially undermined the power of
established authorities and institutions. Thus, by Offering students a set of choices, public
schools provided them with the tools to function as vigilant citizens capable of challenging
the expectations political leaders laid out for America. Robert Martin describes this type of
citizen as emerging during the late eighteenth century.35 Such an idea of citizen differed
considerably from the more traditional Federalist idea Of citizen embraced by Hamilton who
posited a notion of virtue where citizens placed confidence in public leaders once elected,
restraining any criticism of them.36 While Hamilton’s notion of virtue certainly manifests

itself in some educational values put forth by reformers such as Obedience, the more anti-

32

Federalists view, which emphasized vigilance, manifested itself in calls for a much more
active and informed citizen who possessed the tools to unabashedly challenge the status quo.
Education and Change

To understand how public education came to serve as the repository of different
republican visions, some which provided readers with tools to challenge the dominant power
structure, one must examine the role schools played in teaching morality in American
culture. Many scholars note that education designed for the poor and those of modest means
had existed since the colonial period. For example, New England established schools during
the seventeenth century so that more colonists could read the bible. Interestingly, while the
primary purpose of this education was to increase religiosity, it also empowered common
people to challenge biblical interpretations of ministers.37

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, many Americans viewed education as a
way to maintain civic virtue, a form of public morality, as well as promote religious morality.
School supporters such as Mann often listed these reasons when explaining why the public
needed common schools. However, despite this agreement on the importance of education in
general, no monolithic vision of what education should be existed in the United States.
Americans proffered different and sometimes competing ideas on how educational
institutions should be organized, what should students be taught, and how they should be
taught. The kind of organization a city or a community wanted Often depended on their idea
of education, their idea of a republic, what citizenship meant to them, and who ought to be a
citizen.

Schooling for children during the Early National Period remained fragmented and

localized despite calls by some reformers to set up a more centralized educational system.38

33

Philanthropic organizations, churches, districts, and associations rather than state level
institutions, funded and administered education for young children. This arrangement led to a
range of schools. Kaestle writes that reformers organized charity schools for the poor, while
white families might send their children to what he called a “tuition common school,” or a
school where parents paid a small fee. Academies existed for affluent citizens.39 This
arrangement dominated schooling during the Early National Period and kept moral training
with the parents and in the local community.
Antebellum Educational Ideas

Around 1830 a change took place in education. Part of this change came from
nativism. Immigrants from Europe and the American countryside began filling up American
cities. Increased crime and poverty accompanied this influx of immigrants."0 Kaestle argues
that this trend began in New York City during the 17905."1 Along with this, scholars note that
some Americans feared new waves of Catholic immigrants from Ireland during the 18205
and 18305, viewing Catholicism as undemocratic.42 In addition, a more general concern for
social disorder throughout American society and the inability of other social institutions such
as the family to effectively address it led many reformers to promote public education.
Gilkeson writes in his study of Providence Rhode Island that riots, especially the Hard-
Scrabble Riot of 1824, convinced members Of an emerging middle class that something had
to be done to limit social disorder. Tyack notes that the fear of riots and mobs resulting from
the Panic of 1837 led some reformers to promote common schools and take a second look at
more centralized and state-directed educational system to produce greater order."3

These events and other factors led Americans to consider a more centralized

educational system during the 18305. As the Second Great Awakening became more

34

respectable during the 18305, many middle-class Americans, especially women, came to
support and participate in reform movements such as public education. As the humanitarian
impulse emanating from the Second Great Awakening flowered, greater numbers of
Americans began to support the idea of a statewide system of education that many northern
Whigs championed. Many northern Whigs believed that the most effective way to preserve
- republicanism among the nation’s citizens during a time of major change was for the state
and federal government to take an active role in shaping people’s lives.

In addition, while many, Americans had begun to lose confidence in institutions that
normally associated with preserving social order. Nasaw writes that many reformers feared
what they saw social disorder arising not only from poverty but also from the inability of
parents to raise their children. Americans believed that the family should also play a role in
producing obedient citizens. Emma Willard, in the concluding pages of Universal History,
warned parents of the consequences of failing to discipline their children, writing “. ...and by
the laxity of discipline, leave the will of his children in an untamed condition of savage
nature.” Several articles doubted the farnily’s ability to instill discipline in children all
together and argued that only schools could instill a proper level of obedience in children.
For example, a report published in The Common School Journal concluded that public
schools should resist the temptation to expel wayward students from schools since the family
probably caused misbehavior. Public schools, the report said, also need to take up the task of
teaching obedience to students since no other institution did it.44 Nasaw even describes how
foreigners visiting the United States often commented on the unruly behavior of students and
how parents seemed unwilling to correct it.45 Samuel Hall, in Lectures on School Teaching,

echoes the concern over discipline by writing “many parents seem to have no thought beyond

35

the necessary provisions for the temporal wants of their children. Many send their children to
school to learn the manners and morals, as well as letters, which they never attempt to teach
at home.”46 Thus while some educators believed that other institutions such as the family
needed to play an important role in socializing students, many believed the United States
needed schools to fill the gaps in unmet needs. While some families resisted this intrusion
onto their domain, Kaestle contends that many welcomed schools as a tool to produce
obedient and well-behaved children.

It is this milieu of numerous social problems that led reformers to view common
schools as a check on disorder. Reformers, especially educators, defined virtue during the
antebellum period much more as personal morality. Nasaw contends that textbooks
increasingly promoted personal obedience."7 He notes that reformers such as Horace Mann
considered common schools the “best available property insurance” and goes on to argue that
schools sought to teach a strand of virtue comprised of obedience.48 Kaestle argues that city
leaders in New York also viewed schools as an “acculturation” devise which would
assimilate new immigrants and reduce crime and poverty at the same time."9 Charles Sellers
argues that common schools in different states represented attempts to prevent the general
population from challenging the status quo.50

Examples of public school supporters promoting virtue as personal morality appear in
virtually every educational journal or periodical during the antebellum period with many
featuring stories on the topic of discipline. One essay in an 1841 edition of The Common

School Journal, stressed the students should be “civil and respectful to adults.”5 1 Another

 

essay in that same issue stated that the good scholar is “punctual, diligent, obedient, and civil

and that a school’s primary function should be to produce well behaved students.”52 Still

36

another article featured in the Common School Journal argued that schools even benefited
unruly students by teaching them to behave better and preventing them from landing in
prison.53 Thus, while common schools continued to teach students a set of practical political
skills such as knowledge of government and skills that might help them in the workplace,
most reformers supported public education because it would improve morality, self-control,
and even physically fitness. Vinoskis attributes the popularity of infant schools during the
18405 to the desire of reformers to socialize children at a very early age. These children
could be as young as eighteen months.54 He notes that they became very unpopular by the
18605 when people began to believe that very young children should remain at home.55
Nevertheless, their brief popularity points to a growing acceptance of public institutions as a
means to socialize children.

Emphasis on obedience and self-control as the chief goal of education found its way
in the annual reports of schools as well as educational journals. One school superintendent in
New Jersey warned that it was imperative that schools instill a sense of morality in students
as well as cultivating the their intellectual skills “Nothing, save the fear of God, can be a
safeguard against the terrific powers of the educated mind, quickened genius, sharpened wit,
and enlightened talent, to which it is the aim our school system to give birth and manhood.56
Thus a survey of the both writing of intellectuals and the secondary literature shows that
intellectuals supported education primarily to instill morals and produce obedient community
members rather than highly skilled and intellectual scholars.

Despite their references to religious morality, reformers embraced the common
school because it was nonsectarian, open to all, and directed by the state; fitting in to the

vision of a politically egalitarian republic held by many Americans. While the northern

37

Whigs were the strongest supporters of the state-sponsored component of a common school
system, the common school’s egalitarian component also drew values from the
Enlightenment and Great Awakening that northern Democrats supported. Unlike the tuition
common school, parents paid nothing for their children to attend and unlike the charity
school, all children, not just the poor, could attend.57 In addition the common school
emphasized a more organized and regimented form of instruction that granted greater
authority to professional teachers. Finally these schools supposedly treated all social and
religious groups equally, even though many featured religious reading material.58 In his
section of the 1851 New Jersey school report, Benjamin Cory promoted public schools as an
institution that brought together students from all political backgrounds and levels of wealth.
“The sons and daughters of the wealthiest and humblest citizens occupying the same seats,
have the same rights and enjoy the same privileges. In this view of the subject I cannot but

”59 This notion of social equality reflects

express my admiration of the public schools system.
the idea that citizens of all religions, political persuasions, and classes can inhabit similar
public spaces and enjoy equality of opportunity. Thus, reformers built these schools not only
on merit-based philosophy but also on a socially inclusive philosophy.

The emergence of large school bureaucracies went hand in hand with common
schools since administrators believed bureaucracies made public schools more efficient.
Michael Katz’s study of nineteenth-century public education shows that Boston public
schools became more centralized, by adopting a school board and incorporated a
superintendent. Bureaucracies, according to Katz, also brought graded classes, organizational

hierarchies, and a more standardized process of selecting teachers to schools.60 In more rural

areas, the community sometimes played a larger role under the concept of democratic

38

localism where members helped to finance and run public schools.61 This plan worked well
in rural areas and among immigrant populations. However, reformers found it much less
effective in urban settings where both organizational efficiency and the need to strike a
balance between competing interests in the community were important. A system that
resembles modern school system structures and what Katz labeled as incipient bureaucracy
emerged from these early methods of organizing schools during the antebellum period. He
writes that along with graded classrooms, and standardized instruction, it dealt in a more
systemized manner with differing opinions on how schools should be operated that made
their way into the schools. Not everyone favored this system. Southern states rejected it
outright and many Mid-westem states only begrudgingly accepted it. However, on the eve of
the Civil War, Americans had become more accepting of structured and regimented
institutions and these institutions were in place in most Northern states.62

This idea of centrally administered school systems also manifested itself in calls for
more qualified teachers who had received professional training since good teachers were in
short supply and of poor quality. An essay in The Southern Female Messenger expressed this
sentiment by praising support for common schools throughout the United States but lamented
the absence of first-rate colleges to train women as teachers.63 During the 18205 and 18305,
women reformers such as Catharine Beecher, Sarah Pierce, and Emma Willard, established
schools for women with the primary goal of training teachers to fill this need.

School reformers in general embarked on the establishment of schools to train
teachers called normal schools. However, John L. Rury and others show that the
professionalization of teaching during the nineteenth century progressed very slowly with

only a few normal schools established by the mid-18505.64 Many times college students took

39

jobs as teachers without much formal training.65 Kaestle notes that perhaps twenty percent of
teachers had any kind of formal training. Reese’s study shows that instructors in secondary
schools or early high schools were usually better educated than those teaching primary
schools.66 While poorly prepared teachers taught most students, especially those attending
public or common schools, by the mid 18505, the process of effective teacher training had
begun.
The Democratic Vision Shapes Education

If Americans increasingly embraced the northern Whig concept of a more centralized
educational system during the 18305, the urban Democratic vision of greater social equality
and few privileges for elites also shaped Americans’ idea of education. While the Second
Great Awakening had a major impact on this impulse, this concept also had roots in party
politics of the Early National and the antebellum period. During this times, artisans who
often owned little or no land made the case that their special skills qualified them as citizens
in same way as land owners. Their special skills, they argued, gave them economic
independence that allowed them to act as disinterested citizens. Wilentz for example
describes how artisans in New York embraced many features of republican ideology such as
equality among citizens, virtue, cooperation, and responsibility to the whole community.
Artisans and their trade guilds saw themselves as the bulwark against threats to liberty by
maintaining the independence of its members.67

When artisans saw their wages decline during the 1820s and 18305 and their
independence threatened, many cast their grievances in republican language. They called on
the emerging class of entrepreneurs to uphold their republican responsibility and pay a “just

price” so that a class of artisans could maintain their economic independence and uphold

40

republican values. Several nineteenth-century writers illustrate Wilentz’s argument. The
language of republicanism comes through in William Manning’s The Key of Liberty when
he explains how self-interest, corruption and conspiracy threatened freedom. Manning
explained specifically how bankers and merchants, through secret associations and even the
professions, amassed wealth, undermined republicanism in the United States by making
government their tool to hold power."8 The Democratic Review also featured an article that
listed the growth of banks and the subsequent rise in land speculation as a major moral
concern in an 1837 issue, linking banking institutions to avarice and the loss of republican
values.69 The Working Man's Advocate throughout the 18305 and 18405 also attacked banks
and in one essay labeled them as “non producers” which used their money stocks to buy
products and then sell them at a higher price.70

The Working Man's Advocate also featured an essay by Subterranean editor Mike
Walsh entitled “Agrarianism.” In this essay, Walsh claimed that all citizens had an equal
right to the soil and warned that this right was threatened by "plundering capitalists."71 An
essay in The Western Quarterly Review lists the concentration of farm land in the hands of a
few as a serious problem in the United States and argues that the republic would be better
served if farm land was divided into small farms.72 Thus schools emerged during a time when
many Americans viewed social equality as an important societal goal and viewed capitalist
institutions as a threat to a republic.

The large number of articles that speak disparagingly of those in society that
possessed great amounts of wealth illustrates a desire to rid the United States of major social

distinctions. Writers in journals sympathetic to small farmers and artisans such as the

ngrig Man’s Advocate used the term “aristocrat” rather than “middling sort” to classify

41

those in occupations associated with an expanding capitalist economy such as bankers,
merchants, wholesalers, wealthy land owners or any other American who might be affluent.
An 1849 issue of The American Citizen, in a short essay entitled “aristocracy,” illustrates the
broad but disparaging meaning authors attached to the term. The essay contends that
aristocrats “are men-we blush to call them men-who turn their noses at the mechanic and
humble laborer...There are women, too who laugh at the poor and industrious, who learn
trades or work in a factory for a living.”73 This definition of aristocrat includes not only
landed elite citizens and wealthy merchants but of all individuals wealthy enough to avoid
work.

The Working Man's Advocate also disparaged wealthy land-owning elite citizens in

 

antebellum America by labeling them “aristocrats.” An 1844 issue of Working Man's
Advocate described a parade at a young Whigs convention as “Aristocrats of all sorts,” and
thus associated the term with a political party they opposed. The essay not only labeled
bankers, lawyers, brokers, and “Cotton Lords” as aristocrats but also put them on the same

”74An essay in The American

level with “loungers,” “do-nothings” and “slave drivers.
_C_iti_zgn_, which never used the term “aristocrat,” nevertheless portrayed affluent Americans in
unflattering terms. It featured an essay entitled “The Lower Class” which labeled as “low”
those people who “spend without earning” and who “consume without producing.” In fact it
labeled any wealthy citizens who might enjoy leisure time as “low.” However, it labeled
laborers, farmers, producers, artisans, and mechanics as natures “highest nobility.”75 Thus,

public schools emerged during a time when many Americans questioned social hierarchies

and demanded a way to end them. By disparaging active participants in a capitalist economy

42

these journals show that many in northern society, not just textbook authors, attacked
wealthy and powerful Americans.

The supporters of the northern Whig Party often represented the interests of
businessmen and the commercial class. However, they too advanced ideas for making the
United States more egalitarian during the antebellum period, though unsurprisingly they
disliked plans to redistribute property. These writers illustrate that, while many Americans
opposed gross disparities in wealth, they also opposed radical solutions to ending it. For

example, the American Review, a magazine sympathetic to Whig issues featured an essay

 

in1848 that criticized Charles Fourier’s plan to create communities that shared property and
child rearing duties.76 Invoking the history of F ourierism, constituted one way supporters of
capitalist institutions used history closer to their own times to illustrate the dangers of
redistributing property to solve economic inequality.

The Whig party followers favored education rather than land redistribution as a way
to promote economic equality because it preserved property and protected against popular
rebellion. Whig supporter Samuel Jackson expressed this concern, writing, “education breaks
up this adhesive mass by introducing rival interests, discordance of views and independence
of thoughts, and destroys their unity in mischief.”77 Horace Mann, a one-time Whig
legislature, also believed public education discouraged citizens who lacked wealth from
resorting to agrarianism, which he defined as redistributing property, as a means to remedy
inequality of wealth.78 William Reese reports that Rev. Horace Bushnell also viewed public
education as a check on “agrarianism and the rising of the masses.” Reese goes on to write
that reformers during the antebellum period believed Americans would accept social

inequality so long as it rested on merit and if all people possessed the opportunity for

43

advancement.79 Samuel Goodrich, a textbook writer, expressed fears of producing equality
through leveling by stating in his autobiography his dislike of communal societies.80 Public
education to reformers thus represented the best of all worlds in an environment hostile to
some kinds of reform; the opportunity for social mobility and greater equality without the
threat of radical social conflict that might threaten property. Public schools contributed to
literacy rates in the United States that approached fifty percent. They provided people with a
tool to achieve social mobility, while at the same time protecting property rights and the
market. Thus for many reformers, public schools represented a peaceful and effective way to
avoid revolution and social disorder.

Several scholars note that the desire to create a middle-class republic characterized by
an absence of extreme wealth or poverty increasingly motivated the thinking of school
supporters. Both Jefferson and Jackson represented that strain of liberalism that wanted
checks on the power of the business community or at least laws that gave them no
advantage.81 This strain, according to Arthur Schlesinger, would characterize liberalism in
America during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century after taking a brief
hiatus during the decades preceding the Civil War. Throughout the antebellum period
numerous groups, essayists and intellectuals embraced causes designed to limit the power of
business. Schlesinger contends that artisan movements led by George Evans and Michael
Walsh not only spoke for artisans but also united with proponents of land reform activists to
push for land reform in western lands. Such a policy would shore up artisan wages on the
East by providing an outlet for workers in the West and eliminate the problem of surplus
labor. While Evans never realized this policy during his own life, it eventually culminated in

the Homestead Act of 1862.82 Business interests, according to Schlesinger, had opposed this

44

policy since they believed the public land should be a source of revenue for the states. In
addition, while J efi’ersonian localism influenced sentiments toward education before 1830,
Jacksonian liberalism with its emphasis on social economic equality, dislike of the
professions, and attack on privilege exerted greater influenced on debates on education after
1830.

These broader political conflicts between the major political parties on how to
strengthen a republic by reducing gross social inequality played itself out over the
educational issue of whether the public should fund secondary schools. Many reformers
expressed hope that public schools in the North could secure upward mobility for the masses,
unite social classes, and limit social conflict. However, while many reformers supported the
secondary school idea, a few Democrats saw them as tools of the rich that allowed them to
avoid paying tuition to acquire an advanced education since the first public secondary
schools did not accept everyone. The public high school proved controversial because some
Americans believed it promoted social inequality. Public high schools were few and far
between during the antebellum period with the first being established in Boston in 1821.83 NO
public high schools existed in the South before the Civil War though there were over 1,200
academies.84 Although they remained relatively small in number when compared to private
academies, high schools increased in ntunber in Northern states during the antebellum period.
By 1840 there were forty high schools and by 1865 there were 164.85

Like primary schools, reformers envisioned the public high school as nonsectarian
and open to all and based on merit. High school students took a wide range of courses during
the antebellum period, many which taught themes related to republicanism and citizenship.

High schools generally emphasized discipline and obedience much less than primary schools

45

for young students. The middle class often valued them because high schools, more so than
primary schools, represented to improve one’s social status.86 However, their selective
admission standards often created controversy and opposition to their existence, even though
they based admission on merit.

Reformers argued that secondary schools, especially high schools, for students twelve
years of age and older, facilitated the survival of a republic because such schools would
prepare students to become community leaders. Supporters of public high schools also
argued that high schools benefited a republic and only the very ignorant poor and the very
wealth opposed them. Public high school supporters even used the term “aristocrat” to
characterize those opposed to public high schools. Most opponents never fit this label.
Frederick Packard, for example was a bookseller who supported mass education but opposed
public high schools because he believed they deprived elementary schools of money. 87 Only
Charles Stuart, a wealthy Democrat who actively opposed high schools, resembled an
“aristocrat” in the traditional sense. However, although few individuals matched the
description, calling opponents to high schools “aristocrats” became a popular method of
demonizing them during the antebellum period.

Many Americans saw the high school as opposed tO republican values because of the
selectivity implicit in admission policies. In fact, the presence of the classics such as Greek
and Latin in high school courses became one reason state legislatures opposed them. In
addition, according to Reese, some school reformers believed that high schools took money
from primary schools so that more affluent citizens could receive a classical education at the
expense of taxpayers. Individual that wanted this kind of education could always attend an

academy.88 Thus for a few, high schools embodied qualities that conflicted with

46

republicanism in the sense that they did not contribute to a more egalitarian community of
citizens.

While the Whig notion of a more centralized school system gained popularity after
the 18305, some resisted this new institution. In New Jersey, several reports lamented the
lack of support in their township for public education and expressed concern for what that
might mean to the republic. Other times they embraced public education so long as it never
threatened local control of it. As Kaestle shows in his study, many Americans supported
public education but often preferred that it be organized and implemented at the local level.
Controlling schools at the local level led many individuals living in rural areas to oppose the
professionalization of teachers. While the quality of non-professional teachers might have
been low, poorly trained, transient teachers chosen by community members concentrated
power at the local level.89 Thus public education in the United States during the antebellum
period had become an amalgam of the northern Whig and Democratic vision of a republic.

Consumerism and Education

Education during the antebellum period gained popularity at a time when most
Americans feared not only threats to property rights but also the effects of un-tempered
consumerism on civic virtue. The August, 1830 issue of Annals of Education featured an
editorial that promoted the importance of limiting excessive consumerism, stating “Who does
not see daily the evidence that we need greatly to advance both in intelligence and in purity
to resist the constant temptations arising from the increase of luxury and the love of ease, the
insidious progress of exterior refinement and the constantly fresh demands for honor and

Offices and riches which these causes produce?” 90 Another essay published in an 1826 issue

 

of the Journal of Education featured an author who wrote: “allowing students too much

47

money, especially those of the wealthier class, too much money, thereby inducing them to
habits of dissipation and extravagance, highly injurious to themselves, and also the
seminaries of which they are a member.”91 John Gilkeson notes in his study of Providence
Rhode Island that reformers of this city tended to look at both the very rich and poor with
suspicion and scorn. These reformers, composed primarily of teachers, mechanics, and
shopkeepers, often labeled the very rich as “aristocrats” and the very poor as the “vicious
rabble.”92 Gilkeson also reports that many of these reformers dreamed that the United States
would become one large classless society.93 Although reformers never equated this “classless
society” with a communal society, their preference for it reflects a desire to restrain
capitalism. Thus while educators praised private property and the market, some articles in
educational journals show that the public had an ear for schooling that could counter the
market’s deleterious effects on public virtue.
Teaching Virtue as Physical Fitness

Virtue for many people during the antebellum period had come to mean benevolence,
kindness, and caring for others as well as an intellectual understanding of government.
However, a classical notion of virtue that emphasized martial valor, a very ascetic lifestyle,
and disdain for the material world, still manifested itself in nineteenth-century American
society. Educators and reformers during the antebellum period supported a high degree of
toughness and physical fitness in students as much as they supported intellectually oriented
curricula. Some educators wanted to instill a certain degree of toughness into students
because they believed this would increase their intelligence and morality. The 1826 issue of
the American J ourn_a1 of Education featured an essay that called for more physical education

in the classroom, writing “another defect in the present system, is, neglect in all our principal

48

seminaries, of physical education, or the cultivation and improvements of the physical
powers of the students?” Another essay features in an 1830 issue of the Annals of Education
lauded the benefits of physical labor to a student’s education, writing “In every age of the
world individuals have been found who united bodily labor with mental exertion, and thus in
measure prevented the long train of evils which too often attend the student, and bring them
to an early grave.” The Child’s Friend, which featured a story describing examples of
manliness, praised one young one boy for enduring an amputation. An article in an 1840
issue of The Common School journal highlighted the benefits of physical education and
implied that greater physical fitness might also increase intelligence along with morality.
Several articles indicate that schools needed this type of education to counteract excessive
consumerism in students. An article in an 1855 edition of the Southern Quarterly Review
even went so far as to argue that schooling that improved one’s physical fitness to the point
where one became a good hunter or warrior, exceeded one that improved one’s intellect.95

The goal of preparing students for life in a meritocracy and market-driven economy
remained a central goal for public schools. However, many reformers believed that schools
needed to counteract some of the market’s negative qualities such as excessive consumerism
while also cultivating republican sentiments. A rigorous program of exercise and physical
exertion helped to achieve both of these goals. It appealed to the market place values of
deferred gratification and self-improvement while strengthening individuals who might have
grown “soft” from too many luxuries. It also showed that there was an ear in some quarters
for a very strict and regimented education in a republic. Thus while incorporating the

ideology of republicanism, especially classical republicanism into school curricula

49

sometimes conflicted with modern economic and political values, it could also reinforce
them.
Civic Virtue Applied to Women

As republicanism increasingly became associated with benevolence and caring during
the nineteenth century, Americans began to view women as the purveyors of the morals
necessary to ensure that citizens could exercise virtue. However, for women to achieve this,
reformers argued that they needed some type of education. Most educational journals
emphasized the importance of an education for women as well as men. The Anrgrls of
Education writes “No effort is perhaps more important than to educate that sex who are
destined to give the infant mind its first impression.” 96 Many shared this sentiment.
However, while journals believed women as well as men needed an education, they also
stated that schools should prepare them for their traditional roles as mothers.

Sentimentalism, or the belief that women harbored and promoted softer notions of
virtue, emerged as the dominant view of women’s nature.97 Because of this view, early
proponents of women’s education such as Sarah Pierce discovered that they needed to
convince Americans that an education, especially a rigorous education, would not destroy a
woman’s feminine nature. Thus educating women never meant preparing them for new
opportunities in the traditionally male world.

Although sentimentalism animated the thinking of most advocates for women’s
education during nineteenth century, one can find educational methods that offered an
alternative to the sentimental republican mother. Echoing classical notions of virtue, some
reformers proposed a more masculine version of republican motherhood. William Reese

notes that educators debated whether boys and girls should attend secondary schools

50

together. Although this never meant that schools actively discouraged sentimentalism in
female students outright, it does show that they favored a curriculum that would temper it.
The Grand Rapids Michigan school system also expressed this feeling in 1858 when it stated
the following:
As far as our experience extends, the most decided and marked advantage results
from the co-education of the sexes. The male sex are humanized, refined by the
presence of woman, while the latter lose much of that mawkish, false sensibility so
extremely objectionable under any circumstances.“98
Although the school retained elements of sentimentalism, the allusion to “humanizing males”
and ending the “mawkish” sensibility of females shows that the report favored an approach to
teaching that tempered some behaviors traditionally associated with men and women of this
time to produce a more androgynous person. In a report for the Niles School District, Samuel
Niles writes “Where the sexes are educated together, they are more ambitious to be in order,
and prompt in their recitations; are more easily governed, and make better progress.” 99
While no ringing condemnation of sentimentalism, this passage nevertheless illustrates
support for a learning environment where males and females are taught the same subjects.
The Dexter Union Schools also supported co-education in 1858, stating
I have to say that I am of the opinion that the sexes should invariably be trained
together. I have remarked that boys, when educated by themselves, early become
uncouth and rough in their habits and deportment, and generally throw off, to a great
extent, the moral restraint inculcated into their minds by fond parents and kind
teachers. Girls, too, need to see much of the society of the opposite sex, to prevent
them from becoming too coyish and simpering. I apprehend that teachers find it an
easier task to keep order in the school-room, from the fact that the presence of each
sex operates as a restraining influence upon the other to deter wrong-doing. '00

Here, the school board’s enthusiasm for co-education reflects uneasiness with excessive

sentimentalism in female students and the coarse demeanor of male students. It shows that

51

educators sought to limit some of the stereotypical behaviors associated with nineteenth-
century women and men and indicates that notions of virtue for women varied and that
classical, more stoic notions of virtue, still had a place for women in antebellum United
States.

Linda Kerber, also shows that Americans embraced a less sentimental notion of
woman as citizen at different points in its history. For example she notes that immediately
after the American Revolution, the image of the Spartan mother acted as a model for
American women in a republic.”l Jan Todd’s book The Body Beautiful, shows that some
reformers envisioned a less sentimental view of woman. When debating the nature of
physical education for women, some concluded that women could perform rigorous physical
exercise just as well as men during the 18205.102 She notes that Sara Pierce, who organized
one of the first female seminaries, made physical fitness part of the students’ daily
regimenm Todd also notes, however, that after the 18205 very few Americans embraced the
notion that women as well as men could engage in rigorous exercise. Nevertheless, the fact
that some reformers countenanced masculine activity for women indicates the existence of an
alternative to sentimentalism favored by most Americans. Finally, Douglass notes that
Margaret Fuller adopted a writing style that defied sentimentalism.104 Thus while the
curricula in schools often promoted the dominant ideologies, they also exposed students to
alternative ideals to the dominant ideology and produced and alternative to the dominant
view of a woman and a man’s role in a republic.

Varying Teaching Methods
During the antebellum period, educators often associated virtue with discipline and

obedience as well as benevolence and empathy.105 Many believed teaching these values

52

should constitute the main objective of common schools. However, beginning during the
18305 and 18405 educators increasingly offered differing views on how schools should
achieve this. The Common School Journg featured an essay that warned teachers not to
resort to corporal punishment too quickly when attempting to maintain classroom
discipline.106 The essay called on teachers to show students the errors of their ways when
they misbehave as a method to control them. Horace Mann in the Common School Joumal
argued that by teaching students “self government,” they would better understand the role of
their own government. He favored an educational approach that encouraged students to
internalize and monitor their own behavior. Intellectuals and educators increasingly
encouraged teachers to use corporal punishment less. The Common School Journal also
featured an article that criticized “overbearing and unsympathetic” approaches to rearing
children. ’07 Tolley notes that educators increasingly favored Pestalozzi’s “more experimental
approach” to learning rather than rote learning. She contends that the American Annals of
Education featured articles on Pestalozzi’s methods during the 18305.’08 Tolley even notes
that textbook author Emma Willard favored this approach for her school. Another essay
suggested that teachers “make students aware of the purpose of teaching and school” as a
way to inspire greater effort.109 In essence educators by the 18305 and 18405 increasingly
adopted methods that taught students to police themselves rather than methods that relied on
teachers’ threats. Such an approach echoed the more intellectual and sentimental notions of
citizen that emerged during the antebellum period having roots in the Enlightenment and
Second Great Awakening.

One also finds that during this time disagreement over how tough parents and

teachers should be in raising children. Many teachers wanted corporal punishment to remain

53

an option but also valued the use of moral suasion as a means to control students.l ’0 Thus
while most educators during the nineteenth century agreed that schools should produce
disciplined and well-behaved students, they were leery of advocating harsh and intimidating
approaches to instilling this discipline and obedience.

Sometimes educators disagreed on whether certain methods of motivating students
nurtured the republican values schools were supposed to teach students. For example, Reese
shows that supporters of high school education debated the use of emulation, a teaching
which Reese described as the “desire to excel and surpass all others” as an acceptable
approach to motivating students. 1 H This strategy involves rewarding or recognizing students
when they perform well on a particular class lesson. Supporters of this approach believed
positive recognition or “emulation” would spur students to work harder. It also fit well with
the emerging idea that success should be based on merit. However, Samuel Hall, in his
Lectures on Good School Teaching, argued that this method encouraged too much
competition, ambition, and pride.112 Although he never mentions it, his opposition can be
understood in the sense that competition and ambition ran counter to the idea of virtue as
caring and benevolence toward one’s fellow citizen. Hall instead favored an educational
approach that cultivated a love of learning within the students’ minds, especially science, and
favored an education that taught students how to apply the knowledge they learned. The
practice of emulation satisfied none of these goals. These debates over education techniques
and the kind of students they produce illustrate not only tensions between maintaining an
ordered society and individualism but also differences in the type of republic reformers

during the antebellum period envisioned. Some reformers envisioned a disciplined republic

54

where individual behavior was controlled. Others, such as Samuel Jackson and Chapin,
however, imagined a republic that embraced individuality.

Disagreements on the nature of education also emerged in articles commenting on
the proper literature educators should use in the classroom. Promoting literature and literacy
presented reformers with a conundrum. On one hand reformers viewed literacy as essential to
increasing morality, religiosity and social control. Increased literacy, however, gave readers
access to information that allowed them to question the authorities’ policy. Hatch notes that
increased printed material facilitated the spread of ideas that undermined the established
clergy’s influence in American society.1 '3

Some writers addressing strategies to increase literacy lauded the virtues of reading
materials students might find interesting. Samuel Goodrich began writing and publishing
textbooks because he himself disliked school and believed that a new kind of textbook would
more effectively motivate students. However, other articles warned educators about exposing
students to material they might enjoy too much. Rev. Dr. Babcock, in 1838 essay complained
that schoolbooks catered too much to children’s need for amusement.l ’4 Samuel Hall in
Lectures on Good School Teaching warned both parents and young teachers alike of the
dangers of “light reading,” contending that

neither parents nor instructors are sufficiently awakened to the prevalent light

reading of the day. Nothing is accounted interesting to a class of reader but that which

abounds with incident, adventure, and catastrophe. A love-tale or something of

similar character, is woven into almost everything written for the young, and has

charms for many greater than a book of travels, voyages, history, or geography.

To such, a scientific book has few charms. “5

Hall’s statement indicates that some reformers feared an education if it exposed students to

literature that appealed to emotions and passions. He preferred that students instead read

55

literature that taught science or moral lessons. Thus some writers who wanted to improve
education during the antebellum period also believed schools and teachers should avoid
providing students too much amusing literature. Thus reformers came to believe that
education could facilitate social unrest as well as social order, depending on what books,
newspapers or journals readers had access to.

Two opposing ideas about how to produce citizens flowed from these views on what
students should read in classrooms. On one hand, some reformers sought to advance
knowledge while simultaneously restricting knowledge they believed might corrupt students.
Soltow illustrates this tension in his study by explaining that reformers both promoted
literacy as a virtue while also warning instructors to monitor what students read.1 '6 It also
illustrates how educators, in debating the nature of education, exposed students to several
possible ideas on how much intellectual freedom a republic should allow its citizens. While
exposing students to wide range of literature might reflect a more intellectual notion of
citizen, censoring materials parallels some practices employed by Sparta that represents a
classical notion of citizen and shows that reformers worried about unintended changes caused
by education.

Supporters of education also debated what courses high schools should teach
students. Cremin, contends that Benjamin Rush and John Adams wanted Latin banned from
the schools. Jefferson wanted natural history emphasized while Adams preferred the
classics.1 ’7 As it worked out many students took a course in World or Universal history. ”8
Such a course covered the history of early civilizations such as Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
Several also covered the history of Europe during the Middle Ages and might even cover the

history of early France and the American Revolution.

56

Toward the end of the antebellum period greater numbers of students took United
States history. Along with Universal or World history, students sometimes took a course in
Greek history or local history. Students also took courses in mathematics, Latin, and later
drawing. Public high schools throughout the antebellum period featured courses congenial to
a market economy. Many high schools required students to take a course in a subject called
political economy. In this course most students used a textbook by Wayland that taught
readers values compatible with a market economy such as the importance of protecting
property rights and the value of incentive to labor. After the Civil War high schools began to
focus more on vocational skills. Thus high schools gave students an education designed to
produce a different kind of citizen than that produced by the common school at the primary
level. Following the American Civil War schools increasingly featured fewer courses in the
classics and began to offer more vocational oriented courses.

Education and Regionalism

Attitudes toward public education in the United States differed significantly by
region. While Americans in the Northeast embraced the common school concept, those in
other places resisted it. Kaestle argues that in the Midwest people often opposed plans by the
state to use money for education, preferring that public education be funded at the local level.
I '9 Despite a few common school reform movements led by Calvin Wiley in North Carolina
and Robert Breckenridge in Kentucky, most southemers opposed public education.120 Tyack
notes that southern leaders believed that common schools would threaten, rather than
strengthened the existing political order.121 They even feared textbooks published in the
North on account that they might introduce students to subversive ideas. 122 One essay

published in the Southern (Lugrterly Review argued that the expansion of schools had not

57

improved public morality, reduced corruption, or reduced the number of individuals
incarcerated. The article went on to say that “an education merely gives an immoral man
more tools and more power to do mischief.” ’23 Thus outside of the Northeast the commons
school movement sometimes faced very tepid support.

In the South, few supported educating African Americans. However, African
Americans in the North also saw limited educational opportunities. Kaestle notes that while
African Americans could receive some form of education, their schools were usually
segregated from white students and dependents on philanthropists and benefactors to support
them. As a result, this bias and prejudice produced resistance to efforts to centralize public
schooling by not only Catholics but also African Americans.

Perhaps the strongest resistance to common schools came from Catholics who
believed they threatened their religious convictions despite claims to the contrary from
common school supporters. Numerous scholars have shown the existence of rampant
discrimination against Catholics and other religious groups during the antebellum period and
beyond. One regional report submitted in the New Jersey School report went so far as to list
countering the negative effects of “Romanism” as one of the school’s objectives. '24 In
addition Catholic priests such as Bishop Hughes complained that common schools held an
“improper monopoly.” ’25 Furthermore, many Catholics argued that schools with a secular
orientation could not hope to teach morals and voiced concern that a common school system
would encroach on the parents’ domain and responsibilities. Catholics in general often
complained about bible reading from Protestant texts in common schools and proposed that

they receive funding to start their own schools.

58

Displeasure with the common school system led only a few hundred Catholic children in
New York to attend that city’s common schools during the 18305.126 Most gravitated to
church sponsored schools which had no Protestant bias. Ultimately, a more centralized
educational system asserted itself throughout the antebellum period. However, it was a
negotiated process, occurring in fits and starts since many Catholic Americans feared schools
rrright be used as a tool by the dominant culture to swallow them up and marginalize them.
As a way to convince Catholics and small communities to accept a statewide system,
Protestant and nativists toned down their rhetoric and for less politically ideological schools.
This vision of limited government would continue to persist among many Americans during
the antebellum period and would animate the sentiments of those opposed to a more
centralized and state directed educational system.
Conclusion

Eventually, the antebellum period witnessed the struggle and eventual triumph of
reformers outside of the South to set up a system of common schools that bore the mark of a
modern state. Greater regimentation in classrooms, increased teacher training, and
discussions among educators on how to motivate students, modify behavior and internalize
discipline accompanied the emergence of common schools. Reformers not only hoped to
produce citizens who knew the workings of government but also citizens who were moral,
obedient, disciplined, industrious, strong and self-controlled. This obedience would not
necessarily be blind. Reformers such as Horace Mann wanted students to internalize
discipline so that they understood the logic of obedient behavior. Reformers hoped this
system would produce a stable, relatively homogenous republic where success rested on

merit and where only marginal differences in wealth existed.

59

Reformers viewed public education as an ideal solution to a host of problems. Public
education, as many of its promoters imagined it, would provide opportunities for upward
mobility while discouraging the desire for radical social revolution. It would prepare the
masses for responsible citizenship and would convince America’s diverse population to live
together peacefully. Public education would produce one amicable and harmonious republic.

However, this institution, viewed as a tool to produce social harmony, also became
the vehicle for instigating debates on numerous sensitive topics. This is in part due to its
connection to republicanism, an ancient political ideology conceived as a model for small
political entities composed of socially equal citizens who played an equal role in governing
their state. On one hand republicanism helped to justify the schools’ existence since virtue
constituted an important ingredient of republicanism and schools played an essential role in
cultivating it in students. However, by cultivating virtue and teaching the importance of other
republican ideas such as equality and community, schools exposed America to ideas that
often conflicted with an emerging market ideology, individualism, and social inequality that
sometimes accompanied a market economy. In addition, they exposed students to the feat
that learning the wrong ideas could threaten the existing culture. In essence, applying this
classical political ideology to nineteenth-century America, a much larger political entity with
many more individuals demanding the status of citizen than the Greek city-states, raised
important questions about the kind of nation America would become. It raised questions on
the meaning of equality, individuality, who should be a citizen, what should be expected of
Citizens and the relationship between local and state governments.

With the teaching of republicanism so much a part of its mission, public education’s

emergence led to greater discussion of these questions. Americans debated the questions of

60

who should be educated and how much control should government have over the instruction
of children. For example, some local groups and individuals resisted this centralizing trend in
education because it intruded on local or parental authority. The rise of public education also
sparked debate on issues related to social equality and fairness since reformers justified them
on the basis that they would produce a more egalitarian society. Educators themselves often
put forth different approaches to instructing and motivating students that reflected their
different ideas of citizen and how to produce them. These differing views on common
schools as well as the methods of instruction reflect frmdamental differences within the
United States on what a republic ought to be and how citizens ought to be produced. Many
scholars have described early public education as striving to create consensus in American
society. However, it often functioned as a vehicle for initiating debate on the fundamental
nature of the American republic during the nineteenth century. While public education in
many ways successfully shaped culture in a way that limited social revolution, it also laid a
foundation for significant social change by precipitating discussion of topics considered

taboo.

61

Chapter Two
History in American Culture during the Antebellum Period

Numerous scholars have shown how Americans during the revolutionary period
used history to convey their particular vision of what a citizen and what a republic ought
to be. Drew McCoy and Gordon Wood explain how eighteenth century Americans
invoked the ancient republics of Greece and Rome as alternatives to an increasingly
market driven society. Linda Kerber notes that tum-of the-century Americans looked to
Sparta for a model republican motherhood. Garry Wills shows how Americans during the
Early National Period looked to the past, especially ancient Greece and Rome, for models
of citizenship and manhood. However, few studies have examined why American writers
during the antebellum period used the history of classical civilizations to convey their
visions of a republic.

Just like eighteenth-century writers, antebellum era writers invoked ancient
civilizations when describing their ideal republic. However, Americans during the
antebellum period formulated their vision in a much different context. As chapter one
explains, the United States had become a large nation with many new voters by the
nineteenth century. In addition, public educational institutions were emerging along with
debates on how they should be paid for, how they should be administered, who should be
taught, and how students should be taught. The role of women in a republic also began to
change as Americans increasingly believed they too should be educated. The United
States was expanding westward at the expense of Mexico and Native Americans while

artisans and workers clashed with their employers over wages and economic equality.

62

Although the United States was evolving into a modern nation, Americans continued to
find meaning and wisdom in the experiences of ancient republics.

This chapter illustrates how nineteenth-century Americans incorporated the
history of ancient republics, especially and surprisingly Sparta (which resembled a
military camp), into their discussions of what America should become. No one reason
explains their usage as metaphors however. While early nineteenth-century Americans
cited ancient republics to highlight the virtues of an alternative lifestyle to consumerism,
others cited ancient republics when showing the importance of social equality to a
republic. In addition, some nineteenth-century Americans invoked ancient republics to
promote a notion of citizen that embraced self sacrifice and a virtuous death for men.1
Still others, used ancient republics as a foil to highlight the sentimental qualities of
nineteenth century notions of citizen.

According to the analysis of McCoy, Wood, and Pocock, eighteenth-century
social conservatives such as Sam Adams believed the ancient republics represented some
of the most the most desirable qualities of a republic. Whether in sermons, journals,
magazines, or some other written tracts, they used history, especially ancient history, to
reinforce their views on empire, the role of women, the ideal education, and social
equality as well as the dangers of a commercial society. However, by the nineteenth
century, social reformers and those who supported radical social change, as opposed to
social conservatives, viewed ancient republics as models to emulate. In this sense, history

itself had become a tool of reform, rather than reaction, in the broader American culture.

History and the Expansion of America

63

According to McCoy, Rome symbolized the danger of expansionism to a republic
for many eighteenth-century Americans because historically, expansionism led to moral
decay of a republic’s citizens.2 During the antebellum period, Rome still symbolized this
idea. This is seen during the United States’ war with Mexico which lasted from 1845 to
1848. Many Americans, especially Whigs, spoke out against this conflict. Some Whigs
opposed the war for less than noble reasons. Many disliked it because they felt
Democratic president Polk unfairly reaped most of the credit for military successes.
Others feared that annexation of Mexican territory would lead non-whites to become part
of the American polity. Many, however, said that expansion through conquest conflicted
with republican principles, especially since it violated the principle of self government.3
To express their discontent they integrated the history of Rome’s decline into their
speeches and letters. For example, an essay in The New Engl_and Mgagazine cites Rome
along with other civilizations as an example of how conquest produces little benefit for a
country.

The history of the world has proved, that neither happiness, nor power,

nor wealth is likely to be commensurate with a very extensive empire; but

the reverse in each particular is more frequently the result. Thus it was

with the Persian, the Macedonian and the Roman empires.‘

Although the political leanings of the author are unknown, the New England Magazine

often featured articles sympathetic to the Whig party. During the 18305 when this article
was written, the United States had already expanded into the West at the expense of the
Native Americans. Americans also had settled in Mexico’s northern territories (present-

day Texas) and in 1835 would launch a war for independence. Thus by exposing readers

to the story of how ancient civilizations caused their own decline by conquering other

64

nations, this article reinforced the argument made by some Americans that the United
States should not aggressively expand into the West.
Thomas Corwin, a Whig senator from Kentucky, also illustrates how Rome

signified the dangers of empire by citing it in a letter to President Polk.

Rome thought as you now think, that it was her destiny to conquer provinces and

nations, and no doubt she sometimes said as you say ‘I will conquer a peace,’ and

where is she now, the Mistress of the World? The spider weaves his web in her

palaces, the owl sings his watch songs in her towers. Teutonic power now lords

over the remnant, the miserable memento of old and once omnipotent Rome?
In this passage, Corwin compares Polk’s reasoning behind his decision to wage war
against Mexico with the same reasoning Rome used when it embarked on a plan to build
an empire, writing “Rome thought as you now think, that it was her destiny to conquer
provinces and nations.” The fact that he makes this comparison in a letter to President
Polk illustrates how Americans used the past to justify their political views during the
nineteenth century. In this case Corwin, a Whig, uses the history of Rome to reinforce his
argument that the war with Mexico might lead to the United States’ eventual decline.
Another essay in the American Review explains how John C. Calhoun viewed Rome as a
symbol of decline that follows a republic which builds an empire through conquest.
Although the essay disagreed with Calhoun's view that American should not expand at
all, it shared his opposition to the war in Mexico.‘3

This sampling Of articles shows how the use of history by writers, especially the
history of ancient republics, had changed from the way that eighteenth-century writers

used it. Americans who used history to attack empire during the eighteenth century often

attacked the policies of Great Britain. During the nineteenth century, Americans invoked

65

events in history, especially events from ancient Greece and Rome, to highlight the
dangers of their own country’s foreign policy decisions. Thus Rome had become a
metaphor in popular culture for anxieties about the United States’ own expansion and
illustrates how history had become a tool to reform, rather than to protect, American
attitudes toward expansion.

Greece and Rome as a Positive Metaphor

While both eighteenth and nineteenth-century writers viewed ancient republics as
metaphors for the effects of empire on a republic, nineteenth-century writers also viewed
ancient republics as metaphors for desirable changes for their own times. For example,
many reformers invoked the ancient republics, especially Rome and Sparta, when
promoting educational programs that produced greater social order and physical fitness.
An 1817 congressional report called on states to strengthen militias by incorporating
military training in schools. It also agreed with Secretary of War Henry Knox’s opinion
that military training not only strengthens militias but also inspires youths to “imbibe a
love of their country, inspire a greater obedience and reverence for its laws” while
increasing both their personal strength and happiness.’ Using militia training to promote
“a love of country” as well as personal strength and obedience closely paralleled Sparta’s
approach for maintaining virtue under Lycurgus.

The Niles Weekly Register also invoked ancient Greece and Rome to promote a
notion of citizen based around health and fitness because they believed it would counter
the negative effects of a consumer society.

The ancient republics, from which we have drawn many choicest maxims upon

which to found our institutions, will firrnish also a most perfect model for our
system of national defense.- The whole secret of ancient military glory,- the

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foundation of that wonderful combination of military skill and exalted valor
which enabled the petty republics of Athens to resist the mighty torrent of Persian
invasion; which formed the walls of Sparta, and conducted the Roman legions to
the conquest of the world, will be found in the military education of the youth.
The victories of Marathon and Plax, of Cynocephele and Pydna, were the practical
results of the exercises of the Campus Martius and Gymnasia. It is the foundation
of this kind and this kind only, that an energetic national militia can be
established. 8
Written during the War of 1812, it is no surprise this article would highlight the benefits
of an education that featured military training and physical fitness to national defense.
However, this quote, which calls for greater physical fitness and a military style
education, also comes out of an article that warns against the dangers of excessive luxury
and the negative impact of a wealthy lifestyle on some citizens.
Another important consideration, urging the diffusion of military spirit amongst
our citizens, is the counterpoise it will afford that inordinate desire of wealth

which seemed to have pervaded the whole nation, bringing with it habits of
luxury, manners, and principles highly undesirable to our republican institutions.

9
Growing consumerism provoked anxiety among many nineteenth-century Americans. By
reinforcing the argument that a physically rigorous and military style education would
counter the effects of a consumer society, these quotes illustrate how the ancient republics
of Greece and Rome had become metaphors for solutions to nineteenth-century problems
associated with a commercial society, especially during a war when sacrifice was
demanded.

The desire to promote social order through physically rigorous and sometimes a
militaristic-type education appears in several education journals. Captain Partridge in the
Jmal of American Education, argues that the United States should promote an

education that taught students how to serve in militias. He believed that such an education

would mitigate the effects of an upper-class lifestyle which he saw as the root of

67

disorderly behavior among students.‘0 His lecture published in the WM
Education in 1826 also states that physical education made students “subordinate,
honorable, and manly” and criticized its absence from school curriculums.“ Partridges’
praise for an education that emphasized militia training as well as, physical fitness, and
discipline illustrates why some antebellum Americans might have favored an education
that resembles Sparta and Rome's approach to socializing citizens.

An untitled article published in an 1841 issue of the Common School Jour_n_al also
illustrates why writers sometimes favored the rigorous socializing methods of ancient
republics such as Sparta. The article praised Sparta's model for educating children
because it successfully taught children obedience, respect for adults and not to complain.'2
Although Sparta represented a harsh approach to educating children, its reputation for
having produced well disciplined and obedient citizens that respected their elders led
some writers to embrace it as a symbol for what American education ought to be.

As chapter one notes, many reformers worried that families had failed to produce
dependable citizens. For several writers, Sparta symbolized a solution to this problem.
One essay in the Working Man's Advocate praised Sparta’s policy of making the state,
rather than the family, the principal socializing institution. The article also praised
education in Sparta by writing “another noble act of Lycurgus was the education of his
people.” The essay went on to say that, for Spartan children, part of this education
included eliminating a fear of the dark and avoiding “unmanly” crying.l3 In praising
Sparta’s brand of schooling, The Working Man's Acllocate expressed its preference for an
education that not only prepared students to serve and sacrifice for their country, but also

its preference for a republic that played an active role in socializing students. Such a

68

model for socializing children closely modeled the infant school movement that was
popular in the United States from 1840 to 1860. Before it declined, its supporters
advocated educating children as young as 18 months, believing that children could be
more effectively raised and educated outside of the home. '4 In praising Lycurgus’
educational system, it also promoted a very masculine and unsentimental notion of citizen
that also solved the problem of undisciplined children. While in keeping with earlier
notions of citizen described by Wills, this idea clashed with the more sentimental notion
of citizen that emerged during the nineteenth century.

Some Americans viewed Sparta and Rome as examples of how republics that
promoted physical fitness produced smarter as well as healthier citizens. The Annals of
Education published an essay by the First Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the
Manual Labor Academy which praises those activities most often performed by farmers
and laborers because they, rather than bankers, exercised their body. In an 1830 issue of
the Annals of Education, an article noted that Rome never separated scholarly training
from physical fitness. The essay also stated that exercise increases one's morality and
intelligence while a lack of physical education produces weak and effeminate students. It
even hints at the possibility that famous Americans known for their intellectual greatness
could have achieved still more had they exercised.l5 The article noted that Sparta
recognized the importance of fitness to intellectual activity, writing “Lycurgus, in his
system, had hard bodily exercise united with mental application.” It even praises the
Persians for integrating physical fitness with mental training. ’6 Finally the Common
School Journal features an article which states that physical and intellectual health go

hand in hand.'7 The fact that these journals believed physical education could improve

69

one's intelligence and morality reflects how some Enlightenment ideas connected with
science, especially those that influenced Lamarck, influenced the thinking of educators.
They also show that some Americans viewed ancient republics as symbols of the benefits
exercise could bring to an educational program.

As noted in chapter one, several writers favored an education that encouraged
women as well as men to exercise. For example, Jan Todd's history of physical education
shows that Sarah Pierce, at the turn of the century, required women students at her
Litchfield Academy to exercise." Todd also argues that the 18205 witnessed a mass
movement to incorporate exercise for both women and men into school curricula. ’9
Godey's Lady's Book in 1836 also featured several articles that encouraged women to
exercise, with one stating “It is founded in the most obvious utility-and must, we think, be
productive of great advantage.”20 The Working Man's Advocate features an article that
describes Lycurgus' plan to teach women manly exercises as “a noble act.”2| By invoking
Sparta to promote women’s fitness, this essay illustrates how writers used histories of
ancient republics to expose readers to a less feminine variation of republican motherhood.

This sample of essays from journals shows why some writers during the
antebellum period viewed Sparta and Rome's approach to producing citizens favorably.
To them, these republics not only represented the apex of patriotism and devotion to the
state, they also symbolized how inspiring patriotism and a willingness to sacrifice for
one's country solved the more mundane problems of a nation undergoing a major social
and economic transformation. For writers concerned with disobedient school children
ancient Sparta and Rome symbolized the ability to achieve social control by cultivating

patriotism. They also symbolized a solution to the ill effects that a luxurious lifestyle

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brought to some students. Finally Sparta not only represented the epitome of patriotism
for men, it also represented an alternative role for women in a republic because Spartan
women learned skills and exercises that usually men only learned. Thus, while no writer
advocated recreating Sparta as it existed in Greece, many admired the qualities Sparta’s
citizens possessed and sought to cultivate those same values in Americans.
Greece and Rome as Gender Metaphors

Whether or not they should adopt the less sentimental model of citizenship as
practiced in Rome or Sparta often divided antebellum Americans. As the nineteenth
century progressed, growing numbers of reformers, influenced by Enlightenment ideas,
looked to educational approaches that relied less on physical punishment. The Common
School Journal featured an essay that warned teachers against resorting to corporal
punishment too quickly and promoted the importance of explaining to children why
certain things were wrong.22 The Common School Journal also published several articles
which emphasized the importance of making schools interesting for children and one
which claimed that excessive harshness broke the “sweet spirit” of children.23

In this environment, some writers invoked militaristic educational approaches of
ancient Greece and Rome to convince readers that schools should avoid excessively rigid
educational styles. For example, Mark Hopkins attributes Rome’s desire to conquer other
nations to the “severest military discipline” it instilled into citizens. This indicates that an
education that stressed too much discipline, Obedience, and physical fitness might squelch
a more sentimental spirit and produce a more warlike republic.

While writers who favored schools that produced healthy and fit citizens viewed

the ancient republics as examples to emulate, writers who favored sentimental notions of

71

citizen viewed ancient republics as examples to avoid. H. Hastings Weld's essay,
published in Godey's Lady's Book, illustrates this through her narrative of Sparta. She
explains that Spartan women expressed their patriotism not only by encouraging their
sons to fight but also by celebrating when they fell in battle. This callousness and lack of
“female gentleness” ran against the idea of republican motherhood many Americans held.
Hopkins’s 1830 sermon delivered in Boston states “it (Sparta) obliterated the domestic
relations, justified theft and deception, and substituted an iron-hearted martial law for the
tender charities of life.”24 Hopkins warns his audience that in order to cultivate patriotism
as unquestioned loyalty to the state, Sparta sacrificed the family and a sense of
benevolence in citizens.
Ezra Sampson’s essay also illustrates why nineteenth-century writers conveyed a
mixed assessment of ancient republics such as Sparta.
We have a sort of admiration of the heroic intrepidly of the Spartan women; of
their contempt for danger; of the stoical apathy, or rather the exultation, with
which they received the news of their sons and husbands dying bravely in battle.
We admire them as prodigies, but neither love nor esteem them as women. And
why is it that the atheistical woman is regarded with singular horror? Why is the
foul oath , the haven —daring blasphemy, doubly horrible in the ear of decency,
when proceeding from the lips of a woman? It is because we contrast the outrage
with the attributes of timidity, gentleness, delicacy, and sensibility, belonging
more peculiarly to her sex. 25
By presenting an unfavorable description of Spartan women despite their patriotism, Ezra
Sampson illustrates sentimentalism’s importance to the nineteenth-century idea of woman
as citizen. This comes through especially clearly when Sampson labels the Spartan

women as people not to be “loved or esteemed” despite their “contempt for danger.”

Thus while Linda Kerber Shows how women from the Revolutionary War era sometimes

72

looked to the ancient republics for a model to emulate, antebellum writers sometimes
viewed ancient republics with disfavor because they lacked the soft, delicate, and caring
qualities that many Americans desired in women.

Both Hopkins, Weld, and Sampson point to an important trend in the way that
writers viewed classical republics. Revolutionary War era and Early National period
Americans might have favored a Spartan notion of citizenship which valued sacrifice,
even the sacrifice of one’s family. Garry Wills description of George Washington’s
attempt to construct an image around the classical ideal of sacrifice illustrates this.
However, Weld and Hopkins’ comments show that antebellum Americans had begun to
view the idea of sacrifice, especially sacrificing one’s family, much less enthusiastically
than during Washington’s time. Thus growing sentimentalism in nineteenth-century
America led some Americans to view ancient Greece and Rome as undesirable republican
models.

Although many antebellum writers viewed the Spartan and Roman model of
republican motherhood with disdain, a few writers in southern journals admired the non-
feminine qualities these possessed. This is somewhat surprising in that Southern women
lived in a culture that was even more hostile to Spartan-like values in women than the
North. In addition, the institution of slavery produced a culture that relegated Southern
women to a submissive and subordinate role where they primarily raised children,
managed the household and never had the same type of opportunities to engage in public
reform as their northern counterparts did.26 Nevertheless, Lydia Sigourney in the Southern

Literary Messenge_r writes

73

The mother of Washington, has been pronounced a model of the true dignity of

women. She seemed to combine the Spartan simplicity and firmness, with the

lofty characteristics of a Roman matron. With a heart of deep purified affections,

she blended that majesty which commanded the reverence of all. 27
By describing Washington’s mother as a “model of true dignity of women” because of
her “Spartan simplicity and firmness” and “lofty characteristics of a Roman matron,”
Sigourney expresses a favorable attitude for a somewhat unsentimental woman. Her
praise of Washington’s mother contrasts with the gentleness and delicacy other writers
prefer in women and shows that some Americans favored this alternative to the dominant
American model of republican motherhood.

Woman writer, E. F. Ellet, invokes Sparta and Rome to present a heroic, yet less

sentimental, image of the republican woman in a selection from “Women of the

Revolution” published in The Southern Oumerly Review .

From the beleaguered city, he had sent his wife and child, at the first approach of
the enemy; but the woman belonged to a Spartan school, and found it easier to
brave the enemy than the safety of the solitude, embittered by the ceaseless
anxiety which left her doubtful of his fate.28
The woman in Ellet’s essay never behaves radically different from the dominant
nineteenth-century idea of republican mother. However, by using the phrase “Spartan
like” and by praising her willingness to “brave the enemy,” Ellet expresses approval for a
woman acting in a more manly way. In this way she introduces readers to a less
sentimental alternative to the dominant nineteenth-century idea of a woman’s place in a

republic. The following examples illustrate how several writers used narratives of ancient

republics to advance notions of republicanism that departed from the more popular

74

sentimental notions of citizen that was especially strong in the South. By sometimes
praising Spartan-like qualities in women, these writers introduced readers to less
sentimental notion of republican motherhood and laid the foundation for changes in the
way Americans might conceive of women’s role in society.

Sparta, Rome, and Middle-Class Virtue
As chapter one explains, many American reformers during the antebellum period disliked
gross disparities of wealth. However, how to remedy inequality, divided them. Some
writers favored redistributing property or, at the very least, making land owned by the
government available to more people. Other writers opposed any plan which involved
redistributing land or making government or public land available to individuals and
instead emphasized other approaches such as education.

The varying responses to Sparta’s approach to achieving economic equality
reflected the divisions among Americans on how to deal with economic inequality.
Journals that championed the interest of the middling sort and favored redistributing land
such as the Working Man's Advocate viewed the republic favorably. They cited episodes
in the histories of Sparta and Rome that illustrate the benefits of an egalitarian society
these republics sometimes created. For example, writers for the Working Man's Advocate
interested in making public lands available to small farmers cite Sparta’s policy of

dividing land equally among its citizens:

Lycurgus proposed and carried out at the hazard of his life an equal
allotment of land among the people, wisely considering the equal right
to the soil an indispensable basis of a real republic. The plan which
we have proposed to restore the right to land is an improvement on
the plan of Lycurgus adapted to the present state of society. In his

75

time every man raise his own food, consequently each had an equal

quantity of land. The progress of the mechanical arts renders desirable

that some engage in agriculture and some in manufactures, science,

and other useful occupations: therefore we propose two classes of

freeholds, Farms, and Village Lots, every man to have his choice of

either one or the other.29
This passage shows that Sparta had become a positive symbol of economic and social
reform for some Americans in that it characterizes Lycurgus’ land reform plan as “wise.”
Secondly it proposes that a variation of Lycurgus’ plan might work in modern America
with its mechanical arts. Although not part of this particular article, the Worlgrg Man's
Advocate also illustrates how Sparta had become a symbol for supporters of artisans and
small farmers by featuring an article promoting a youth organization called “Spartan
clubs.” This organization targeted young men and claimed to promote a life free of
avarice and supported laws that would make public lands accessible to greater number of
Americans in 1844.30 By citing Lycurgus’ plan as a model for America, by crediting
Sparta’s longevity to his policies, and by using the term “Spartan” for the name of a youth
group, writers for the WorkinLMan’s Advocate illustrate how Sparta had become a
positive symbol for those seeking a radical solutions to social inequality in America such
as small farmers and artisans.3 ’

Articles in the Working Man's Advocate also illustrate how certain events in
Roman history had become a symbol of social conflict in the United States and a tool
writers used to reinforce their argument for land reform. One essay describing the failure

of two reform minded senators, Tiberius and Casius Gracchus, to ensure that poor

Romans received access to Rome's public lands illustrates this.

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To remove some of the odious features of this monstrous inequality, the Tribune

Tiberius Gracchus attempted to renew the law for the divisions of the public

lands.”
The article also explains that both allies of the Roman elite had Tiberius and his brother
murdered for their efforts at making land available to individuals who wanted it. By
explaining that dividing public lands would reduce “monstrous inequality” in Rome, the
article implies that the redistribution of land also would improve life in antebellum
America. In addition, this article reinforces warnings to readers of the dangers elites pose
to all republic by explaining that the wealthy citizens in Rome conspired to have the
reform minded Gracchi killed. Finally the fact that The Working Man’s Advocefi
featured this article in an issue that called for land reform in the United States illustrates
how sympathizers with artisans and small farmers used history, especially the history of
Rome and Sparta to reinforce their arguments for social and economic change33

Not all journals from the antebellum period invoked Sparta or Rome to supported
calls for redistributing government land. J .T. Wiswall in Debow’s Review , a Southern

publication, invokes Sparta when waming readers of the society that might emerge if the

working class in the United States becomes too powerful.

This socialism is an uncompromising foe to everything but half work, coarse food
and drink, and swinish matrimonies. It would be Sparta again, but Sparta looking
rueful through the specs of a modern Doctor of Divinity, peering intently through
their religious gloom, to distinguish the brightness of Deity. We would have the
same cast-iron warriors , with cast-iron broth, barbaric scorn of art, music, and
literature, and hatred of all amusements that did not tend to harden a soldier. . .34

For Wiswall, Sparta symbolizes too much social equality as evidenced by his statement

that equates it with a type of socialism that produces “half work and coarse food” and an

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aversion for “art, music, and literature.” It represents what might happen in the United
States if the government redistributes land and embarks on social reform programs.
Wiswall also connects Sparta to social disorder in the North.

The constant turbulence of the masses, and their unreasonable strikes for higher

wages; the periodical mobs that march up and down the streets of our large

northern cities, during every panic crying for bread and throwing out low menaces
to the wealthy, as they pass along the streets. . .-all show tremblings of weakness in

our fair temple of liberty, that make a patriot’s heart despond. 35
The following description of threats northern elites had to endure illustrates what Wiswall
believed too much social equality led to. By connecting Sparta to this social chaos he
illustrates how writers sympathetic to the South’s elite social order used history, including
the history of Greece and Rome, to illustrate the dangers redistributing property posed to
their own society.

The fact that he invokes a republic that other writers use to convey a positive
image shows how the republics of ancient Greece were polarizing images and how
history could threaten the traditional order in the South. Narratives of ancient Greece and
Rome, especially Sparta, symbolized controversial solutions to economic conflicts
confronting antebellum America. Both Sparta and Rome represented the active use of
governing authority to remedy inequality by either making public land more available or,
in the case of Sparta, re-dividing it among citizens. While artisans, small farmers, and
their allies supported this plan, many Southerners viewed it as dangerous.

The Idea of History in Popular Journals

The preceding sections lay out how Americans used historical events, especially

events from Greece and Rome, to buttress arguments for redistributing land, instituting

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military-like discipline in schools, or for avoiding war with Mexico. This section explains
how antebellum Americans increasingly wrote about history itself in journals and how
they showed a greater awareness of how history could manipulate readers. This
introspection on the nature of history reflected a growing desire for citizens who could
read critically the literature they were exposed to. As Soltow notes, what students read
and learned concerned Americans during the antebellum period. While Americans valued
literate citizens, they also feared literature that might corrupt readers with dangerous
ideas. It is in this context that nineteenth-century Americans discussed the nature of
history.

As explained in chapter one, many eighteenth-century Americans held a cyclical
view of history. Accounts of the past detailed the story of civilizations moving through
fixed stages of rise, maturity, and decline. However, nineteenth-century writers in
journals and magazines viewed history differently. A brief sampling from antebellum
journals shows that writers in popular culture viewed history with some ambivalence.
They became less interested in fixed historical patterns and began to acknowledge that
some histories convey an imperfect account of the past, sometimes because the author
wanted to manipulate people into accepting a particular point of view. For example, one
essayist laments how the excessive focus on military conflict in history led people to
romanticize war.

The details of wars form far too great a portion of every history of

civilized and barbarous nations; to conquer and to slay has been too

long the glory of Christian people; he who has been most successful at

subjugating and oppressing, in mowing down human beings, has too long

worn the laurel crown,-been too long an object for admiration of men and
love of women36

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Rather than explain how the past illustrates the inevitable rise and fall of nations,
Johnson, by stating that history focuses too much on the “details of war,” explains how
the production of history itself is flawed. In this case he implies that history is a tool to
manipulate people because it romanticizes those who had been “successful at subjugating
and oppressing” by stating that the oppressors have “been too long an object for
admiration.”

Another writer states “A traditional story of some high martial achievement, has
often exerted a stronger influence in rousing a people from despondency, induced by
misfortune or disappointment, than all their fortresses and treasures.”37 By stating that
history can “rouse” citizens from “despondency,” through a description of “high martial
achievement,” this author also shows that nineteenth-century writers viewed history as a
type of literature capable of manipulating, motivating, and inspiring individuals rather
than a storehouse of facts and truths that warn readers of a civilization’s impending
decline and fall.

Encouraging readers to view history critically proved to be a useful strategy for
some writers who opposed the type of social and economic reforms put forth by artisans
and small farmers. Several essays in The North American Review, sought to weaken the
argument of land reformers by presenting an essay that showed how accounts of ancient
Rome and Greece had been revised. In an 1823 edition, one essay lauded new
methodologies developed by German historians such as B.G. Niebuhr. Niebuhr contends
that earlier accounts incorrectly claimed that Rome grew as a republic only after an equal
division of land.” Another essay published in the 18405 in The Ameer Review even

writes “It is certainly unfortunate for the ‘land reformers’ and ‘vote—yourself-a farm’

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people, that the precedents in ancient history which they sometimes appeal, should turn
out, on examination to be no precedent at all?” In this case, the introduction of new
historical methodologies and new ways of conceptualizing history allowed opponents of
land reform discredit histories of their adversaries to promote their cause.

Finally, an 1848 article published in The Amemg Review notes that political
biases often have a negative impact on the quality of history, writing “...a man who sets
out with a strong political bias in favor of the institutions of a country, is not likely to
make a faithful historian.”4o These perspectives on the nature of history illustrate how
nineteenth-century Americans had begun to view history differently than eighteenth-
century Americans. While eighteenth-century writers saw history as cyclical, this sample
shows that nineteenth-century writers viewed history as a tool which could motivate
readers for political action. The emergence of this new perspective corresponds to a time
when Americans viewed both people and society as capable of change whereas
eighteenth-century Americans were more likely to view individuals as unchangeable.
Thus, while many antebellum writers referred to events in the past when justifying their
political views, they also acknowledged that writers sometimes distorted accounts of the
past to manipulate readers into supporting a political issue.

This more critical view of history, which journalists began to articulate during the
nineteenth century, corresponds to larger concerns among educators with the type of
lessons students might learn from written materials. As noted in chapter one, some
educators believed that an educated and intelligent individual still might be immoral. This
led some educators to advocate limits on the kind of materials schools exposed to

' students. Educators worried that students might use their knowledge for socially

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unacceptable purposes. What they learned counted for as much as how much they
learned.
Conclusion

Scholars such as Wood and McCoy have shown that during the American
Revolution and Early National Period, Americans viewed history not only as a story
about the past but also a narrative about their own times. The antebellum-era essays in
this chapter held a similar view of history. Writers often included references to ancient
civilizations when they advanced ideas on how society should educate men and women,
how society should distribute wealth, and how the United States should respond to the
annexation of Mexican territory.

The lessons writers drew from history often varied. Sometimes nineteenth-century
writers used history to inspire change. For example, several writes invoked Sparta as a
positive model when criticizing the very wealthy and well off as the Working Man’s
Advocate did. A few writers put forth an alternative vision that conflicted with the
dominant ideal held by northern society and used Sparta as a model for women
citizenship. In addition, writers valued tough and fit citizens also looked to ancient
history for models to emulate.

Sometimes, however, writers used history to reinforce traditional values. For

example, writers in the Southern magazine Debow’s invoked Sparta as an example to

 

avoid because it redistributed land at the expense of wealthy citizens. Writers in Debow’s
not only feared threats to property that a Spartan-like republic would produce but also the
loss of the arts and industry that embracing such principles might cause in the United

States. In addition, most writers who believed that women as citizens should embrace a

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sentimental, gentle, and nurturing disposition invoked ancient republics as examples to
avoid. Taken on a whole, history and the different ways writers told it mirrored conflicts
in the wider American society. Through ancient history, sermons, articles, and magazines
during the antebellum period exposed readers to new competing ideas on what a citizen
and a republic should be.

While writers used events from history to debate social and economic problems
during their own time, they also discussed the nature of history itself. Eighteenth-century
writers were inclined to hold a cyclical view of history. The nineteenth-century writers
featured in this chapter, began to view history more critically. Several, for example,
pointed out that some past accounts contained flaws or had glorified war too much.
Concern about the flawed lessons readers might learn from inaccurate history mirrored
the larger antebellum era sentiment that intelligent and literate individuals could still be
corrupted if exposed to the wrong types of literature. Although ostensibly a discussion
about history, this need to show the flaws in history illustrates a larger desire for more
critical and independent thinking citizens rather than those who support without questions
the ideas presented to them. Finally, it illustrates that, while writers sometimes used

history to buttress elite society as evidenced by writers in Debow’s it also could serve as

 

a tool for those seeking social reform.

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Chapter Three
The Idea of History and Secondary School Education

Most scholars contend that textbooks published during the antebellum period held
a very simple idea of what history was. They argue that textbook authors viewed history
primarily as knowledge that revealed God’s judgments and that Americans were His
chosen people. Ruth Elson, for example, points to passages in American history
textbooks that attribute the Pilgrims, Columbus, and Washington’s success to the
intervention of God. Cooke also contends that authors held a providential view of history
where God intervened on behalf of Americans.l Baym and Reese's more recent study also
contend that textbooks viewed history as the story of God intervening on behalf of
righteous people.

Textbooks, they argue, used history to teach an “ideologically simple” set of
morals where right and wrong is clearly defined and the United States is the world’s most
righteous nation.2 Elson for example writes that authors “were much more concerned

with the child's moral development than the development of his mind.”3

Reese similarly
writes that textbooks explained to students why America was “republican, Christian, and
the greatest nation on earth” and Castle writes that textbooks “glorified American politics
and social relations.”4 In essence, textbook authors viewed history as a tool to inspire
patriotism, inspire greater religiosity, and as a tool to teach straight forward non-
threatening ideas rather than functioning as agents of reform.

These studies are correct in that some textbooks, especially United States history

textbooks, featured anecdotes which inspire national pride. However, statements in the

' introduction of these same textbooks indicate that many authors embraced a more

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complex view of history and envisioned using it to teach a wide range of ideas. In
addition, while some textbook authors describe history as knowledge that revealed God's

judgments, others, especially those published after 1830, often held a more secular and
more critical view of what history teaches. They describe history as a story about the past,
built around limited evidence, and note that sometimes accounts of the past reflect the
author’s bias. Several authors expressed the idea that scholars produce the best history in
societies which place little value on militarism. A few even describe history as a science.
Thus textbooks, by exposing readers to new ideas on what history was and what history
could teach, functioned as an agents of change and reform rather than tools to maintain
the status quo.
Popular Antebellum Era Textbooks

Before examining textbook author conceptions of history it is worth identifying
the most popular textbooks. Although no definitive data on textbook use exists, my brief
survey of textbooks used in Michigan shows that many secondary schools used Marcuis
Willson’s United States and Universal history textbooks on the eve of the Civil War. For
example, in 1859 the Monroe Union Schools and the Niles Union School required
students to use his United States History and in 1862, Grand Rapids Union School,
Jackson Union Schools, Marshall Union Schools, Ann Arbor Union Schools and Cold
Water Unions Schools used his United States Histog, Ancient History, his General
BELLE! or his Outlines of Universal History.5 Biographical information indicates that
Willson’s textbooks were popular in many states; he earned nearly $250,000 in royalties
from textbook sales.6 The significance of this lies in the fact that he exposed many

' readers to his ideas. While many of Willson’s textbooks often reinforced the dominant

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social, political, and cultural views, some of his narratives exposed students to ideas that
conflicted with popular views on social equality, a woman’s place in a republic, and
westward expansion.

Schools in Michigan and the United States also used Samuel Goodrich and
Willard’s textbooks. Ypsilanti used Samuel Goodrich’s (Peter Parley) Universal History
and other districts used his First 8% of History.7 Additionally, the 1856 Connecticut
Anngl Report required that public schools use Goodrich’s History of the United StLes
along with Robbins’ Outlines of History.8 The Detroit School District used Willard’s
School History and Historical Guide and Philadelphia’s Central High School used her
Universal History, and Robbins’ Outlines of History textbook in 1853.9 In addition, the
1851 Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state of Michigan
recommended that schools use Willard’s United States history textbooks and (_}_e_r_rer_al
HEM! textbook which covered ancient history.'0 While none of these authors were
known for their radical ideas, they did feature narratives that presented alternatives to the
dominant notion of a citizen and a republic.

As noted in the introduction, textbook authors came from social backgrounds
unlikely to support a radical social economic vision for America. Marcuis Willson, for
example came from a family of farmers. Samuel Goodrich also came from a middle-class
background before becoming a successful writer and publisher, working at dry goods
store from 1810 to 1815. However, as one might expect, many had distinct intellectual
backgrounds that indicate they might hold a new vision for what a republic and what a
citizen could be. Willson, for example, possessed an advance degree. Upon completing

' college he taught mathematics and wrote science textbooks until the New York bar

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admitted him in 1840.1] Willson focused on writing history textbooks when a throat
ailment forced him to end his law practice in 1840.12 Later he would serve as principal at
Canandaigua Academy where he attended school as a youth. Willson’s background points
to a person who favored a more intelligent and politically sophisticated citizen than the
obedient and compliant student lauded in some educational journals.

Samuel Goodrich also features some advanced ideas about history when
describing the relationship between history and religion which were reformist if not
radical in nature. For example, Goodrich implies in his textbook’s introduction that
authoritarian governments corrupt the discipline of history by using it to manipulate
people into supporting them. The South, with its very limited democracy, would have
considered this view of history anathema to its world view.

Outside of writing textbooks Willard is best know for establishing the Troy
Female Seminary, a school devoted to training women to become teachers.l3 Although
she never believed women should actively pursue political rights, Willard argued that
women should play a strong supporting role in a republic. According to Baym, Willard
intended women to function more like a Lycurgus rather than the soft and demure
woman.l4 While she still envisioned women in their traditional roles of mother and
teacher, her vision signified a move away from the traditional idea of domesticity. As
mothers and school teachers they needed to teach children the importance of just laws. In
addition, while Willard never advocated revolutionary change, her view that history
resembled a science signified a new way of thinking about this discipline. She viewed
history not only as a tool to illustrate Christianity’s greatness, but also as a tool for

' women to indirectly shape political leaders’ values. By using history in this way,

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according to Nina Baym, women such as Willard could vicariously advance their own
desire for a safe and stable republic.

Other textbooks used in Michigan schools also described history in ways that
challenged traditional ideas about the past and the values it was supposed to teach by
advancing secular rather than Providential notions of history. Robbins’s mm:
mm used by Detroit in 1853, commented on the mechanics of constructing history by
noting that historians built narratives around facts. Worcestor’s Ancient History used by
Coldwater Union Schools in 1862 commented on the conclusions (or lack of) that one
could draw from historical narratives. As this chapter will show, Worcestor, especially,
comments on the imperfect nature of history. Thus while some textbook authors openly
described history as a story that illustrated the greatness of the United States and the
power of God, others introduced readers to a much different idea. Textbooks used in
Michigan instead introduced readers to the idea that history was an imperfect account of
the past that writers sometimes used to manipulate readers into believing or embracing a
certain ideology. This desire to expose readers to history’s imperfect nature points to
some reluctance among many textbook about using history to reinforce the dominant
social, political, and economic ideologies and instead indicates a reformist dimension in
their introductions to history.

Textbooks not commonly used by Michigan schools such as Peabody during the
antebellum period also wrote about history and its uses. Many of them wrote about
history in terms that closely resembled Willson, Willard, Goodrich, and Robbins’ vision
of history. Some historians such as Worcestor and Pinnock described it as an imperfect

account of the past while others such as Pierce claimed that it revealed God’s judgment.

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Some textbooks stated that history should inspire patriotism while others offered no clear
reason for studying history. Thus they identified a myriad of values that history taught,
including some that collided with each other.

The Context

Generally, commentaries history’s nature and its uses appear in textbooks that
cover a broad range of historical topics and subjects. Most United States history
textbooks covered the colonial period up to the war of 1812. Some, however, covered the
history of the United States up to Andrew Jackson’s presidency. It was quite common for
authors of United States history textbooks to list inspiring patriotism as a reason for
studying the past. Textbooks, such as those written by Samual Goodrich, Pinnock, and
Eliza Robbins featured the history of Greece or Rome, however, expressed more
nebulous reasons for studying history than United States history textbooks. This is also
true for “universal” history textbooks which not only featured the history of Greece and
Rome, but also histories of Eygpt, and Europe during the Middle Ages. Authors called
them universal histories because they supposedly described events that made the greatest
contribution to the coming of the modern world and the rise of the United States. These
types of textbooks often described and commented on how ancient civilizations and their
leaders maintained virtue and addressed social and political problems.

Commentaries on the nature and uses of history similarly appeared in textbooks
that employed a variety of styles to disseminate histories. Textbooks published before
1820 followed a catecatical style, a format characterized by the author posing a question
about some event in history and then providing the correct answers. Authors used this

' style to facilitate teaching so that any parent or teacher could play the role of a

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paternalistic instructor by simply reading the text. Authors of these textbooks quite
frequently believed history taught students God’s greatness and illustrates a more didactic
approach to education in early textbooks.

Textbooks written after 1830 rarely used the catecatical style and instead put
questions at the bottom of the page. All textbooks, regardless of when they were
published or what topics they featured, commented to some degree on the nature of
history and what they believed history taught in the Preface or the introduction. However,
after 1830 textbook authors increasingly presented relatively sophisticated notions of
history and frequently offered secular rather than religious reasons for studying it.

Several studies indicate that schools for older students during the antebellum
period never made greater religiosity or strident patriotism a priority. McClellan's very
brief study contends that textbooks for older students focused less on inspiring morality
than those for young children and Labaree contends that Central High School in
Philadelphia gradually moved away from its goal of creating a “republican community.”'5
These studies show that schools designed for older students instead emphasized practical
topics. Church and Sedlak also argue that high schools and academies during the
antebellum period sought to train students for work in the professions and as local leaders
rather than obedient citizens.l6 Finally, as chapter one shows, antebellum public schools
were becoming more centralized and more sensitive about offending students. This led
them to offer curriculum less offensive to Catholics and other non-Protestants. This fact,
coupled with the belief that a student’s morality developed primarily during their early
youth, helps to explain why history textbooks for older students focused less on religious

morality and more on practical issues.

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The Idea of History in Textbooks: 1800-1830

Ancient and World history textbooks published before 1830 featured statements in
their introductions that, to a limited extent, supported Elson and other scholars’ argument
that textbooks primarily espoused a providential view of history. However, while
textbooks sometimes described history as the story of God passing judgment over corrupt
people, they also explicitly and implicitly convey the idea that history teaches worldly
values such as the qualities of a responsible citizen or even the qualities of responsible
legislature. For example, in Sacred and Profane History published in 1806 Benjamin
Tucker implies that history teaches secular as well as religious ideas.

From this source, communities and nations are filmished with the

brightest examples for the guidance of their actions, and individuals

enriched with the experience, and animated with the virtue of the

most distant ages.'7
The phrases “animated with the virtue of the most distant ages” and “brightest examples
for guidance” indicates that history conveys a range of ideas and values which could be
either secular or religious. While Tucker never explicitly states the kind of actions for
which history provides this guidance, his view that “communities and nations,” two types
of political entities, will benefit from knowledge of the past indicates that history will
serve to shape political actions. Even the word “virtue” contained in his phrase “animated
with the virtue,” held a secular as well as a religious meaning in 1806. As noted in
chapter one, Wood described it as meaning friendliness to one’s neighbor, something that

might be considered a secular, rather than a religious value. Finally, by writing that

history is a story that is "enriched with the experience. . .. of the most distant age" Tucker

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again exposes readers to the idea of history as a source of worldly as well as religious
lessons.

D. Fraser, in his textbook written in 1807, also defines history as knowledge
which teaches students practical lessons, writing that history benefits students who
“aspired to be legislators and statesmen of this country?“ Here he defines history as
knowledge that teaches students skills that allow them to serve a republic more
effectively and where patriotism meant serving one’s country effectively as a legislature
as well as sacrificing one’s life for the state or nation. Such an idea of history conforms to
the political skills and knowledge that Church and Sedlack argue secondary schools
sought to teach students during the nineteenth century. Fraser also explains to readers that

history can produce a politically informed citizen.

History being the faithful repository of the actions of men of all ages,

who have performed any distinguished part on the theatre of the world,

adds to our own experience a rich stock of the experiences of others,

and furnishes innumerable instances of virtue to imitate, and vices

to avoid; Every law of morality and every rule of conduct is submitted

to its tests and every rule of conduct is submitted to its tests and

examination.
In the first part of this passage Fraser places no limitations on the kind of actions or
lessons that history teaches readers. He simply describes history as the “repository of the
actions of all men.” By describing history as a “repository” that adds to the “stock of
experiences,” he implies that history teaches secular as well as religious values. Similarly

Fraser, by writing that history “furnishes innumerable instances of virtue to imitate, and

vices to avoid,” shows no distinction between the type of morals history teaches, whether

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they be religious or secular. Finally, the phrase that “every rule of conduct is submitted to
its tests,” shows that Fraser believed history allows readers to re-evaluate and change
existing morals whether they be religious or secular.

Exposing students to the idea that history teaches a wide range of lessons, secular
and religious, and that history might even lead readers to challenge existing morals,
conformed to the more intellectual notion of citizen that common schools began teaching
in the North during the antebellum period. Students would learn not only how to obey
laws, but also “the exercise of intelligence” and “independent judgment,” so they can
choose leaders and resist corrupt demagogues. '9 Although Fraser writes his textbooks
several decades before the antebellum period, his idea of what history teaches students
reflects that period’s educational ideals.

Some authors of textbooks that feature Greek and Roman history during the 18103
and 18205 state in fairly explicit terms that history inspires a greater appreciation for God.
However, these same authors also describe history as a story that taught students a wide

range of moral lessons that went beyond religion. Sarah Pierce writes

I have compiled these sketches for the use in schools, endeavoring

to interrnix moral with historical instruction, and to obviate those

objections which rise in the minds of youths against the justice

of God, when they read the wars of the Israelites.”
By writing that history “obviates” objections to “the justice of God,” Pierce indicates that
she viewed history as a discipline built on logic that nevertheless illustrated God’s

influence on the outcome of important historical events. While this appears contradictory

to twenty first century Americans, during the early nineteenth century it made perfect

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sense. The phrase “Mixing moral with historical instruction” indicates that Pierce viewed
history as knowledge that not only inspired students to appreciate God’s actions, but also
taught them a range of morals. During the time Pierce wrote her textbook, the word
“moral,” like virtue, meant both personal morality in the form of self control and faith in
God. Thus the word moral indicates she was promoting a social as well as a religious
ideal. While Pierce's notion of history echoes Elson, Cooke, and Reese’s contention that
authors produced histories that promoted Christianity, it differs from it in that it also
implies history teaches more complex and multifaceted ideas about morality and
patriotism.

Frederick Butler defines history in his 1817 textbook as a discipline that teaches
many ideas and values. He writes that “History furnishes a vast field of moral, and
religious instruction, and is designed to amuse the imagination, improve the
understanding, correct the judgment, expand the mind, mend the heart, by leading it up to
God.”" During the early antebellum period the phrase “moral instruction” often meant
greater reverence for God. However, in addition to reverence for God, it also meant
personal morality, self control, and respect for laws. Thus Butler’s statement indicates
that history teaches a range of moral traits that go beyond religion. His statement that
history “improves the understanding” and corrects “the judgment” reflects the idea that
history teaches intellectual and practical knowledge as well as religious morals. Both
Pierce, Butler, and Fraser’s statements about the value of history to readers indicates that
educators during the 18105 and 18205 preferred an informed and intelligent, as well as a

pious citizen.

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Several textbooks published during the 18203 and 18305 also described history as
a knowledge which taught both secular’and religious morals.22 Eliza Robbins, in the
beginning of her 1831 textbook, explains that God punishes those who remain ignorant,
a statement indicating that history teaches greater respect for God. However, she also
writes “history is and excellent warning, and we must teach it as informing us what ought
to be honored and imitated as well as what deserves to be detested and amended.” By
describing history as “informing us what ought to honored as well as. . .. detested,"
Robbins indicates that it teaches both secular as well as religious lessons.

Samuel Goodrich is one of the few authors who published after 1830 to put forth a
providential notion of history. However, like authors who published before and after him,
he describes history as knowledge that not only teaches God's will but also secular
lessons.

It is hoped, therefore, that these works [history]will be found not merely

attractive, but useful and instructive, inasmuch as they will enable the

reader, by studying mankind, to study himself; and by learning the course

of Providence in respect to the past, to judge of it in regards to the future.23
The phrase “learning the course of Providence,” illustrates Goodrich’s view that God
shapes historical events and illustrates, more than any other textbook author after 1830,
his providential view of history. However, he also explains that history teaches readers
other kinds of lessons such as a better understanding of oneself. Thus, while he describes
history as the story of God’s judgments, Goodrich also valued history for its more
praCtical use of better understanding one’s own world.

The manner in which many textbook authors organized and presented history

‘ before 1830 indicates that most placed little importance on encouraging students to

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question the accuracy of narratives. Benjamin Tucker, Sarah Pierce, and Caleb Bingharn
all used a catechetical style where they organized narratives in a question and answer
format in which authors presented answers as definitive responses to a set of questions.
Only a few textbooks used footnotes to identify sources or explain gaps in what scholars
knew. In addition textbooks by Pierce, Robbins, and Goodrich conveyed the idea that
God determined the outcome of events in the past, reflecting a providential view of
history.

Nevertheless, authors writing before 1830 viewed history as useful to teaching
more worldly lessons than earlier studies have indicated. Elson, Reese, Nietz and Cooke
claim that textbook authors produced history to inspire both patriotism and greater
morality. My review of author statements in the preface of universal and world textbooks
published before 1830 indicates that history taught a broad set of morals and values.
However these textbooks rarely listed patriotism as a reason to study history. They
conveyed the idea that history taught a set of practical ideas and values that might make
students into better citizen. This fits in with the arguments of other studies that contend
that educators valued more practical schooling for older students which placed little
emphasis on personal morality, self control, or producing patriotic citizens.

Acknowledging the Limits of History

Textbooks published after 1830 resembled those published before in that they
described history as a discipline that taught a range of values. However, antebellum
textbooks also described the process of writing history itself. For example several
textbook authors defined history as a body of knowledge produced through a “scientific”

process where scholars collect and interpret facts. In addition textbook authors

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increasingly identified the source of their information in their prefaces and often left out
phrases frequently used to describe history before 1830 such as “a warning to the
present” or a “reflection of God's judgment.” Phrases such as “history shows what should
be imitated or ignored” rarely appear. When describing history, authors offered only a
vague idea about the kind of lessons which one could learn from it and imply that history
might not be a source of absolute truths. Authors conveyed to students the importance of
reading the past critically as well as the necessity of identifying accounts which
misrepresent the past.

William Pinnock exemplifies this new way of understanding history by describing
it in his preface as an imperfect body of knowledge.

After all the researches that have been made, the true origin of the

Latin people, and even the Roman city, is involved in impenetrable

obscurity; the legendary traditions collected by historians are, however,

the best guides that we can follow; but it would be absurd to bestow

implicit credit on all the accounts they have given, and the editor has, therefore,

pointed out the uncertainties of history, not to encourage skepticism, but to

accustom students to consider the nature of historical evidence, and thus early

form the useful habit of criticizing and weighing testimony."
Pinnock, by writing that “legendary traditions collected by historians are, however, the
best guides that we can follow,” explains to readers how writers construct history rather
than the different lessons or morals that it teaches. This phrase also explains to readers
why history is sometimes flawed and that accounts of the past are imperfect. He notes that
part of Rome’s past remains hidden. Finally, Pinnock never defines history as knowledge
which reveals God's judgment, supports a particular ideology, or inspires loyalty to a state

or nation. His description instead conveys the idea that students must judge the past

critically. By describing the process of constructing history and by reminding readers to

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judge accounts of the past critically, Pinnock illustrates how textbook authors
admonished readers, as citizens, to judge critically the source of information and the
lessons it purports to teach.

It should be noted that Pinnock himself wrote his original book in Europe and
that it was re-published in the United States. In addition, there is no evidence indicating
that his book was as popular as those written by Willard, Willson, Samuel Goodrich or
even Joseph Worcestor. Thus it is possible that only a small percentage of students read
his textbook. Nevertheless Pinnock’s description of history and its uses represents an
important change in how textbook authors viewed history. Other, more widely read
textbook authors would present similar views.

Joseph Worcestor, in his 1830 textbook, also comments on the process of
producing history and acknowledges that an author’s prejudice sometimes taints accounts

of the past.

Everyone much conversant with history, must be aware of the frequent

and often great diversity in the accounts given of the characters

of men and events, even by authors of reputation. This diversity is

to be attributed partly to the peculiar prejudice of the historians, and

partly to the contradictory statements in the original sources of history.”
Worcestor, by writing that those “much conversant with history” are aware of “great
diversity in accounts,” informs readers that history is an imperfect body of information.
He also conveys this idea by pointing out that personal prejudice shape a scholar's
interpretations of the original sources. Worcestor not only alerts readers to the existence

of historical bias, he never indicates that history teaches any type of moral lessons. He

never lists inspiring greater morality, patriotism, or a deeper faith in God as a reason to

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study history. In fact Worcestor never states that history teaches lessons of any kind,
whether it be religious or more worldly in nature. Thus Worcestor, through these phrases,
explains what history is, rather than what history teaches.

When writing about history in the preface of his 1850 textbook, Marcius Willson's
also addresses the question “What is history?” as much as he explains what lessons
history teaches.

But although the whole meaning of what has been recorded lies

far beyond us, the fact should not deter us from a plausible explanation

of what is known, if happily, we may thereby lead others to a more

just appreciation of the true spirit the Genius of History and the great

lessons, social, moral, and political, that it teaches.26
Willson answers the question “What is history?” by explaining that it is something
produced by people rather than a reflection of God’s word. He does this by first writing
that “the whole meaning of what has been recorded lies far beyond us.” With this phrase
Willson conveys to readers the idea that history is a story about the past built around only
partially understood facts. Willson contends that history teaches readers valuable lessons.
However, he writes only that they are “social, moral, and political,” in nature, and never
lists inspiring a greater appreciation for Christianity or loyalty to nation as one of those
lessons. Although he lists some benefits of studying history, Willson’s comments
resemble Worcestor and Pinnock’s comments in that they convey a more complex notion
of history which teaches students the importance of rational and critical thought process

and a set of lessons which go beyond simply inspiring patriotism and a simple set of

morals.

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The evidence suggests that substantial numbers of students used Willson,
Pinnock, and Worcestor’s textbooks. Although Pinnock himself lived in England, he
based his history of Rome, which was published in the United States, on Oliver
Goldsmith's relatively well-know history. Although sales figures are not known for
Worcestor and Willson's textbook, both made good livings as textbook authors and as
stated earlier, many Michigan schools used Willson’s textbooks. Thus, while only a little
is known about the number of schools that used these textbooks, the available
information indicates that many students might have read them.

Other textbook authors, while suggesting that history might reflect God’s will also
describe history as a story about the past built around evidence. Reverend Royal Robbins,
in the preface of his 1830 textbook The World in Review, explains that scholars produce
history from various sources “ranging in authenticity” from public documents, coins, and
even monuments, implying that he regarded only narratives built around facts and
evidence as history.27 Both Emma Willard and Elizabeth Peabody also define history as a
science with Peabody writing “The proposition that history itself is a new science may
startle some readers. But it is true?”

To write that history resembles science during the antebellum period does not
necessarily preclude authors from holding a providential view of the past. Henry May's
study of the Enlightenment in America shows that eighteenth and early nineteenth-
century Americans believed the study of science would reinforce rather than undermine
Christianity. Based on his conclusions about the impact of the Enlightenment in the
United States, to describe history as a science as Royal Robbins, Peabody, and Willard

do, does not mean that they had rejected the legitimacy of Protestantism. In fact some

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authors implied that a more scientific approach to understanding the past would reveal
with even greater lucidy the greatness of the United States and the workings of God.
However, by describing history as a science as Peabody does or as a methodical discipline
as Robbins does, authors also convey to students the idea that they must view history as a
product created by humans using a rational and logical thought processes rather than
simply a reflection of God’s will. In addition by writing that students must look at
evidence critically, textbook authors increasingly acknowledged flaws in accounts of the
past and conveyed the larger idea that as citizens they must look at information critically.

Alerting students to shortcomings in history fits in with what some educators
during the antebellum were advising teachers. While many reformers believed schools
must develop interesting curricula, the quality of information that books might expose
students to concerned them. Many educators disliked novels for this reason. By
describing history as imperfect knowledge acquired through a scientific process, authors
echoed the concerns about the reliability of information other writers and educators
voiced during the antebellum period. For example Baym notes that at the turn of the
century Hannah Adams and Sarah Pierce believed women should read history rather than
novels. History strengthened one's judgment with real life stories while fiction, appealing
too much to the imagination, led readers away from it.29

The type of lessons students might learn from history, as well as fiction,
concerned writers and educators. For example, one article from chapter two voiced
concern about accounts of the past that glorify the military too much. Another chapter
two article indirectly warns of bad history by praising revised accounts of the Spartans

and Romans’ efforts to redistribute land. Thus when textbooks discuss the quality of

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information in their histories, they indirectly responded to a growing concern among
educators during the antebellum period about what schools might teach students and
whether they might learn something that might make them less, rather than more, useful
to society.

Samuel Goodrich reflects this concern about bad history in very direct terms when
he explains how nonfiction such as history can manipulate rather than to educate readers.

Modern monarchies, like all monarchies, have been built up by

wars; the sword is their architect; military heroes the instruments

of kings. War must therefore be made the path of glory. Historians,

as teachers of the people, bound to bring them up in support of the

monarchical institutions, must do their part.30
His line that historians must “do their part” to support “monarchical institutions” conveys
to students that undemocratic nations limit the ability of scholars to describe and interpret
the past since they must produce narratives which inspire citizens to support
enthusiastically the regime in power. This leads to histories that manipulate rather than to

enlighten readers. Goodrich echoes this same idea when explaining why his narrative of

the past differed from earlier accounts.

Writing in a country where unnecessary war is held to be wrong;
where right furnishes the only rule of might; where truth is acknowledged
as superior to the sword, the author has viewed the characters and
transactions of former times, in a light somewhat different from that
ordinarily thrown over historical treatises."
Goodrich’s view that living in a country which rejects “unnecessary war” allows him to

study the past in a “different light” conveys the larger idea that scholars from non-

militaristic nations produce accurate histories. On one hand, Goodrich's statement can be

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interpreted as a subtle jab at European countries, especially England, with its king and
standing army. However, it also reflects an idea present in millenialists such as Elizabeth
Peabody that accurate history writing reflected the emergence of the truly free republic,
the end of time, and the emergence of paradise of earth. What worried millenialists such
as Peabody and possibly Samuel Goodrich was that a plethora of histories produced to
manipulate and control subjects in oppressive countries indicated that paradise on earth
was far off.32 It is somewhat ironic that Goodrich makes this point so strongly since
several scholars have pointed that his own textbooks were replete with inaccuracies and
untruths. Nevertheless this statements shows how Goodrich warned readers that some
accounts depict the past more accurate than others and that readers should not trust some
accounts.

Peabody echoes a similar sentiment by describing history as information most
effectively produced in a free rather than a militaristic society.

It is only people, free peoples, that write history. The Sacerdotal

governments of antiquity strove rather to conceal the Past, with

its revelations, from the darkened multitudes that they governed,

than to instruct them in it.33
Peabody’s statement that “Sacerdotal governments of antiquity strove to conceal the
past” expresses the larger idea that authoritarian governments, (perhaps even the South)
suppress knowledge. Her statement, like Goodrich’s statement, also implies that history
enlightens and empowers people where it does exist.

Such an idea would be well in keeping with Peabody’s experiences and world

view. Elizabeth Peabody played and active role in nineteenth-century reform movements

that advocated greater freedom for those people traditionally denied rights. She promoted

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common schools, participated in the abolitionists movement and was a well known
transcendentalists. However, her textbook statement on history connects to Baym’s
identification of her as a millennialist who saw history as having a beginning and
ending.34 She believed a true account of the past would emerge when civilization reached
the end of history, or the millennial republic. This republic, however, would not emerge
through the methods United States employed during the 18408 which, through war,
annexed parts of Mexico and the lands of Indians.35 It would emerge instead when
republics such as the United States aided other civilizations struggling to establish their
own republics such as was the case with Hungary.” One problem she saw with present
task of history writing was that history had, for the most part, been written from the
oppressor’s point of view. This produced both an inaccurate and useless account of the
past.

For Samuel Goodrich and Elizabeth Peabody historians could write accurate
accounts of the past only if they lived in free societies that shunned militarism. Many
Americans may never have seen the irony of Peabody’s view on history and freedom and
the absence of freedom for women and slaves in the United States. However, David
Tyack’s study of education in the South indicates why wealthy planters might not have.
They rejected textbooks published in the North. He notes that wealthy Southerners
viewed public education as a threat to their power and feared textbooks written in the
North.37 Thus, while Peabody and Goodrich might never have known it, their comments
on the relationship between history and a free society help explain why wealthy
Southerners saw the expansion of public education and the use of Northern textbooks as a

threat.

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As this review shows many secondary school history textbooks held a more
complex idea about history and how it could be used than what Elson, Nietz, and Cooke
and Reese claim. Rather than viewing history as the story of God meting out punishments
and rewards, Pinnock, Willson, and Worcestor defined history as an imperfect account of
the past while Peabody, Willard, and Royal Robbins described it as knowledge produced
through a rational and scientific methodology. Such definitions of history imply that
students should exercise logic and critical thinking skills when reading about the past.

It is unlikely that these textbook authors believed their ideas conflicted with the
goal of inspiring patriotism and Christianity since many Americans viewed science and
logical thinking as a way to show the righteousness of Christianity and the greatness of
the United States. Henry May explained in the Enlightenment in America how Americans
believed logical and rational methods of thinking would justify God’s existence.
However, by defining history as a science and as an imperfect account of the past, authors
introduced students to an intellectual discipline which potentially conflicted with the goal
of promoting Christianity and Patriotism.

United States History Textbooks

United States history textbook authors viewed history differently than authors of
ancient or world history textbooks. United States history textbook authors frequently
listed patriotism as the primary reason for studying history, arguing that history should
cultivate an appreciation for America’s founding fathers’ virtue and wisdom. And, unlike
authors of world and ancient history textbooks, only a few described history as an

imperfect story of the past, even after 1830. For example, rather than answer the question

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“What is History?” John Lord's New History of the United Stages of America published in
1854 conveys the importance of using history to promote patriotism and national loyalty.
if the youthful mind can be inspired with patriotic sentiment and increased

veneration for the principles of our ancestors: no more useful contribution to the

cause of general education can possibly be made.”
Patriotism in the United States during the antebellum period often meant more than acts
of military valor in support of one's country. However, by describing history as
knowledge which “inspires with patriotic sentiment” and “increases veneration for the
principles of our ancestors,” Lord, Implies that history is primarily a story of the greatness
and achievements of past American citizens and that loving America constitutes its major
lesson. Unlike many world and universal history textbooks Lord never discusses history
as an imperfect account of the past which must be read carefully.

Other United States history textbook authors wrote little in their introductions on
how history itself is constructed. Like Lord’s textbook, they instead emphasized history's
ability to inspire patriotism and unite citizens rather than its ability to encourage students
to judge the intellectual foundation on which ideas and values rest. Selma Hale hoped his
textbook would “produce virtuous and patriotic impressions on the mind of the reader” by
“recording examples of fortitude courage and patriotism” of America's forefathers.”
Egbert Guernsey wrote that the purpose of history is to “unite” Americans more closely.
Neither author described history as an imperfect body of knowledge."0 Neither author
wrote that a scientific methodology produced more reliable accounts of the past.

While many authors of United States history textbooks viewed history as a tool to

inspire patriotism, some still described it as a discipline that taught other values. For

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example, Charles Goodrich writes “history sets before us striking instances of virtue,
enterprise, courage, generosity, patriotism; and, by a natural principle of emulation,
incites us to copy such noble examples?”I His phrase that history “incites” one to emulate
examples of “virtue... courage...and patriotism,” resembles other authors, in that it casts
history as literature which inspires national loyalty by inspiring national loyalty.

,9 6‘

However, the statement that history presents examples of “virtue, enterprise,” and
“generosity,” indicates it teaches a wide range of values that extend beyond patriotism.

Authors of United States history textbooks also viewed history as knowledge
which entertained readers as well as inspired patriotism. This idea of history, which
several authors expressed in their preface, posed no threats to narratives which sought to
cultivate patriotism or national unity. Frost cites a desire to make clear and concise
narrative accessible to all readers."2 Hale believed narratives should be both “correct and
interesting” as did Charles Goodrich and John Lord. Augusta Berard hoped her textbook
would establish a love for American history/'3 History, for these writers, was supposed to
be both entertaining and interesting.

As noted, American history textbook authors rarely described history as an

imperfect body of knowledge which reflected the authors' bias. Some writers even put

forth an explicitly Providential view of history. In his 1834 edition of United States

 

flisLog Goodrich wrote “History displays the dealings of God with mankind. It calls upon
us to regard in all his darker judgments and against his liveliest emotions of gratitude.”
However, a few authors indirectly note that historical accounts contained flaws. Frost and
Eliot wrote that they sought to avoid the influence of partisanship when writing their

histories.“ Berard, by writing that her history was “fact not fable,” reminds readers that

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her narratives rest on some kind of evidence." John Frost states in his introduction that he
avoids party bias when writing history.” Berard, Charles Goodrich and Samuel Goodrich
identify some of the sources that they used to write their textbooks."7 In addition authors
of American history textbooks use footnotes to clarify their meaning on some points.
Charles Goodrich, in his description of the American Revolution, cites the source of
information and adds additional information about who supported the American
Revolution. Marcuis Willson also includes notes that add additional information on
different geographic locations. Samuel Goodrich includes notes which explain gaps in his
narratives, including one note that explains differing accounts on whether Israel Putnam
was at the battle of Bunker.“ Although some authors used footnotes only to provide
readers with additional information, their use nevertheless acknowledges the existence of
different accounts of particular events.

The use of footnotes indicates that United States history textbook authors, to a
limited extent, viewed history as imperfect knowledge. However, they never described
history as knowledge that should be judged critically in the way resembling world and
universal history textbook authors. Based on how they defined it in the preface and
introduction, United States history textbook authors envisioned history as a tool for
producing obedient, loyal, and patriotic citizens rather than citizen that evidenced
independent thinking. Authors wrote little which might inspire students to challenge the
legitimacy of historical interpretations in textbooks or other readings. This shows that
authors of United States history textbooks functioned less as agents of reform when they
discussed history’s uses in their introductions than textbooks that focused on ancient or

world history.

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History’s Practical Uses

Authors of ancient and United States history after 1830resembled each other in
that both believed that history taught practical lessons as well as inspiring patriotism as
military valor. Royal Robbins writes that “from the whole which history presents us, we
deduce conclusions that have important bearing on human happiness and virtue?”9
Robbins’ phrase “we deduce conclusions that have important bearing on human
happiness and virtue,” expresses the idea that history teaches readers a range of lessons
which include how to improve the society they live in. William Sullivan described history
as knowledge which “was full of instruction” that warned readers against those things
which bring misery to a civilization.” Although Marcuis Willson never describes history
as knowledge which inspires greater religiosity or patriotism, he still wrote that it
revealed important social, political, and economic lessons.

Elizabeth Peabody writes more emphatically than other authors that history shows
students how to reform and improve the society in which they lived.

Not everyone needs to be a geologist, mineralogist, botanist, chemist;

but every man needs to be a fellow citizen, voter, and may be a legislator,

magistrate, perhaps the chief magistrate, of his town state or nation. If he

knows nothing else, he ought to know the history of nations, especially

of the nations whose career is run through. He needs to see how the

institutions which have cursed the world have grown up, and to learn how

the more blessed influences in society are cherished by government, or at

least kept unquenched.’I
Her reference to the need to understand “institutions that have cursed the world”
illustrates her preference for histories that produce informed citizens capable of making

smart choices rather than inspiring patriotism or a love of country. Peabody’s statement

also reflects her view that students receive the greatest value from historical narratives

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which teach practical political lessons, hinting that some students might one day become
magistrates or legislatures not to mention voting citizens.

Willard’s textbooks have been praised for their ability to inspire patriotism by the
Superintendent of Instruction for the State of Michigan. However, in her United States
History textbook she also cites knowledge on how to govern as important reasons for

studying history.

History allows the student to see how human passion influences the

chain of events. He thus has an understanding of how humans are

influenced and possibly how to influence events....History might allow

politicians to predict wars before they occur.’2
Willard’s statement that history allows students to “see how human passions influences
the chain of events” and that history allows politicians to predict and prevent wars before
they occur illustrates that she valued history for the pragmatic political lessons it taught
rather than for its ability to inspire patriotism.

Peabody, in her United States history textbook published in 1856, also describes
history as knowledge that inspires readers to improve and reform society when she writes
“whether the new world shall estimate and sift out these evils, or repeat these mistakes,
depends on young Americans sitting in school rooms all over the country?”3 In making
this statement Peabody conveys the larger idea that history teaches students practical
lessons on how to improve society because it alerts them to the mistakes of earlier
civilizations. Rather than encouraging students to celebrate the accomplishments of the

American revolutionaries, J. Olney, in much less detail, describes history as knowledge

which allows citizens to more effectively fulfill their role as voting citizens." Thus, while

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improving students morality constituted a reason for studying history, this morality
manifested itself as practical knowledge on how to run a republic rather than the exercise
of self control or personal discipline for Peabody, Willard, and Charles Goodrich.
Textbook author statements point to the larger goal of using historical narratives to tools
for shaping the way that students might respond to contemporary problems of antebellum

America.

Conclusion

The descriptions of history in many United States history textbooks confirms Elson's
argument that textbook authors view history as a story which portrays the United States’
greatness as a nation. In addition, many textbooks, especially those written before 183 0,
attribute events to God meting out judgment over various civilizations as Elson and other
writers contend. In this sense textbooks contributed to an ideology that portrayed the
United States as God’s favored nation. However, many textbook authors, especially those
who wrote about the history of Greece and Rome, state that history teaches practical and
worldly lessons such as the mechanics of good decision making as a citizen rather than
inculcating readers with a highly nationalistic or religious ideology. Most antebellum era
educators would have embraced this use of history since they increasingly valued
informed and intelligent citizen who could make independent judgments over simply
obedient citizens.

This matches up with what other scholars have observed in secondary school
curricula during the antebellum period. Although they note that inspiring greater morality

constituted one objective of secondary schools, Reese, Kaestle, Sedlak and Labaree all

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show that the high school curriculum sought to produce informed students who could
effectively fulfill their duties as citizens rather than as obedient students who evidenced
extreme religiosity and loyalty to the state. Thus the conclusions of other scholars on how
textbook authors viewed history needs to be qualified in the sense that textbooks viewed
history as knowledge that conveyed much more practical lessons on how to be a citizen
than the righteousness of Christianity and the greatness of the United States.

Elson’s study contends that textbooks published during the antebellum period
placed little value on cultivating a student’s intellect.55 Statements in educational journals
that emphasized the importance of social control, especially among young students,
supports this argument. However, textbooks featuring ancient history published after
1830 often highlighted the importance of judging history critically, pointing out that
legitimate accounts of the past require evidence, and that a paucity of evidence limits
what scholars can conclude about the past. They also listed their sources, acknowledged
biases, and admitted that some events in the past can never be know. A few authors even
note that political leaders distorted accounts of the past to rally their people to support
war or commit acts of marital valor. On a whole, they conveyed the need to judge the past
critically, reinforcing the idea that students must become intellectually sophisticated
readers. These ideas about history correspond to warnings directed at educators that they
carefully monitor the kind of literature they allow students to read. Many reformers feared
that certain types of literature misled students with false information. It thus made sense
that some textbook authors would alert readers to bias and flaws in accounts of the past.

Finally, based on the evidence presented in this chapter, one can argue that

textbooks functioned as agents of reform by describing the nature of history and its uses

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to readers. By describing history’s nature and uses, textbooks highlighted the importance
to readers of formulating their own interpretations of texts and of questioning the
interpretations of others. This power to read critically printed materials and question
different interpretations resembled the phenomena that Hatch described among
participants in various revivals associated with the Second Great Awakening whose new-
found literacy allowed them to challenge the authority of the established clergy. Some
textbooks, through their explanation of history functioned more as agents of reform than
others. Universal and world history textbooks, for example, more often than United States
History textbooks alerted readers to the limitations of history. Textbooks published
after1830, more frequently than those published before, introduced readers to the idea that
accounts of the past were imperfect. Yet, while differing by degrees, textbooks, on a
whole, acted as reform agents when writing about history. They awakened readers to the

importance of questioning the authority and accuracy of the stories writers present them.

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Chapter Four
Sparta and Patriotism

As chapter one and two illustrate, public education emerged in an environment
where the idea of citizen animated debates on the nature of American society during the
nineteenth century, especially among reformers and intellectuals interested in promoting
public education. Nevertheless, no study has sought to integrate the narratives that history
textbooks featured with Early National and antebellum social and political conflicts in a
systematic way. They imply, if not explicitly state, that textbooks promoted a simplistic
notion of patriotism and concealed conflict in American society. Those studies arguing
that secondary school textbooks idealized American institutions and presented overly
simplistic sets of morals rely primarily on research from the 19608 by Ruth Elson and
Nietz. However, these studies made only a cursory analysis of the content in secondary
school textbooks. Nietz bases most of his conclusions on dissertations written by
Chauncey Jacobs in 1939 and by Frank Stewart in 1953.l Baym's 1995 study, which
reviews a few passages from Elizabeth Peabody, Emma Willard, and Sarah Pierce's
textbook, hints that textbook authors might have expressed more complex set of values
than earlier studies contend. However, she too only touches on the social and political
values textbooks presented in their narratives of Sparta and never challenges the
conclusions earlier histories of education have made about the values secondary schools
conveyed.

In contrast to studies of textbooks themselves, recent studies of secondary school
education hint that schools wanted to teach students a fairly complex notion of

citizenship that went beyond national loyalty. Carl Kaestle writes, “If the republic was to

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have universal white male suffrage, it needed universal white educations. Public schools
could teach patriotism, encourage participation in civic affairs, and teach girls how to
teach future sons the same lessons.”2 By listing the more practical goal of inspiring
students to “participate in public affairs” as well as cultivating national loyalty this
statement shows that antebellum reformers envisioned a broad notion of citizenship.
Labaree’s view that Central High School in Philadelphia during the antebellum period
sought to “create a republican community by producing a common set of academic
experiences,” also indicates that educators embraced a broad notion of citizenship.3 In
addition, as chapters one and three have explained, republicanism during the antebellum
period often meant self-control, responsibility to one’s community, and acceptance of
democratic principles as much as military service.

It is no wonder that scholars describe many notions of republicanism and
patriotism in antebellum America. Chapter two shows that writers in the broader
American culture often cite examples of patriotism in past republics to explain how
patriotism might solve certain social and political problems of their own time. Greece and
Rome especially symbolized controversial solutions for many social and political
problems. Some journalists viewed Greece and Rome as positive symbols because the
discipline and obedience these republics instilled in their citizens represented the results
they desired in America’s children. These essays also viewed Sparta and Rome as models
for the role women should play in a republic and Sparta symbolized an effective method
of promoting discipline, obedience, healthy living, while ending avarice and selfishness

among antebellum Americans. However, for other writers and journalists, Sparta

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symbolized the wrong path because it stifled individuality, symbolized a loss of
femininity among women, and led to a rejection of the family.

Despite featuring evidence from their own research that point to a complex notion
of citizenship, most studies of secondary school education often fall back on Ruth Elson's
argument that textbooks authors during the antebellum period conveyed an unambiguous
set of political values. Her study concludes that loyalty to one's country constituted the
primary political lessons that most textbooks taught children, writing “educating the child
in the technical terms of politics was important, but clearly the first duty of schoolbook
authors in their own eyes was to attach the child's loyalty to the state and nation.”4
“Every book,” she writes, “contains many pieces sustaining the doctrine that loyalty to
country must be paramount to all other loyalties.” In addition, she argues “patriotism
requires that one should be willing to lose not only family and friends but life itself for

” 5 Even though secondary school histories suggest otherwise, none

one’s country.
indicates that Elson’s conclusions should be re-considered.

This section illustrates how textbooks conveyed, through their histories of Greek
republics such as Athens and Sparta, a very complex idea of citizen that contained
contradictory elements and went beyond simply a love of one’s country. Sparta, as
presented by textbook authors, represents the quintessential example of a republic with
loyal citizens willing to sacrifice their lives for their country. It also represented a
republic that successfully taught children self-control, obedience and respect for elders.
Finally, Sparta represented an educational approach that emphasized physical fitness,

teaching children how to endure pain, teaching children how to suppress all frivolous

activities, and teaching children how to obediently defend their republic. Antebellum

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Americans embraced many of these values to some degree. However, despite these
positive qualities, textbook authors offered mixed opinions of the republic of Sparta.
While acknowledging its achievements in producing patriotic and obedient waniors,
many authors noted the Spartans’ efforts at cultivating a “love of war” while sacrificing
the development of empathetic or intellectual values in its men and women citizens. And
although many reformers viewed education and public schools in particular as tools to
bring order to an increasingly diverse society, their commentary of Sparta indicates a
broader uneasiness with schools as tools for maintaining social control. Thus, while one
can find numerous writers who valued an educational system that cultivated obedience
and social order, textbook narratives of ancient Greece reveal uneasiness with this
method of producing citizens in the United States.

Tucker's 1807 description of Sparta illustrates this uneasiness by expressing
ambivalence with, rather than approval of, Sparta’s masculine and regimented notion of

citizen in a republic.

Q. In what manner were the Spartan children educated?

A. They were considered as the pr0perty of the state, and their education
consisted in accustoming them to bear cravings of hunger and thirst,

and to endure the scourge of discipline, and every degree of pain, with
patience, and even exaltation.

Q. What effect had this system of education upon the Spartan youth?

A. Their passions became inflamed with patriotic ardor, and their bodies
hardened by constant exercise, so that they were eager to undertake, and
powerful to accomplish, every exploit for the glory of their country.6

Tucker introduces to readers a warlike and physical notion of the citizen by writing that
their bodies were “hardened by “constant exercise” and their “passions became inflamed

with patriotic ardor.” A few essays in educational journals wanted schools to employ

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similar methods to cultivate these same qualities in American students. The Annals of
American Education featured several articles promoting physical education and manual
labor as a way to strengthen students whom they feared had become too weak.7 One
article even proposed that school cunicula incorporate military training.8 An essay in _T_h_e_
Child’s Friend even featured an article that praised a boy for enduring extreme levels of
pain such as the amputation of his leg without crying.9

Nevertheless, Tucker takes a neutral position on Sparta's approach to socializing
its students in this narrative, a stance which corresponds to how many Americans felt
about a Sparta-like education during the early nineteenth century. Reformers increasingly
favored ideas emanating from Pestalozzi and other educators who promoted educational
approaches that placed less emphasis on toughness, the ability to endure pain, and
corporal punishment. This also corresponds to a time when many Americans, especially
women and reformers, increasingly associated virtue with sentimentalism rather than
martial valor.

Tucker again conveys ambivalence toward a Sparta-like citizen and republic when

he compares Sparta with Athens.

Q. Did not the different laws of Sparta and Athens produce, in the course
of time, a corresponding difference of manners?

A. Yes; the performances of the theater, the popular assemblies, and the
sacred festivals, employed the inhabitants of Athens; while the Spartans,
indulging in no amusement or relaxation, were incessantly busied in the
exercise of war. The streets of Athens resounded with lively notes of
music, and their songs were dictated by tender passions of pity and

love; the poets of Sparta, rehearsed only the stem virtues of departed
heroes, or roused her sons to martial exploits by the description of
battles, victory or death. In Athens, the Sportive sallies of wit, and gay
images of fancy, gave a peculiar vitality to social intercourse; the
seriousness of a Spartan was manifested in his grave deportment,

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and peculiar conciseness of his sharp and pointed repartee. The virtues

of a Spartan were gloomy and austere; while the dissipation of an

Athenian was engaging and agreeable. The one was an illiterate

soldier, whose character was formed by martial discipline alone;

the other was a man of genius, taste, and letters, who enjoyed the

advantages of refinement and knowledge.10
While acknowledging that Sparta created skilled soldiers, Tucker also notes that it
produced “illiterate, gloomy, and austere” citizens who knew only how to prepare for
war. Although Tucker makes no direct criticism of Sparta, Americans during the
antebellum America increasingly viewed illiterate people as immoral since they
increasingly viewed literacy as the key to learning moral values.11 Thus applying the term
“illiterate” to Sparta reflects Tucker’s dislike of some of their values. And although he
associates the word “dissipation” with the character of Athens' citizens, he also explains
that they were “agreeable” citizens with “genius, taste, and letters.” It is true that some in
the United States would have viewed Athens’ intellectual character more negatively than
Sparta’s disciplined character. Garry Will’s study of republicanism during the Early
National Period indicates that American leaders such as Washington occasionally tried to
model themselves after the austere Spartan citizen. However, the word “illiterate” with its
negative connotation indicates that Tucker himself held an ambivalent view of the
Spartan notion of citizen.

Sarah Pierce expresses greater approval with the austere, highly disciplined and

warrior-like notion of citizen through her narrative of Sparta.

Their lives have been condemned as too idle, and they are accused

of rustic ignorance; yet while they retained the virtuous simplicity and the
severe manners introduced by Lycurgus, they found sufficient
employment for the most ardent mind; for in a free and virtuous state,

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the affairs of the public become the concerns of every individual.

They did not entirely neglect the cultivation of the mind. They attended

to the kind of philosophy which without being either subtle or verbose,

forms the judgments and corrects morals.

The Spartans love poetry as a means of kindling the soul to virtue,

and animating them with a desire of performing noble actions.12
While Pierce acknowledged that Sparta trained its children to be soldiers, she also writes
that this type of education never precluded the Spartans fiom developing their intellects,
stating that they still became involved in state affairs. She also argued that the word
“ignorance” inaccurately describes the Spartans' level of education and instead credits
them for their “virtuous simplicity” and their ability to nurture a love of poetry that
“animated them with a desire for noble actions.” Kaestle, Tyack, and other scholars have
observed that many reformers during the antebellum period favored this notion of citizen
which required students to be disciplined, to possess physical strength and to have some
knowledge of government. By explaining that Sparta’s approach to producing citizens
still succeeded in cultivating the intellect, Pierce reinforces the idea that nations could
still produce an intellectual and cultivated citizen with a highly disciplined form of
education that valued physical fitness and toughness.

Nevertheless, Pierce’s narrative of Sparta also describes drawbacks of an

education designed to cultivate patriotism in citizens in a different passage.

We are not to consider them as a perfect model. Spartan austerity carried
to excess, presents to our View some objects shocking to humanity. It
stifled pity and the natural affections, those valuable sentiments which
are the sweetest benefits of social life. Had they tempered their severe
virtues with gentleness, modesty, and humanity, they would have been
entitled to higher encomiums. Their contempt of riches, their love of
glory, and of their country; their obedience to the laws, and their heroic
courage, have ranked them above all other heathen nations.”

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Pierce presents a negative description of Sparta's approach to socializing citiZens, writing
that it took austerity too “excess”, and notes that Sparta stifled pity and the “natural
affections” which she considered essential to social life. The “natural affections” had
become more valued during the antebellum period than during previous times. Wood
notes this idea had grown in popularity during the antebellum period. While Kerber has
argued that Americans embraced a more Spartan-like woman during the American
Revolution, a more sentimental notion of woman citizen emerged during the 18303 and
18403. This more sentimental notion of woman citizen, who behaved in a gentle and
caring manner completely differed from the emotionally stoic Spartan mother. Through
this more negative description of the Spartan character, Pierce embraces this more
sentimental model of republican motherhood that Ann Douglass describes with qualities
such as empathy. When juxtaposed to her more positive description, this passage
illustrates Pierce’s ambivalence toward a notion of patriotism narrowly defined as loyalty
to one's country and the restrictions that come with a well-ordered society.

Worcestor, like other authors, acknowledges that Sparta's system of education
taught its young to love their country, respect adults, and to endure hardship.” However,
he conveys more strongly than other authors a dislike of the very stoic, austere, and

militaristic notion of citizen practiced in Sparta.

The institutions of Lycurgus were well adapted to impress on the people
a character completely artificial, by stimulating some feelings and
principles to excess, and eradicating others; but they were not calculated
to promote either happiness or goodness. The system was, however,
ingeniously contrived to render the Spartans a nation of soldiers: by
them war was considered the greatest business of life; and it was

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their highest ambition to be terrible to their enemies. The heroic

virtues or qualities, such as patriotism, public spirit, courage, fortitude,

and contempt of danger, suffering and death, were cherished; while

all the softer virtues and domestic affections were sacrificed.15
Worcestor describes Sparta as a republic with an educational system designed primarily
to transform children into citizens who value loyalty and a willingness to sacrifice for the
state. However, while many Americans might value these qualities, he also emphasizes
Sparta’s denial of other qualities valued by many antebellum-era Americans. For
example, he states that Sparta never produced “happiness or goodness,” and claims that it
sacrificed “softer virtues and domestic affections” in order to create patriotic citizens. As
noted in chapter one, the grth of sentimentalism in antebellum America at the time
Worcestor published his textbook ushered in a desire for “softer virtues” and “domestic
affections,” especially in women. Thus even though Worcestor credits Sparta with
inspiring its citizens to more willingly cherish “contempt for danger, suffering, and
death,” his negative description toward its lack of sentimentalism reinforced arguments
against educational programs designed simply to produce austere and highly disciplined
notions of citizen. Such a notion runs counter to the highly ordered society typically
linked with Northern Whigs.

Worcestor also reinforces arguments for a less martial notion of education with
less discipline by juxtaposing his description of Athens, another Greek republic that has
also achieved greatness, next to his description of Sparta. He writes that in Athens,
“peace was the natural state of the republic” as opposed to Sparta that always prepared

for war. To remain at peace is significant in New England where Worcestor lived because

this region favored peace during the two wars during the antebellum period. New

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England favored peace during the War of 1812 and considered making a separate peace
with Britain at the Hartford Convention. New Englanders with Whig sympathies also
opposed war with Texas 1835 and Mexico during the 18403. Thus to state that a republic
remained at peace as Worcestor does with Athens is a much greater complement than one
where he does not such as Sparta.

Worcestor also notes that the arts flourished in Athens and that its citizens
enjoyed luxury. While many Americans frowned on luxury, including writers in the bliss
Weekly Register, some saw it as beneficial to a republic because they associated it with
higher learning. Worcestor himself belonged to the Massachusetts Historical Society and
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, something that would have been
considered a form of luxury. ’6 Finally he notes that Athens passed laws which
“encouraged industry and economy” while punishing children who were disobedient to
their parents. 17 Thus Worcestor, by explaining that Athens succeeded in cultivating
positive values in its citizens without the same level of restriction as Sparta, offers
readers an alternative to the Spartan notion of citizen.

Samuel Goodrich also highlights many Spartan qualities that antebellum

Americans would have rejected.

The frugality and the temperance of the Spartans, their grave decorum,
invincible courage, and patriotic devotion, have been the subjects of
commendation, but their virtues, being carried to excess, degenerated
into vices, and rendered the Lacedaemons ascetic, harsh and

unfeeling ..... Their love of war impelled them to an aggressive and
tyrannical system of foreign policy, and their contempt for the arts of
peace, and the cahn enjoyments of domestic life, prevented them from
cultivating those gentler and kindlier feelings of man's nature, which,
practically are the chief source of human enjoyments.18

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Although Goodrich shows that Sparta succeeded in producing patriotic citizens, he
nevertheless explains that this came at the expense of developing their “gentler and
kindlier feelings.” As with other authors, preventing the development of “kindlier
feelings” is a criticism of Sparta because it conflicts with more sentirnentalist values that
scholars observed emerging in antebellum America. Like Worcestor, Goodrich disliked
the Spartans’ rabid exercise of patriotism because it led to their “contempt for the arts of
peace” and “their love of war.” This message would have resonated especially strongly in
New England where many people opposed the war with Mexico, not to mention
millenialists and participants in the peace movement.

Other authors also illustrate the potential costs of producing virtuous and patriotic
citizens in the Spartan mold. Emma Willard acknowledges that Sparta's system of
education succeeded in producing patriotic citizens but claimed that it prevented the
development of “social affections and domestic virtue” which she considered necessary
for happiness.19 Pierce Grace, while acknowledging Spartan children were “educated at
public expense,” which is similar to the common school idea, also notes that Sparta
discouraged children from studying literature.20 Dr. George Weber notes that Spartan
education produced “bodily hardihood,” a quality that many Americans would have
valued. However, he also notes that Sparta's educational system neglected the “feelings
and imagination” along with science and poetry.2| Weber states that Athens also succeed
in limiting immoral behavior without severe restrictions and Pierce Grace notes that
Athens, which never socialized its citizens in the manner of Sparta, not only inspired the

arts but also advanced agriculture and commerce.

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Only Elizabeth Peabody's history, published in 185 9, omits the lack of sensitivity

and empathy in Sparta’s approach to education.

The Dorian idea of state, that it was an organization for the education

and development of freemen on the model of Apollo, was preserved in

Sparta for five hundred years after Lykurgus [Lycurgus] and only lost by

the effects of the Peloponnesian, Theban, Makedonian, and Aechaen

Wars, which were in a manner forced on the Lakedaemonians by

others.22
Peabody never embraced a war-like republic. However, although she would have known
that Sparta educated its children to become soldiers, Peabody never mentions the austere
and militaristic character of Spartan education and never highlights Sparta’s rejection of
values that resembled nineteenth-century sentimentalism. She instead wrote that Sparta
system helped the “development of freemen” and credited Sparta with offering an
education to all, including women. Her great admiration for the importance it assigned to
reading led her to hold it up as desirable republic, even though it held slaves. 2’ Thus, by
praising Sparta for its educational system Peabody emphasizes the potential benefits of an
educational system that focuses heavily on discipline, obedience, and physical fitness so
long as it includes everybody, including women.

Many reformers embraced an idea of citizen with some Spartan qualities. This
idea, embraced by many northern Whig educational supporters, centered around austere,
disciplined, obedient and physically fit citizens who respected their elders and obeyed
society’s laws. Articles in the Niles Weekly Register indicated that promoting patriotism
constitutes a major political value taught in schools during the antebellum period. As

noted in Captain Partridges’ essay several antebellum writers claimed that schools

offering some form of military training maintained discipline and self-control, more

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effectively than those that did not. These same writers also believed that a Spartan-like
education provided the perfect remedy for wealthy students who had grown soft from a
life of luxury.

However, textbook authors narratives offered only mixed support for the Spartan
idea of a citizen and of a republic. While textbook authors acknowledged that Sparta
cultivated patriotic and courageous citizens, they generally expressed concern over the
fact that it suppressed “softer virtues” while cultivating a “love of war.” This indicates
not only uneasiness with this historical republic’s socializing methods but also uneasiness
with similar antebellum-era educational reforms that emphasized discipline, obedience,
regimentation, social control, and the cultivation of physically fit citizens. Their
narratives instead supported those arguing for a strand of educational reform that valued
intelligent and empathetic citizens.

That views of Sparta would be mixed is not surprising. Chapter one and two
show that other writers favored an idea of citizen as independent thinker, who embraced
democratic principles, who made good judgments, and who could empathy for his/her
fellow citizens. They also believed that an education that failed to develop empathy and
benevolence, especially when applied to women, should be rejected. Essays published in
Godey's Lardy's Book, the Common School J oumal, and the Journal of American
Education warned readers that schools should avoid an education that resembled Sparta's
method of child rearing since it cultivated a “love of war.” Several other studies also
indicate that Americans during the early nineteenth-century and antebellum period
questioned an education that aggressively promoted willingness to sacrifice for one's

country. For example, Kaestle notes that during the 18403 common schools began to

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discourage the use of corporal punishment and to replace it by internalizing discipline.”
In addition, educators such as Goodrich argued that students must enjoy education.
Finally, several scholars describe the emergence of a peace movement in the United
States among a few reformers who spoke of war’s immorality, especially offensive
wars.25 In this environment, the Spartan approach to educating citizens conflicted with
these newer visions of citizens and educational approaches since well-disciplined but
excessively austere students might make insensitive citizens. Thus, through their mixed
reviews of Sparta, textbook authors featured stories that reinforced a less rigid, inflexible,
and puritanical type of citizen.

Women Citizens and Sparta
Most Americans residing in northern states during the antebellum period believed women
could serve the republic as republican mothers who produced future citizens and
purveyed morals. Ann Douglass describes a similar idea in her study of sentimentalism
by explaining that antebellum Americans believed women should exude a caring attitude,
empathy, benevolence, and gentleness. Ruth Bloch also illustrates how virtue after the
nineteenth century acquired a similar meaning.26 However, while sentimentalism
characterized an important part of republican motherhood, a less sentimental alternative
model found expression in antebellum literature. It appears in debates on whether women
and men should be educated together. Reese and several other scholars show, for
example, that educators debated whether operate coeducational schools and whether
women’s curriculum should resemble curriculum for men, including instruction in
physical education. Reports from the Annual Report of the State Superintendent in

Michigan shows that educators not only favored coeducation, they also favored the “less

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emotional” woman it produced. Emma Willard herself, expressed an unsentimental idea
by arguing that schools should train women to “function as governors, rulers and
disciplinarians” and that they become like “Lycurgus” so they could effectively carry out
their duties as republican mothers in classrooms and the home.27 Finally, this alternative
republican mother role appeared in several journals that praise American women for
exuding Spartan-like qualities. The Southern Literary Messenge_r for example, featured an
article that praised Washington’s mother by writing that she “has been pronounced a true
model of the dignity of women. She seemed to combine the Spartan simplicity and
firmness with the lofty characteristics of a Roman matron.”28 Thus while many educators
embraced the sentimental ideal several dissenting voices put forth a more masculine idea
of republican motherhood for women.

In the broader American culture these contrasting ideals found themselves in
narratives of ancient Greece. Sparta represented a less sentimental education where girls
cultivated qualities usually associated with men. Writers that believed a woman's
domestic role in a republic should encompass child rearing often cast Sparta as a negative
symbol since not only were Spartan girls and boys taught together, they both learned
skills needed for warfare. Such skills, as writers state in Godey’s Lady’s Book, denied
women the empathy and benevolence they needed as mothers. However, journals such as
the Wofirking Macn's Advocate and the Southern Literary Review featured essays that
spoke favorably of Sparta’s requirement that women exercise. Thus, while Sparta often
represented the cost to the natural affections of a rigid educational system, it also
represented the goal of many northern antebellum Americans of teaching women and

men the same kind of skills.

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To the extent to which they discuss it at all, most studies of secondary education
emphasize the school’s role in reinforcing the sentimental and more dominant idea of
republican motherhood. Elson, the main source on textbooks for these studies, contends
that on the whole, textbooks encouraged women to embrace modesty, tenderness, and to
accept an education inferior to men. My review of world and universal history textbooks
for older students shows that they did in fact reinforce the ideas of domesticity and
sentimentalism. However, it also shows that several textbooks promoted the idea of
educating boys and girls together and featured histories that demonstrated the benefits of
teaching boys and girls the same skills. Thus while many textbooks upheld the more
sentimental ideal Douglass describes, several exposed students to the benefits of a less
sentimental, more masculine notion of female citizen.

Benjamin Tucker, writing early during the century, states nothing about the role
that women played in Sparta and Athens. However, in explaining women’s role in his
narrative of Rome, he promotes the pOpular nineteenth-century view that women serve a
republic by preparing students to become citizens.

...and they ( the Gracchi, Julius and Augustus Caesar) were taught by

their illustrious mothers to imbibe the spirit, to emulate the

exploits of their ancestors. In succeeding times, the youths were entrusted

to ignorant domestics, who initiated them into the various arts of luxury

and extravagance.29
By attributing Rome’s greatness to the fact that the mothers of its great leaders
encouraged their sons to adopt the morals of their ancestors, Tucker conveys the

dominant nineteenth-century idea that women exercise virtue in a republic by educating

and rearing children. However, he never indicates whether girls should be taught the

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same skills as men and thus never advances an alternative to the dominant idea of
republican motherhood.

Sarah Pierce's description of Sparta’s educational, however, exposes readers to, if
not endorsing a more masculine version of the republican mother.

A. How were women educated?

Q. They were taught manly exercises, but modesty and decorum were

unknown at Sparta. In the first ages of their history, they are represented

as inspiring the young men with love of heroic deeds; but in the last ages

of the republic, the Spartan women degenerated, and were considered

a disgrace to the Grecian name.30
Pierce’s narrative is non-committal to Sparta's approach to socializing women and never
explicitly praises a republic for cultivating “manly” qualities in women. However, she
nevertheless hints that Sparta’s approach produced some positive qualities in women
citizens such as a desire to inspire male citizens to defend their republic. Although most
journals believed schools should discourage women from adopting “manly” qualities, a
few praised women for masculine behaviors. As previously mentioned one journal even
praised a woman for dodging arrows to secure water for besieged settlers. Pierce herself
required women at her school to exercise. Thus she puts forth, while not endorsing, a less
feminine notion of republican mother that would have been accepted in some quarters of
American society during the antebellum period.

Nevertheless while she notes that Spartan women inspired their men to commit
“heroic deeds” she reminds readers that a Spartan education failed to instill them with
“modesty and decorum.” In this way she highlights a quality of Spartan education that
many Americans would dislike. Society considered modesty and decorum essential

qualities in women. However, by writing that the “Spartan women degenerated,” she

refers to an event mentioned in other textbooks where Spartan women acquire a desire for

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luxury and wealth and led Spartan men away from their austere lifestyle. Thus while
Pierce notes that Spartan women learned “manly" exercises and lacked “modesty and
decorum” it was probably their turning away from an austere lifestyle late in Sparta’s
history, an event she never describes, which led her to call Spartan women a “disgrace to
the Grecian name.”

Pierce’s narrative of Athens’ approach to educating women expresses a much
more conventional idea of republican motherhood.

Women far from enjoying that rank in society which Solon's laws

would have given them, were in a very degraded state. Their minds,

being left uncultivated, they lost their influence in society, which

sensible and virtuous women should posses.31
Her statement that Athens “degraded” women because they failed to educate them
conveys the great importance that antebellum Americans placed on women’s education.
However, Pierce's narrative of Athens never advances the idea that schools should
educate men and women together or teach girls the same skills as boys. It thus never
provides fodder for those who want to challenge the status quo.

Worcestor’s description of Sparta's approach to educating women reinforces,
more strongly than most writers, the idea that educating boys and girls together produces
a less feminine notion of republican motherhood.

Young women as well as young men were trained to athletic exercise,

The manners of the lacedaemonian women were loose and indelicate.

They were destitute of the virtues which most adorn the female

character-modesty, tenderness, and sensibility. Their education was

calculated to give them a masculine energy; and to fill them with

admiration of military glory.32

Worcestor’s statement conveys the larger idea that coeducation, where schools taught

women the same skills as men, would produce republican mothers who lacked the

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sentimental qualities that many Americans desired in women. For example, he writes that
Spartan women, whose education gave them a “masculine energy,” also left them
“destitute” of “modesty, tenderness, and sensitivity.” He also describes them as “loose”
and “indelicate.” These phrases indicate that Worcestor found little value in the Spartan
approach to educating women. He listed no benefits to the “masculine energy” women
gained, writing only that Spartan women “exulted when their son's fell honorably in
battle.”33 He found much less to praise in the Spartans than Pierce who at least
acknowledged that Spartan education produced women who “inspired heroic deeds.”
Nevertheless, simply by describing Sparta’s approach, even in a critical light, Worcestor
still alerted readers to an alternative that they, unlike himself, might find desirable.

Eliza Robbins puts forth a more neutral description of Sparta's approach to
educating women.

Lycurgus commanded that the children should all be carefully educated-

not so much attention to reading and writing, but that they should

be taught not to talk much, and to show respect to their parents and

old people and that the girls, as well as the boys should run races

and throw the quoit and the javelin.34
To begin Eliza Robbins never uses the term “manly” to describe the skills women
learned. She instead simply writes that both girls and boys threw the quoit and javelin.
Robbins's narrative also differs from others in that she never claims that teaching women
exercises cost them their “modesty” or other softer virtue. Thus Robbins’ narrative states
nothing that opponents of coeducation could use to advance their cause. In describing

Spartan education in this way, Robbins makes no effort to steer readers away from less

sentimental notions of republican motherhood. She instead alerts them to an alternative to

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sentimental notions of republican motherhood and then allows them to decide for
themselves whether they desire this alternative.

William Sullivan also describes a less feminine version of republican motherhood
to readers through his description of Sparta’s coeducation.

He (Lycurgus) kept all subjects of the republic, of whatsoever age

or sex, busily engaged in the preparations of war, in gymnastic exercises,

in conversation, in debating, in religious ceremonies, and in elevating

amusements. For the first time, we believe, in the history of Greece, the

female sex was raised to its proper dignity, and permitted to exercise its

chastening authority. Mothers became the guardians and instructors of

their own children, until these were worthy of the honor of being adopted

by the republic.”5
By writing that “the female sex was raised to its proper dignity” when Spartan mothers
became “guardians and instructors of their own children,” Sullivan, like other textbook
authors, reinforces the idea popular in the North during the antebellum period that women
should serve a republic raising future citizens. However, he also notes that Sparta
educated women and men in a similar manner, writing that Lycurgus “kept women as
well as men busy with religious ceremonies, gymnastics, debating, and even preparing
for war.” Most importantly, however, he indicates that this education benefited the
republic, producing women who could fulfill their duties as “guardians and instructors”
rather than producing women who were immodest. Although Sullivan still advances a
version of republican motherhood, by showing the Spartan’s version’s benefits, he
introduces readers to an alternative to the more sentimental version common in the
United States.

Samuel Goodrich's history of Sparta also exposes students to consider alternative

roles for women.

Only anxious to form a nation of able-bodied, hardy and warlike citizens,

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Lycurgus scrupled not to trample upon every amiable and modest feeling

of his countrywomen, provided he thereby advance his favorite object.

He directed that they should quit their retired mode of life and publicly

exercise themselves in running, wrestling, throwing the javelin and other

masculine sports.36
Few readers in 1848 would have been comfortable with teaching women how to
“wrestle” or throw the javelin. They would have concluded that the exercises taught to
Spartan women were barbaric because, while many educators during the 18403 favored
physical education for women, few believed that they should exercise as rigorously as
men. Vigorous exercise they believed, might lead them to lose their softer virtues.
However, although Goodrich never endorses outright Lycurgus's plan for teaching
women exercises, he nevertheless made students aware of a historical example where a
republic taught men and women the same lessons. As chapter one notes, while most
Americans would have opposed teaching women military drill during the antebellum
period, increasing numbers favored some type of physical fitness for women as well as
some type of coeducation during the 18403 and 18503. Many Americans would favor
educated women who were also physically fit. The Lady’s Bfllg even featured pictures
demonstrating different female exercises in their 1832 issue.37 Such qualities reformers
believed would allow women to fulfill their duties as mothers more effectively.

Other authors of textbooks, through their narratives of ancient Greece, echo
Goodrich’s view that Sparta’s coeducation approach produced few benefits and made
women less feminine. Willard notes only that Spartans taught women to “rejoice” when
their sons fell in battle and that women learned “manly” exercises.38 In commenting on

Spartan education in general, she wrote that “the institutions of Lycurgus were far from

promoting those social affections and domestic virtues, so essential to individual

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happiness.” As other authors do, she implies that Sparta’s coeducation failed to reproduce
values associated with sentimentalism, resulting in greater individual unhappiness.” This
is ironic when one considers the fact that she called on women to behave like Lycurgus
when preparing children as mothers or teachers to be citizens. Thus Willard reinforces the
more traditional and common notion of republican motherhood.

Peabody's comparison between Sparta and Athens, however, conveys more
strongly than other writers the acceptability of teaching women and men together.

"0. Muller's "History of the Dorians" [of whom the Spartans were derived]

shows that women among the Dorians were recognized as having equal

rights to education and a free social life that they were the most virtuous,

independent, and cultivated women of antiquity; in this respect, in great

contrast to Athenian women who were treated by the laws very much like

the Asiatic, and the result was slavery of the virtuous, and vice of the

cultivated women."0
By praising Sparta for granting women “equal rights to education” and criticizing Athens
for failing to do the same, Peabody reinforced the idea that a male-like education allowed
women to exercise virtue. This idea was not radical since many Americans in New
England and the northern part of the United States in 1859 believed expanding
educational opportunities for women made them better citizens. However, many
educators in 1859 knew that Sparta taught women how to wrestle, to throw the javelin,
and other exercises usually taught only to soldiers. Thus by praising the Dorians for
educating their women, Peabody indirectly praises a less sentimental and more masculine
form of republican motherhood. She also illustrates how secondary schools, while
conveying the dominant middle-class view that women should be prepared to fulfill their

roles as mothers, also offered an alternative role which placed less importance on women

who exuded “modesty and decorum.”

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Scholars have documented that American culture taught women Spartan-like
values in eighteenth and early nineteenth century America. Linda Kerber contends that
American women incorporated the idea of the Spartan mother into their notion of citizen
during the American Revolution. This idea of citizen for women became less popular
during the antebellum period. In one essay in Godey’s Lady's Book entitled “The Women
of 76,” the author contends American women willingly encouraged their sons and
husbands to fight in the American Revolution."1 However, the author rejected any
comparison to Spartan women who also encouraged their sons and husbands to fight. She
described Spartan women as barbaric because they too eagerly encouraged their sons and
husbands to fight. Thus, by reminding readers that Spartan women, as citizens,
enthusiastically inspired their children to fight bravely, authors featured a narrative that
represented the ambiguity rather than enthusiastic acceptance of patriotism in American
society since this idea, sometimes acceptable to men, was rarely acceptable for women.

Nevertheless, narratives of women and Sparta had another side. Elson contends
for the most part that textbooks, especially readers for young children, encouraged
women to accept an inferior education and to embrace sensitive, tender, and modest
behavior. Reese echoes this idea by writing that textbooks discouraged “feminism.” This
argument is true in the sense that a number of these narratives list few benefits of Sparta’s
more egalitarian education that taught boys and girls the same skills. However Robbins,
Peabody, and Sullivan's description of Sparta introduce students to the benefits of
educating boys and girls together and teaching women the same skills as men. Others,
describe and alert students to this alternative though not embracing it, leaving it for

readers to decide. Thus while textbooks often reinforced the idea that women should

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serve republics as mothers, several featured an alternative, less sentimental notion of the
republican mother that might bring greater benefits to American society.
Conclusion: the Citizen and Reform

The different approaches to education presented in chapter one reflect different
visions of citizen. Some favored a sentimental and caring citizen who understood the
workings of government. Others valued an obedient and physically fit citizen who had
escaped luxury’s corrupting influence. Textbooks conveyed this broad range of citizen
through their narratives of ancient Greece and Rome. Pierce, Robbins, Peabody, and
Sullivan featured examples from ancient Greece that showed the benefits of highly
disciplined and physically fit citizens who lived very ascetic lives, even for women.
Other authors conveyed a mixed view of the place of discipline and obedience in
citizenship through their criticism of Sparta’s military culture. While authors such as
Willard, Goodrich, Worcestor, and Butler recognized the benefits of Sparta’s highly
regimented educational system, their histories favored republics that produced intellectual
and affectionate citizens. In addition, authors lamented the absence of the arts in Sparta.
And although many Americans looked to public schools to produce highly disciplined
and obedient citizens, some authors responded somewhat coolly to this vision through
their negative presentations of the highly regimented republic of Sparta.

Using history to convey attitudes toward certain types of republics illustrates how
schools, using these textbooks, functioned as agents of reform that went beyond
increasing literacy and cultivating morals. Rather than simply producing a well-ordered
society as other scholars contend, certain textbooks made schools into institutions that

alerted students to the dangers of a republic that valued order to excess. They also

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featured narratives that paralleled societal tension and conflict over the kind of citizen
Americans wanted rather than narratives that simply reminded students of values
American shared. Such histories provided students with examples and information they
could use to challenge calls for greater social order, information that they could use to
consider the virtues of independent-minded citizens, and information that might inspire
students to consider the benefits of a less sentimental notion of republican motherhood. In

these ways textbooks allowed schools to empower rather than to restrain students.

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Chapter Five
Defining Social Equality through Greece

Many antebellum era writers sympathetic to the grievances of artisans and
yeoman farmers challenged gross social inequality they saw in American society. A
proponent of public education, Orestes Brownson wrote in The Laboring Classes in 1840
that capitalism threatened the very existence of artisan guilds.l The Working Man's
Advocate and the Niles Weekly Register used words such as avarice, effeminate, and
aristocrat to disparage wealthy individuals who they believed produced no tangible
products and contributed nothing to the economy. Journalists during this time sometimes
advanced fairly radical solutions to this problem and often conveyed them through
history. One essay in the Working Man's Advocate, for example, applauded Lycurgus for
his policy of dividing Sparta's land equally between citizens and argued that such a
solution would both maintain virtue in the United States and address inequality of wealth
in a fair manner.

In addition to the views conveyed in the Working Man’s Advocat_e, the American
middle class on a whole expressed their concerns about social and economic inequality.
Gilkeson’s study shows that Providence, Rhode Island’s emergent middle class after
1820, became uncomfortable with gross inequality and a hierarchical society.

The abolitionists thus defined a moral community of producers that

transcended sectarian, partisan, and even regional distinctions.

They envisioned a classless homogeneous society, a middle-class

America, consisting of industrious, frugal, sober shopkeepers and

artisans, whose values set them conspicuously apart from presumed

idleness, extravagance, and dissipation of both the rich and the poor.

Through a product of social and economic differentiation, middle-class

consciousness reflected a widespread yearning for social and cultural
homogeneity in a mobile, heterogeneous, and stratified society. 2

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Although Gilkeson never argues that members of the middle class in Providence
advocated any kind of plan for leveling or redistributing wealth, his study'of abolitionists
shows that inequality, social hierarchy, and a consumer oriented society troubled them.
His conclusion that middle-class abolitionist reformers favored a “classless homogeneous
society” indicates that social and economic inequality troubled Americans with modest
amounts of wealth. In addition the homogenous society that middle-class reformers
favored resembled one of “frugal sober, and, industrious artisans and shop keepers who
meshed in with a small scale capitalist society” rather than a consumer oriented society
where respectable citizens amassed large amounts of wealth through occupations like
banking or through speculation. Such reforms resembled those put forth by Solon of
Athens and Lycurgus of Sparta.

Some American rejected the radical ideas of redistributing property advanced by
artisans and some northern farmers yet still felt inequality had to be addressed. Horace
Mann, in his twelfth annual report in 1848, writes that the vast accumulation of wealth by
manufactures threatened the freedom of American workers, artisans and non-artisans
alike.3 However, he rejected agrarianism or leveling as a viable response to this problem.
One essay in the North American Review attacked Fourierism because this utopian
philosophy advocated the division of property and wealth among its members and raised
children in a communal setting" Thus, while some journalists disliked the inequality that
capitalism produced, they regarded a solution that resembled Lycurgus' approach to
ending social conflict as undesirable. Nevertheless, while many Americans remained

uncomfortable with economic leveling, all political parties during the antebellum period

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addressed the problem of social inequality, including supporters of the northern Whig
party. Members of both parties attacked the very rich and anyone else who stood in the
way of reforms that might extend opportunity to all. Many hoped that education would
obviate the need for any redistribution of wealth.

Most studies of education during the antebellum period frequently argue that the
Whig ideology influenced supporters of emerging public schools, including the textbooks
they used.5 Sometimes these narratives buttressed arguments supporting the status quo.
However, during a time when Americans debated the meaning of equality, textbooks
often exposed students to narratives of Greece and Rome that reinforced the social,
economic, and political ideology of non-Whigs such as small farmers, artisans and others
who comprised the middling sort during the antebellum period. In doing this, universal
and world history textbooks show that it is too hard to classify the political origin of ideas
textbooks convey as they reflect both Democratic and Whig sentiments.

Sparta: Controversial Symbol for Economic Reform

Studies that have examined the social and economic ideas that nineteenth-century
textbooks convey argue that they often present a negative image of economic systems
that redistributed wealth. Elson argues, from the writings of several late nineteenth-
century textbooks, that “socialism, like labor organizations, is identified with
unscrupulous agitation and violence.”6 She also contends that several textbooks
criticized the communalism practiced in colonial America. Reese also argues that
textbooks written during the nineteenth century denounced plans to redistribute wealth by
arguing that they rejected “socialism, feminism, agrarianism and communitarian

philosophies.”

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These conclusions might accurately depict attitudes textbooks conveyed during
nineteenth century’s last decades. However, they fail to explain pre-Civil War textbook
attitudes toward societies that redistributed wealth. The Greek republics, especially
Sparta, represented this type of society since its citizens held equal amounts of land and
lived very communal and austere lives. Pre-Civil War textbooks featuring histories of
Greece and Rome rarely denounced ancient republics such as Sparta for creating
communitarian societies and redistributing wealth as a way to increase public virtue and
often praised its rival Athens more modest wealth redistribution plans. Benjamin Tucker's
narrative of Lycurgus' reforms in his 1806 edition of S_acred and Profane History conveys
no clear attitude toward communalism or disapproval of republics that redistributes

wealth.

Q. What are the prominent features of Lycurgus' laws?

A. He allotted to every family an equal share of lands, prohibited the use
of gold and silver, and made iron money alone current, in order to check
the avarice of his subjects.

Q. What other regulations did he establish?

A. He forbade foreign travel, lest the morals of his people should become

corrupted, by an intercourse with effeminate nations. He established

public tables, at which even the kings of Sparta, were required to share

the coarsest viands [food] with their people, and to set examples of the

most rigid temperance.7
Sparta, as Tucker describes it, possesses all the qualities of a communitarian and
socialistic society. He explains that Sparta’s leader, Lycurgus, redistributed land and
“prohibited the use of gold and silver” to prevent “avarice” among citizens. Despite these
qualities, Tucker never criticizes this society and its approach to ending avarice and never

criticizes Lycurgus' travel restrictions or his requirement that all citizens dine at public

tables. He instead allows readers to judge for themselves the wisdom of such reforms.

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Only in his narrative of Athens, which he juxtaposes to Sparta, does Tucker
convey some disapproval of a communal society that redistributes wealth.

Q. Let me turn your attention to Greece: inform me in what particulars

did Athens exceed Sparta?

A. A fairer order of civil polity was displayed in the constitution of Athens,

a constitution which furnished not only a model for the laws of Rome, but

for most nations of Europe. It was a regular system of jurisprudence,
extending to every class of citizens.

Q. State the outlines of his administration?

A. He vested the sovereign power in the general assembly of the people, which

was composed of free men, whose age exceeded thirty; but in

order to obviate the evils which a pure and unmixed democracy must

have produced, when vested with an absolute and uncontrolled authority,

he established a balance of power in the council of five hundred. The

members were appointed by lot; they were obliged to possess certain

legal qualifications; and to stand the test of a severe scrutiny into

moral character, before they were invested with their high office.8
Tucker’s question to readers, “inform me in what particulars Athens exceeded Sparta,”
clearly expresses his preference for Athens’ social and political organization. His
reference to Athens’ constitution and balanced government shows that he preferred its
political structure over Sparta’s structure. His preference for Athens’ political solution to
the problem of instilling virtue reflects an indirect criticism of Sparta’s communitarian
society. However, he never condemns Sparta's policy of limiting commerce and re-
dividing land among citizens.

Other textbooks published during the early 18003 featured neutral and sometimes
even positive descriptions of Sparta's communal economic systems. While Caleb
Bingharn only acknowledged that Lycurgus created Sparta's laws, Fraser presented a
fairly positive description of his reforms, writing “the strictest economy, severity of

discipline, public spirit, attention to the education of youth, and disinterested concern for

the prosperity of neighboring states distinguished the Spartan nation.”9 Published in the

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United States in 1807, this brief passage, which credits Lycurgus' reforms for promoting
public spirit and education, illustrates the benefits achieved by a state that limited
commerce and redistributed property. Although this description never describes
Lycurgus' plan to redistribute property or eliminate commerce as a way to promote civic
virtue, many students would have been aware of it. Thus rather than condemning a
communal republic, Fraser’s narrative illustrates the benefits one such republic brought to
its people.

Sarah Pierce's 1818 narrative of Sparta in _Sketches of Universal History.
illustrates several benefits of a communitarian society.

Q. How was property distributed?

A. To banish both poverty and riches, two fatal sources of corruption, all
property was held in common. The lands were equally divided. Instead

of gold and silver money, Lycurgus substituted iron, which was extremely
unwieldy, and could be of no value out of Sparta. He prohibited all the
arts which contributed to pleasure and luxury, ordering the floors of their
house to be made only with a hatchet and the doors with a saw. In short,
he made riches and all the arts of polished life contemptible; but found
means in the midst of general poverty, to prevent any individual from
being in real want.

Q. What was the use of these severe restrictions

A. They banished covetousness, fraud, injustice, voluptuousness and
effeminacy from the country and made Lacedaemonia like one family. The
citizens eat together at public tables, and subsisted on the coarsest

fare. Here the aged instructed the young, who were particularly taught
silence, submission to their superiors, to speak the truth and to keep

a secret inviolable.10

Pierce’s narrative credits Lycurgus’ plan to redistribute property and eliminate commerce
with ending poverty and corruption. She also credits these reforms with ending fraud,
effeminacy, and injustice and even credits Lycurgus' reforms with preventing conflict

between rich and poor by writing that they “made Lacedaemonia like one family.” Thus,

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by describing the success of Sparta’s reform, Pierce exposes readers to the benefits of a
communitarian republic.

A few other authors who published textbooks during the 18103 lauded
communitarian societies through their description of Sparta. Frederick Butler's much less
comprehensive description of Sparta published in 1818, credited Lycurgus' reforms with
inspiring “the purest principles of liberty, industry, temperance, patience, virtue, justice,
valor and contempt for riches.”ll Many reformers called for common schools in the
United States precisely because they would cultivate these values. Such a description,
which praises Sparta and its leader for cultivating values that most Americans desired for
their own society during the 18103, hardly conveys hostility to agrarian or communitarian
philosophies.

Even though students primarily from middle-class and affluent families attended
academies during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, textbook authors rarely
presented narratives of Sparta that directly disapproved of this communitarian republics’
policy of redistributing property and limiting commerce. In addition, the fact that a few
even praised Lycurgus' plan precisely because it discouraged a desire for riches illustrates
how textbooks exposed students to an alternative to an emergent free-market society.
Textbooks might have criticized agrarian, socialistic, and communitarian philosophies
during the later part of the nineteenth century. However, overall they took a neutral view
of them during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. It is possible that some
readers viewed these narratives as only stories of past civilizations with no connection to
their own time since Sparta differed from the United States in some significant ways.

There is no evidence of a broad-based social movement during the early nineteenth

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century to transform the United States into one giant communitarian society. No plan to
requiring that citizens use only iron money was ever advanced nor was there ever a plan
to limit commerce, or ban travel outside of the United States.

However, Lycurgus' idea to increase the virtue of citizens by redistributing
property did resemble solutions advanced by some Americans to both promote virtue and
reduce social conflict. Most scholars know Thomas Jefferson, like Lycurgus, believed
that a republic like the United States could remain a virtuous republic only by becoming a
nation of small farmers. ’2 As mentioned in chapter the one, the Second Great Awakening,
characterized by camp meetings and a strong egalitarian impulse, had become
particularly strong during the first decades of the nineteenth century. Communal religious
societies such as the Shakers, the Oneida Community, Brook farm and the Owenites also
comprised part of this movement.13 Finally, this religious movement not only
championed greater religious piety, it also led many people to reject established authority,
especially in major church denominations and embrace a more egalitarian society.”
Lycurgus’ plan to restrict commerce and redistribute wealth as a way to reduce avarice,
corruption, and social conflict that accompany a stratified society would reinforce the
views held by adherents of these movements.

In addition, while no historian has identified any major political or social
movements that supported leveling during the first few decades, several have identified
regional social movements that did so. In Liberty Men and Greg Proprietors, Alan Taylor
explains how settlers and wealthy landowners battled over large land claims in Vermont
and Maine. ’5 Large landowners believed they had a right to the land and that a republic

should protect their property rights. Settlers viewed the break up of large land claims

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issued before the American Revolution and the redistribution of new parcels as the
solution. William Manning, a self proclaimed laborer, believed that a few elite citizens,
especially those associated with the Order of Cinncinatus, wielded too much economic
and political power and threatened the republic’s survival.l6 Finally, Lycurgus' concern
that wealth weakened the citizens in a republic echoed an essay featured in the Ni_le_s_
Weekly lggister in 1817 that argued that a luxurious lifestyle made citizens effeminate
and weak. ’7 Thus textbooks used in schools before 1820, in remaining neutral to and
sometimes praising Lycurgus's reforms, exposed students to an alternative to the
emerging market economy that would have conformed to the ideology of some
Americans.
Textbooks after 1820

A similar pattern manifests itself in textbook narratives of Sparta and Athens
published after 1820. As was the case in the decades that preceded the 1820s, one could
find several regional movements that viewed some form of redistribution of property as
crucial to advancing republicanism and restoring fairness and tranquility to American
life. For example in New York's Hudson river valley, small farmers increasingly resisted
rent payments to the Rennsalears, the Dutch family that claimed ownership to nearly the
entire region. ’8 The Working Men’s movement, which spoke for the interest of artisans
in Philadelphia and New York, called on government to make public lands more
available to those of simple means.19 The WorkingMan’s Advocate went so far as to
invoke the history of Lycurgus’ reforms when calling for an end to rent payment and
making more public lands available to small farmers and artisans. Thus the history of

Lycurgus’ reforms that textbook authors present reinforced artisan and farmer ideologies

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during the antebellum period that viewed redistributing land and property as a way to end
social unrest and promote civic virtue.

Although authors never praised Lycurgus' plan to re-divide public lands, they
offered only mild criticism and even described some benefits of his communal republic.
Eliza Robbins's description of Lycurgus' plan, illustrates this.

Then a few citizens were very rich and all the rest were very poor.

The wealth of the rich was land upon which all the corn grew and all

the cattle grazed; And the rich, if they chose, could starve the poor

who owned neither land nor cattle. The poor often stole from the rich

and the rich as often punished the poor, and they both complained

of each other and quarreled about their respective rights .....

Lycurgus commanded that the rich give up their lands for the

use of the state: that is for the use of the people; and the citizens

obeyed him. He then divided the whole province of Laconia into 39,000

shares. Nine thousand belonged to Sparta. Each family had one share.20
Robbins’ narrative, like other authors, shows that conflict resulting from economic
inequality led Lycurgus to redistribute land and that his approach ultimately brought
stability to Sparta. Although Robbins never endorsed Lycurgus’ plan, she never criticized
it, even though it resembled a form of leveling. She instead allows students to judge for
themselves the plan’s efficacy for reducing social conflict within a republic. Although
neutral on Lycurgus’ reforms Robbins, her example, which shows that redistributing
wealth reduced social conflict, provided ideal fodder for artisans and small farmers who
argued that economic equality benefited a republic.

By not condemning Lycurgus' reforms, even though it entailed redistributing
property, Robbins conveys ambivalence rather than opposition to agrarianism or the

redistribution of wealth to achieve social stability. This ambivalence is understandable

since it echoes the middle-class sentiments that Gilkeson describes. While Gilkeson

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shows nothing that indicates that middle-class reformers favored a plan to redistribute
land on the model of Sparta, the social inequality that Lycurgus' reforms remedied
paralleled the social inequality middle-class reformers wanted to end. In addition, the
equality Lycurgus' reforms produced resembled the type of republic middle-class
reformers desired.

Robbins’ narrative of Solon’s social reforms also exposes readers to an example
of how a republic could achieve social stability by redistributing wealth.

In Athens, in Solon's time, there was much quarreling and distress. Many

people were so poor that they were obliged to sell their children to pay

debts. Those persons who wished to relieve their fellow-citizens, cast

their eyes upon Solon. One of Solon's regulations was, those who were

still unable to pay their debts should be discharged from them.21

As with her description of Sparta, Robbins explains that social conflict between rich and
poor citizens spurred support for Solon's reforms. Solon, she writes, solved this conflict
by discharging the poor from their debts, a form of redistributing wealth. Although this
plan resembles a form of leveling, Robbins never criticizes it and instead presents readers
with another example that reinforces the argument of small farmers and artisans that
reducing disparities of wealth stabilizes a republics.

Worcestor’s narrative posits a more critical response to Lycurgus's reforms than
Robbins. However, he still introduces students to a solution for ending gross disparities
of wealth that requires landowners and successful capitalists to sacrifice some of their
wealth in his 1838 edition of Elements of History.

commerce was abolished, the distinction of dress annihilated; the use of

gold and silver prohibited, and iron money substituted in its place. The

government of Lacedaemon acquired solidity, while the other states were
torn by internal dissension. For the long period of 500 years, the

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institutions of Lycurgus continues in force; the power and influence of

Sparta were felt throughout Greece; and for a considerable period her

glory eclipsed that of the other states.22
Worcestor never endorses Lycurgus' reforms and even criticizes the strict limitations they
imposed on citizens in another part of his textbook. He also rejected Lycurgus' plan to
“abolish commerce” and to “end the distinction of dress.” However, he still
acknowledges that this plan allowed Sparta to survive 500 years by preventing internal
dissension and factions that plagued other Greek republics. Thus, while Worcestor
rejected Sparta’s approach to reducing conflict, he nevertheless featured an example that
showed its benefits. In this way his narrative actually supports the vision of those who
believed limiting gross disparities of wealth strengthened a republic.

Worcestor explains that Athens’ leader Solon also solved social disorder by
redistributing wealth. Rather than re-dividing land, however he cancelled debts poor
citizens owed to wealthy citizens. He favored Solon's reform over Lycurgus’ reforms
because they required fewer sacrifices and redistributed no property. Nevertheless, his
narrative of Solon’s reforms, which required creditors discharge debt, provides readers
with another example of how a republic ended social conflict by redistributing wealth.
Unlike his narrative of Sparta, Worcestor never criticizes Athens’ approach to restoring
social tranquility.

Samuel Goodrich, in his 1848 history of Greece, also conveys ambivalence

toward radical attempts to reduce social inequality through his description of Lycurgus,

social reforms.

...the intestinal divisions and factious contentions, which for a long period
had distracted Sparta, rose to such a height that the laws fell into

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contempt, the authority of kings was disregarded, and all was anarchy

and confusion.23
Goodrich, unlike Robbins, never describes the conflict in Sparta as emanating fi'orn gross
disparities of wealth. Nevertheless, he credits Lycurgus' reforms, which nevertheless
involved the redistribution of land, to ending anarchy and confusion that preceded them.
Goodrich thus presents readers a story reinforcing arguments made by many small
northern farmers, artisans, and radical members of the Working Men on how to construct
a stable republic.

In addition Goodrich states that Solon of Athen voided the debts of poor citizens
through these reforms. As other textbooks explain, this plan also addressed social
inequality and required elite citizens to sacrifice some of their wealth.24 While Goodrich
never embraces Solon or Lycurgus' responses to the crises in their republics, he still
makes students aware of two solutions to social disorder that worked in ancient Greece.

Other writers, by describing Lycurgus' and Solon's social reforms, also featured
stories that reinforced the argument made by many radical artisans and yeoman farmers.
William Sullivan in 1833, Emma Willard, George Webber, all described Lycurgus' policy
of dividing land equally among Spartan citizens while restricting commerce as a way to
produce a stable republic with virtuous citizens.25 All credit Sparta with achieving some
measure of success in cultivating virtue in citizens. William Sullivan, Willard and
Webber also credit Solon with bringing stability to Athens by limiting what creditors
could demand from debtors.” Thus by describing the history of ancient Greece, these
authors introduced American readers to examples of how republics successfully reduced

social unrest by redistributing wealth.

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Elson and Reese conclude that pre-Civil War textbooks promoted the importance
of a hierarchical society and antipathy to philosophies that advocated the redistribution of
wealth such as socialism. No other study of secondary school education has challenged
Elson and Reese's conclusion. Textbook authors could have easily expressed disapproval
of these economic philosophies and by conderrming Sparta and Athens. However, rather
than condemn Sparta and Athens' approach to redistributing property they remained
neutral toward them. Several authors even explained how their policies successfully
reduced social conflict and contributed to the longevity of Sparta. This indicates that
textbook authors expressed much more ambivalence toward radical attempts to end
economic inequality than Elson and Reese contend.

In conveying ambivalence rather than hostility toward Sparta and Athens’ social
and economic policies, textbooks reflected the sentiments of the larger middle-class
culture. Their views reflected the fear of gross inequality and a desire to curb the excesses
of a consumer society. Their views reflect the fears of social disorder and the recognition
that Lycurgus’s reforms produced many of the qualities reformers wanted to replicate in
antebellum America such as virtue and self-discipline in citizens. Thus to express
ambivalence rather than hostility to Lycurgus’ approach building a republic echoed
sentiments of the American middle class. These narratives also point to a side of
educational reform that is not commonly discussed among scholars. While many studies
point out the desire among school reformers to bring order and uniformity to American
culture, these textbook narratives also reinforced an ideology that promoted economic
uniformity as well. Such an ideology undermined the cultural legitimacy of the wealthy

and powerful in American society and points to a leveling dimension in public schools.

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Chapter Six
Social Equality and Rome

Many studies indicate that supporters of common and public high schools during
the antebellum period harbored ambivalent attitudes toward social hierarchy. For
example, although Reese argues that schools rejected extreme measures of limiting social
hierarchy, he nevertheless argues that reformers viewed public schools as society’s tools
for maintaining a degree of equality. Everyone at least had an opportunity to an
education.l Labaree contends that the Central High School of Philadelphia became a
place “for the reproduction of middle-class culture” and that Central High School
promoted capitalist economic values such as competition and merit. This reflects equality
of opportunity, though not so much total social equality. Kaestle contends that both
Democrats and Whigs during the antebellum period supported the republican values
common schools taught which often meant political but not necessarily economic
equality.2 As stated earlier, Horace Mann and other antebellum reformers believed that
common schools promoted upward mobility while discouraging inclinations toward
social unrest and agrarianism. Such as stance reflects a rejection of both aggressive
leveling and the maintenance of rigid and well-established hierarchies. Only in the South
did unquestioned support for social hierarchies exist.

It is not surprising studies of antebellum education showed that reformers
harbored an ambivalent attitude toward social hierarchy. Education reformers advanced
their plans for public education during a time when Americans were renegotiating the
meaning of hierarchy. Journals such as The Niles Weekly Register, The Wflng Man's

Advocate, The American Citizen and even essays in educational journals such as the

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Amerig Annals of Education and Instruction chided the lifestyle of wealthy citizens
while extolling the virtues of laborers, small farmers, and producers. Even supporters of
the Whig party in northern states, which often espoused the interests of entrepreneurs and
capitalists, worried about gross disparities of wealth. One even finds in the writings of
Manning at the turn of the century and the Working Man's Advocate concerns about the
dangers of monopoly and conspiracies led by the wealthy to republican government.
However, while authors of broad educational studies show that reformers and
society in general held ambiguous attitudes toward social hierarchies, their studies
contend that history textbooks, for the most part, encouraged students to accept the
existence of social and economic hierarchies. For example, Elson writes that textbooks
taught students that social stratification was good.3 This chapter examines how textbook
authors responded to hierarchy in narratives of republican Rome. It is surprising that only
a few authors have focused on the way textbooks described the Roman republic since it
often appeared in popular culture, especially when writers want to make a point about
inequality and the need for land reform. This chapter shows that textbook authors
provided readers with precedents to question inequality with narratives of Rome. These
narratives reinforced broader fears put forth by the Working Man’s Advocatg and other
journals that powerful elites threaten republicanism through exploitation. Thus, although
textbook authors never reject social hierarchy completely, by attributing the decline of
republicanism in Rome to a powerful aristocracy, they featured stories that some readers
would recognize and reinforced fears that many Americans held of wealthy and powerful

individuals in their own time.

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Early Textbooks

History textbooks published during the first two decades of the nineteenth century
never expressed hostility toward wealthy citizens. While most narratives of the fall of
Rome published after 1820 showed the dangers of gross economic inequality and a
luxurious lifestyle to a republic few written before 1820 do this. A few written before the
18203 even legitimize the elites' dominant political position in antebellum America
indirectly by attributing Rome’s fall to foreigners or those unaccustomed to self rule. For
example, Benjamin Tucker attributes the decline of Rome to the extension of democracy

to unworthy subjects rather than the unwillingness of elite citizens to share wealth.

The indiscriminate admission of all the subjects of the empire to the

fieedom of the city, although conciliating, was a most impolitic measure.

Instead of raising the natives of the provinces to the dignity of the

Romans, this privilege had the opposite effect, and sunk the latter

to a level of the former. The right of citizenship had no value being

so widely diffused. The people were no longer actuated by the same

love of independence, or the same detestation of servility.4
Here Tucker attributes Rome's decline to individuals who placed little value on
citizenship rather than the unwillingness of elites to address disparities in wealth. By
attributing the decline of republicanism in Rome to the extension of citizenship to
unworthy subjects, Tucker conveys a sentiment held by Federalists such as Adams
Hamilton at the turn of the century in the United States who believed a republic could not
survive if it made too many people citizens. Tucker’s explanation for the decline of Rome

also reinforces, the view held by Southern slaveholders and members of the Know-

nothing Party who believed that citizenship should be limited.

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Part of Tucker’s narrative, in a small way, suggests that the elite citizens’ cause
republics to decline by explaining how a love of luxury contributed to Rome’s decline.

Its gradual progress (Rome’s decline) may be traced from the destruction

of Carthage. Profusion and extravagance began to prevail as soon as precious

metals were introduced in abundance, Voluptuousness usurped the place of

temperance; indolence succeeded activity; self-interest, sensuality and

avarice, totally extinguished that ardor, which, in ancient times, glowed in

every breast, for the public good. The republic, which had long withstood

the shocks of external violence, fell gradually a prey of prosperity.’

His view that Rome declined when its citizens succumbed to “extravagance,”
“indolence,” and “avarice,” reinforced some Americans’ fears that elites caused republics
to decline because many Americans associated luxury and wealth with elites. However
Americans also associated these same qualities along with excessive “self-interest,” with
consumerism and with a growing market economy that Americans of all social classes
participated in. Thus Tucker’s narrative reinforces the idea that elite citizens threaten a
republican government only in a small way.

Other textbooks written before 1820 also attributed Rome's decline to the
excesses of a consumer economy rather than powerful elites. Caleb Bingham, in his 1802
edition of A HistoricaL Grammar, never describes the struggles between patricians and
plebeians as a cause of Rome’s decline. He instead cites the personal faults of its citizens,
writing “the Roman citizen suffered themselves to be corrupted by luxury; and losing
their native energy of character, sunk into a state of indolence and effeminacy.”6 While
he attributes Rome's decline to “luxury,” an indulgence elites probably participated in, he
makes no direct connection to the behaviors of the elites themselves.

Frederick Butler's Universal History published in 1818 also attributes the decline

of republicanism in Rome to a consumer culture, stating that a loss of “respect for

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poverty” and to a society where “money supplanted all virtues.”7 By attributing Rome's
decline to the desire to accumulate money and wealth, Butler’s narrative reinforces ideas
already found in the broader American society that the values such as self-interest destroy
republics when practiced in excess. To attribute the decline of a republic to an excessive
desire for luxury and wealth during the Early National Period was quite common. I__h_e__
Niles Register for example featured stories that warned readers that an excessive love of
wealth threatened the United States republic. However, consumerism in the United States
during the Early National period was never the province of elites alone. It encompassed
all Americans by varying degrees.

A few pre-1820 narratives of Rome's decline show the dangers of gross disparities
of wealth to a republic. D. Fraser's 1807 edition of History of all Nam lists a growing
disparity of wealth between citizens as a major reason why republicanism in Rome
declined.8 However, he never blames Rome's aristocracy for this conflict. Sarah Pierce
also acknowledges that conflict between patricians and plebeians plagued Roman society,
though she never cites this conflict as a major reason for Rome's decline. Thus, a few
authors who published their textbooks before 1820 partly attribute the decline of
republicanism in Rome to social conflict. Nevertheless, consumerism trumped all other
reasons.

Narratives written after 1830 continued to attribute Rome’s decline to citizens
who pursued luxuries and their self-interest to excess. However, textbooks increasingly
highlighted the role elite citizens played in the decline of republicanism, reinforcing
concerns voiced in The Working Man's Advocat_e, The Niles Weekly Regisg, and T_h§

Democratic Review about the danger elite citizens pose to republics. Worcestor

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represents an early example of an author who attributes the decline of republicanism in
Rome to the actions of powerful elites.
Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, men of eloquence and influence,
distinguished themselves by asserting the claims of the people. Tiberius,

the elder of the two brothers, being a tribune, attempted to check the

power of the patricians, and abridge the overgrown estates, by reviving

the Licinian law, which ordained that no citizen shall possess more

than 500 acres of public lands. A tumult was the consequence and

Tiberius, together with 300 of his friends, was killed in the forum of the

senate.

This fatal example did not deter his brother Caius from pursuing a
similar career, in endeavoring to maintain, by force, the privileges of the

people against the encroachment of the senate. But like his brother,

he fell victim to attempt.9
Worcestor highlights the senate's success at stopping the Gracchi, two reform-minded
senators, from enacting laws that addressed the disparities of wealth and “attempted to
check the power of patricians and abridge the overgrown estates.” Through this
statement, he furnishes an example of how elites in particular, rather than corruption or
excessive desire for luxury, caused republicanism’s decline in Rome.

Many antebellum Americans would have recognized the broader lesson
Worcestor’s narrative featured about the relationship between elites and the decline of
republicanism. In New York, the Rennsalears, a wealthy Dutch family continued to
demand that colonial land titles allowed them to continue to collect rent on small farmers
in the Hudson valley.IO As noted in chapter two, the Working Man's Advocat_e drew
parallels between the Gracchi’s efforts at land reform and struggles between New York
small farmers and landlords during their own times. Worcestor’s use of the term “public

lands” had special meaning during the antebellum period since, for many Americans, this

meant government land in the West that could potentially become available to yeoman

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farmers. ’1 By presenting the story of the Gracchi, a story that pins Rome’s decline on the
elites’ unwillingness to make public land available to poor citizens, Worcestor features a
narrative that reinforced the beliefs of small farmers and artisans of his own time who
favored land reform on the frontier.

William Pinnock's textbook, published in the United States in 1835, also features
a narrative illustrating the drawbacks of hierarchy to a republic.

Before the plebeians obtained an equality of civil rights, the state neither

commanded respect abroad, nor tranquility at home. The patricians

sacrificed their own real advantages, as well as the interests of their

country, to maintain and ascendancy as injurious to themselves, as

it was unjust to other citizens. But no sooner had the agrarian laws

established a more equitable distribution of property, and other popular

laws opened the magistracy to merit without distinction of rank,

then the city rose to empire with unexarnpled rapidity?2
Pinnock argues that denying civil rights to plebeians cost Rome the respect of other
nations. He notes that the passage of agrarian laws and the equitable distribution of land
allowed Rome to thrive as a republic. Finally, while he never rejects inequality outright,
Pinnock nevertheless favors social inequality only on the basis of merit. The broader
sentiments regarding equality expressed in Pinnock's narrative of Rome’s ascendance
would have resonated with many Americans of the middling sort. The 18303, the decade
when this book was published, witnessed growing conflict between artisans and masters
as well where social equality was an issue and where both radical and mainstream
politicians strove to reduce social inequality.

Goodrich's explanation of the fall of republicanism in Rome in his 1846 textbook

also illustrates the dangers of powerful elites to a republic.

With the Gracchi perished the real freedom of Rome. From this time the

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power of the state was wielded by a corrupt and insolent aristocracy.
The senate was now essentially changed from that venerable assembly,
whom we have seen overthrowing Pyrhrus and Hannibal, as much by
their virtues as by their arms.

The men who composed this body were now only to be
distinguished from the rest of the people by their luxurious habits.
They ruled the commonwealth by the weight of an authority gained
from riches and mercenary dependents. The tribune, who were previously
accounted protectors of the people, becoming rich themselves, and
having no longer any interests diverse from those of the senate,
concurred with them in their oppressions.13

Goodrich hints that elite Romans were virtuous at one time in their history by describing
the senate as having been a “venerable assembly.” However, he then explains that Rome's
elites became a “corrupt and insolent aristocracy” who differed from ordinary Romans
only by their “luxurious habits.” States that they gained their authority from “riches and
mercenary dependents.” This description not only attributes republicanism’s decline to
Rome’s elites but also reinforces the larger fear that elites in general threaten republics.
He thus conveys a much more ambivalent attitude toward social hierarchy than other
studies of secondary schools and textbooks indicate.

Emma Willard's narrative of the collapse of republicanism in Rome in her 1849

edition also features an example of how powerful elites threaten a republic.

The great power of the senate had given rise to a family aristocracy,
odious to the people. An Agrarian law was proposed by the tribune of
the people, Tiberius Gracchus. He proposed to improve the condition

of the poor by a more just distribution of public lands; and not, as

some have supposed, by taking the private property of the rich, and
giving it to the poor. The law first proposed was mild in its character. But
enthusiasm of the populace, who began to look forward with hope, and
the obstinacy of the nobles in defense of their usurped privileges, brought
on violent measures.

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Caius Gracchus, a brother of Tiberius, some years afterwards

obtained the office [tribune]. He proposed several laws which tended to

diminish the power of the senate, while they increased the that of the

people. But his opponents raised a tumult, in which Caius was slain, with

three thousand friends. Thus the aristocratic power finally triumphed over

the people. ’4
Like Goodrich, Willard links republicanism’s decline to Rome's elites in the senate who
opposed plans to “improve conditions of the poor” through the redistribution of public
lands. This they did because it threatened their “usurped privileges,” even though the plan
she describes respected the elites’ property. Her stories, liked those that preceded it,
attribute republicanism’s decline primarily to Rome’s aristocracy rather than luxuries,
consumerism or Rome’s increasingly large size. In addition Willard’s uses the words
“public lands,” to describe the conflict in Rome closely resembled the vocabulary used by
protestors from her own time. The Working Men during the18303 and 18403 in the
United States, especially used this phrase when demanding that land be made available to
farmers and artisans. Finally, Willard’s narrative reinforced concerns voiced by reformers
such as Horace Mann that gross disparities in wealth would threaten republicanism.
According to Tyack Mann believed that the “republic was a noble but precarious
experiment” and that common schools were needed to prevent conflict between rich and
poor.15 In his Twelfth Annual Report, Mann argues that, in a modern industrial society
where many work for wages, the vast accumulation of wealth encourages an even greater
abuse of power than under feudalism?”

Willson's 1850 narrative of Rome’s fall in Outlines of History not only challenges

the elite citizens’ respectability but also lauds the middle-class citizens’ virtue.

The revolution by which the Constitution of the republic was overthrown,

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received its first development in the failure of the noble attempt of the

Gracchi to restore to society a middle class of citizens which might serve

as an adjusting balance to the evils arising from the usurpation of the rich

and the growing debasement and venality of the poor.17
Willson’s narrative, like other authors’ narrative, attributes Rome’s loss of republicanism
to the elites’ unwillingness to remedy economic inequality by supporting the Gracchi. He
also offers a solution to this problem by stating that the middle class might balance
“evils” emanating fiom conflicts between rich and poor citizens in Rome. This statement
reinforces the artisans and small shop owners’ ideology in northern states which held that
citizens of the middling sort more effectively protect republicanism than elite citizens.
Thus his narrative, which views the middle class as a balance between other social orders,
provides ammunition for those who want to promote and egalitarian society.

Willson also conveys this same idea when arguing that the Romans exercised
greater virtue during the republics’ early period when a higher percent of its citizens
engaged in small farming.18 Such an idea connects with Jefferson’s vision of the ideal
republic. Willson contends that when larger commercial farms replaced small farms in
Rome, economic inequality increased, fueling conflict between social orders and
resulting in the loss of public spirit.l9 Thus, his narrative reinforced the ideology
prevalent among nineteenth-century Americans that civic virtue lies more with the
middling sort rather than elite citizens.

Other authors, who published their textbooks between 1820 and 1860, presented
narratives that attributed the loss of republicanism to Rome's aristocracy. The Reverend
Royal Robbins, in 1830, William Sullivan in 1833, Pierce Grace in 1848, and Dr. George

Weber in 1853 all attributed the aristocracy's unwillingness to address inequality of

wealth and land as a major cause for the decline of Rome.20 Only Richard Parker's very

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short narrative never attributes the unwillingness of the aristocracy to remedy inequality a
role.

By linking the decline of republicanism and virtue in Rome to wealthy aristocrats,
textbook authors featured stories that reinforced contemporary arguments put forth by
reformers and spokespersons for the nriddle class that wealthy citizens were not
compatibility with the ideology of republicanism. They also presented narratives that
supported the cause of small landowners and farmers in New York and other places
where citizens of modest means struggled for greater access to public lands and the
elimination of rent payments. By featuring histories that show the benefits of reducing
economic inequality to a republic these authors created narratives that would allow
readers to challenge social elites if they wished. This illustrates the reformist function of
textbooks and shows how they contribute to a secondary school education that hardly
supported rigid social hierarchies in a republic.

Cincinnatus as a Model

Writing about the Gracchi’s attempts at land reform in republican Rome was not
the only way textbooks conveyed apprehension of elites and social hierarchy. Several
textbooks also reinforced this concern through their praise of Quintus Cincinnatus, a
Roman dictator known not only for his public service but also his ascetic lifestyle. For
example, Butler writes “. . .poverty was not only respected in Rome as may be seen
through the appointment of Cincinnatus, the dictator; but made a part of their policy, in
using heavy money of brass, in imitation of the Spartan iron money.” He also notes that
Cincinnatus owned only four jugera of land or about two acres.21 By describing one of

Rome’s most virtuous citizens as an austere individual, Butler offers a reason why

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readers should view their own middling sort as essential to a republic and why they
should mistrust wealthy elites.

Several decades after Butler published his textbook, Worcestor also wrote about
Cincinnatus in a way that reinforced the idea that those with a modest lifestyle make the
best patriots.

Cincinnatus was twice called from the plough to assume the government

as dictator. Having completely vanquished the enemies of his country.

he resigned his office, and returned again to his retirement, to labor

on his farm.22
Worcestor, by explaining that Cincinnatus immediately “resigned” his office to return to
his farm, features an older classical notion of republicanism described by Wills where a
leader voluntarily gave up power to preserve his stature and popularity in society.
However, his narrative also presents students with a favorable image of middle-class
citizens by emphasizing Cincinnatus’ life as a farmer. Like the yeoman farmer of
America, Cincinnatus works himself rather than using slaves as the Spartans did.
Worcestor’s narrative of Cincinnatus thus advances a vision that resembles Jefferson’s
vision of a republic of small farmers. It also resembles the ideology described in T_h§
Working Man’s Advocatg and Gilkeson’s study of middle-class culture in Providence.
While his narrative never rejects social hierarchy or a laissez faire economy outright, it
nevertheless provides information to those who want to question it.

Pinnock’s narrative of Cincinnatus also reinforces concerns with elites and praise
of the middling sort by presenting him as a patriotic leader who valued a simple lifestyle.
He describes him as a man “who had for some time given up all views of ambition, and

retired to his little farm.” Cincinnatus he explains returned only when asked by the

Roman Senate. They found him “holding the plough, and dressed in the mean attire of a

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husbandman.”23 Here, Pinnock features an example of a successful, virtuous, and
patriotic leader who shunned all desires associated with the market place such as wealth,
social mobility, and power. In addition Pinnock describes Cincinnatus as “little elevated
with the addresses of ceremony, and the pompous habits they (the deputies of the Senate)
brought him?“ He thus conveys the idea that individuals who embrace the middling
sort’s values can effectively exercise virtue and lead.

Samuel Goodrich features a small anecdote that describes how senators called
Cincinnatus called from his farm to restore order in Rome.25 By describing a famous
patriot who valued a simple life and rejected the pursuit of wealth and self-interest,
textbook authors presented students with a narrative that conflicted with values
associated with a market economy such as competition, ambition, self-interest and
consumerism. In addition these narratives convey ambivalence toward social hierarchy
by praising an individual who rejected the trappings of elite society. They never condemn
the existence of wealthy and powerfirl citizens but illustrate the value to a republic of
those with modest wealth.

Although reducing social inequality constituted one reason why many reformers
supported common schools, few studies have examined how schools might have
communicated this egalitarian sentiment to students. This review shows that by featuring
histories that attribute Rome’s fall to elite and powerful citizens, textbook authors
featured examples that reinforced pre-existing beliefs that gross disparities of wealth and
powerful elites threatened republicanism. Journals and periodicals published during the
antebellum period amplified this message by repeating this same suspicion of wealthy

citizens while praising the respectability of artisans, farmers, and even common laborers.

165

Journals even invoked the history of ancient republics, including Rome to explain that
wealthy citizens, who they viewed as weak and effeminate, would subvert republicanism
in the United States. Thus when textbook authors presented histories of how aristocrats in
Rome failed to address economic inequality, they presented students a larger set of ideas
about the untrustworthiness of elites expressed in many antebellum era writings. In this
way history textbook authors contributed to a secondary level education that reinforced
the concerns voiced by many that excessive disparities of wealth and powerfirl elites
threatened a republic.
Questioning Empire

During the antebellum period, many Americans, especially those in the northern
states began to question the morality of expansion in a republic. For example, Alice Tyler
notes that antebellum reformers launched a peace movement, arguing that America
should outlaw offensive wars if not all wars. This movement gained considerable strength
during the United States’ war with Mexico. 26 Several essays in the North American
Bakery during the mid and late 18403 strongly opposed the war in Mexico because it
violated Mexico's sovereignty. One essay shows that John C. Calhoun invoked the legacy
of Rome to illustrate his view that the war would threaten republicanism in America. lh_e
New England Magazine also featured articles that expressed anxiety over westward
expansion and voiced the concern that patriotism as obedience and martial valor alone
might threaten as republicanism in America. To emphasize their concern with the United
States’ aggressive foreign policy toward Mexico during the 18403, these journals often
cited the negative effects of Rome’s expansionist empire on republicanism to strengthen

their argument.

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While essays published in society at large addressed the issue of western
expansion, few studies of education comment at length on how common schools
addressed western expansion, especially in textbooks. Nina Baym’s study shows that
some textbooks expressed ambivalence toward empires by pointing out that Peabody’s
believed that the United States had unjustly conquered the Native Americans.27 Rather
than always presenting imperialism as a point of pride, her study indicates that a few
textbooks, argue that building empires negatively impact republics.

This section also shows that textbooks authors reinforced the idea that building
empires endanger republics by attributing Rome’s decline to the growth of its empire.
Worcestor features narratives that illustrate how Rome’s expansion produced excessive
diversity that ultimately crippled its republicanism.

The Romans had hitherto been characterized by temperance, severity of

manners, military enterprise, and public spirit; but they were not as yet a

literary people, and the arts and sciences had been little cultivated by

them. These were now introduced from Greece; and the period of subjugation

of that country is this era of the dawn of taste and literature in Rome.

Acquaintance with foreign nations, and the introduction of

foreign wealth began also at this period, to introduce luxury and

corruption of manners.28
Here Worcestor links the decline of republicanism in Rome to the introduction of wealth
and luxury from newly conquered territories. While Americans during the antebellum
period never witnessed an influx of wealthy immigrants, the United States nevertheless
experience mass immigration from Catholic countries. To the primarily Protestant United
States, this event, like the influx of new ideas into Rome Worcestor’s narrative depicts,
represents an influx of ideas that threatened republicanism in the United States. In

addition, although the war with Mexico came a decade after Worcestor published his

textbook, northeastern Americans already were tepid toward expansion. Many, especially

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Federalists, viewed the War of 1812 as partially driven by the South and West’s
expansion driven desires that they opposed. Worcestor’s history provided them with an
example to strengthen their criticisms of expansionist wars.

Willard's narrative of Rome’s decline also links an expansionist foreign policy to
the republic’s decline.

The Romans drew the wealth of these vast and remote nations into

their treasury, and from this bribery and corruption swayed the senate

at home, while extortion and oppression marked the administration of

the provincial governments abroad.29
Willard’s narrative not only describes no benefits of empire to Rome her passage also
connects empire to oppression and Rome’s internal corruption. She thus reinforces larger
arguments against an overly expansionist foreign policy, especially the United States’
War with Mexico. Many Whigs viewed this war as immoral and a threat to republican
government and the people’s virtue. Their concerns echo the older notion of
republicanism that attributed empires to the decline and destruction of republics. Thus
rather than reinforce the benefits of an expansionist foreign policy or the idea of manifest
destiny, Willard’s narrative of Rome illustrates its drawbacks.

Willson’s description of Rome’s decline also illustrates how empires lead to
destructive social conflict.

More than two hundred years had elapsed since the animosities of

patricians and plebeians were extinguished by and equal participation

in public honors; but the wealth of conquered provinces, and the

numerous lucrative and honorable offices, both civil and military,

that had been created, had produced corruption at home, by giving

rise to factions which contended for the greatest share of the spoils,

while, apart from these, new distinctions had arisen, and the rich

and poor, or the illustrious and the obscure, now formed the great
parties in the senate.30

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Willson, first explains that empire led to the rise of factions that fought over spoils in
Rome, something most antebellum Americans viewed as indicative of a republic in
decline. His narrative also presents an example of how empires produce conflict between
rich and poor, lead to the emergence of “new distinctions” between people. By
illustrating the dangers rather than the benefits of creating an empire in a textbook
published in 1855, he exposes students to another example that reinforces the argument
that the war with Mexico, the annexation of Texas, and any other such wars were wrong.
Willson’s narrative, which shows how Rome’s conquests contributed to the rise of
factions, closely parallels events of his own tine when acquisitions of western lands
increased tensions between the North and South over the issue of slave and free states.
This conflict was in full force in 1855 when Wilson published his textbook. In addition,
not only was the United States continuing to expand during the 18503, several Southern
politicians also advocated acquiring Cuba as a new territory. Finally, like Willard,
Willson describes no benefits of Rome’s empire. Thus, by featuring a narrative that
linked the creation of empire to factions and internal conflict, Willson exposed students
to a story that allowed them to certain challenge foreign policies during the 18503.
Peabody’s 1859 narrative of Rome’s decline more forcefully than other textbook

authors, conveys the idea that empires endanger a republic.

It was a forgone conclusion that Rome's might was Rome's right. Other
nations would only treat with Rome by first acknowledging its superiority,
and right to dictate. All provinces and conquered people must no longer
ask for justice but for mercy; which, when they obtained it proved to be
cruelty. The Italian nations strengthened Rome by so many of them
having the right of citizenship, and all of them being kept in hope of it.
Roman citizenship was, indeed, no longer an honor but was valued

as a license to plunder all of the rest of the world, as much as for the

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immunity it gave against being plundered.31
Like other authors Peabody describes no benefits that Rome derived from its empire.
Instead her narrative explains how citizenship became corrupted with Rome’s expansion,
as it came to mean “a license to plunder.” Her narrative of how Rome’s expansion
transformed it into a dominating and imperialistic nation reinforced arguments reformers
made against the violent nature of the United States’ own western expansion.

Conclusion

Rather than reinforcing one monolithic ideology, textbooks through their histories
of Rome, prepared students for the reform process by exposing them to stories related to
debates on what a citizen and what a republic should be. Chapter two illustrates that
many supporters of the Whig party, especially northern Whigs, were ambivalent about
westward expansion and opposed the war against Mexico and often used the history of
Rome to express their ambivalence toward these policies. Worcestor, Willard, Peabody,
and Willson gave students the tools to understand these contemporary concerns and
challenge some of these policies by featuring narratives that attributed the fall of
republicanism in Rome to the grth of its empire. They also prepared students to reform
their republic by giving them the tools to better understand the social and economic
conflicts of their time and provided them with historical examples that could be used to
challenge traditional social hierarchies and economic exploitation. Their narratives
featured examples that reinforced concerns about rigid social hierarchy, consumerism,
and an overly aggressive foreign policy. While some narratives in fact reinforced values
held by the dominant culture, others reinforced the dissenting voices of artisans and small

farmers who feared powerful bankers, speculators, and landowners. Textbooks, through

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their narratives of Rome reinforced middle-class fears of a modern capitalist economy
that might threaten small-scale agriculture. This allowed them to function as agents of
reform by providing readers examples they could use to challenge traditional hierarchies.
By featuring the history of ancient republics, history textbooks conveyed a more complex
set of ideas and values to students than the straight forward and simplistic set of morals

that other studies claim they taught.32

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Chapter Seven
Teaching Citizens with American History
As chapter one illustrates, authors published their textbooks during a dynamic
time in United States history when numerous social and political movements struggled to
shape America’s vision of itself. They debated the role of authority, the level of social
control, the role of women in a republic, and America’s place in the world. Many also
debated how egalitarian the republic should be and advanced plans to make it more
egalitarian. Harsh criticism of bankers and speculators from the J acksonian Democrats
and other assorted artisan and yeoman farmer movements reflect this sentiment. The idea
that the middling sort, rather than the supposed disinterested elites, formed the core of a
republic lay at the center of their belief. However, the idea that the United States should
become a republic without extremes in wealth or poverty also animated many nineteenth-
century Americans who identified with the values of the Jacksonian opponents, the Whig
political party. In the South, no coherent ideology defined the Whig party other than that
it represented opposition to Jackson and the Democrats, especially during the 18303. The
Whig party in the North, however, coalesced around a clear set of principles. It favored a
greater role for government in the enforcement of morality, cultural conformity, and
social control as well as promoting commerce and economic development which business
valued.l However, Whig educational reformers such as Horace Mann often cited the
creation of a more egalitarian society and increased opportunities for upward mobility as
one reason to establish public schools. Thus while the two major political parties held
very different political and economic visions, the rhetoric of social equality shaped both

their platforms by varying degrees.

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Several historians such as Nasaw contend that Whig republican ideology
influenced textbook authors.2 However, many antebellum authors looked to George
Bancroft’s history of the United States’. As Arthur Schlesinger points out, Bancroft,
though of the New England gentry, favored working class positions on many social and
economic issues and warned that “wealthy Whigs” threatened democracy in the United
States.4 William Motley, in describing Bancroft’s history in a letter during the 18803
claimed that “every page voted for Andrew Jackson.”5

This chapter explores the question to what extent did American history textbook
authors reinforce the Jeffersonian and J acksonian vision of a republic through their
narratives of America’s first European settlers. It argues that textbook narratives support
no single vision and instead put forth a more eclectic ideology. Authors often highlighted
the Democratic vision by featuring narratives that reinforce the idea that the middling sort
constitute a republic’s best citizens. Authors also reflect this vision with narratives that
indirectly question and even chide the respectability of the affluent in a republic. A few
narratives even exhibited Jacksonian sensibilities with anecdotes that questioned the
controlling and intolerant nature of New England colonists, especially the Puritans.

J acksonian Democrats favored a more laissez faire economy and less intrusive
government.

However, textbook authors also featured narratives that supported some aspects of
the Whig vision of a republic which included greater enforcement of religiosity and
morality. For example, several authors, through histories of the Puritans, praise people
who value religion and morality more than the pursuit of wealth. This echoes the

sentiments of several journals and sermons that invoked the Puritans and Pilgrims when

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articulating a particular vision or reform for America. For example, Samuel Jackson
praised the Pilgrims and Puritans by writing “to our Christian fathers is the world
indebted for the first attempt ever made, to carry into effect the idea of general diffusion
of secular knowledge among all classes?” An 1831 issue of The New Engl_and Magazine
praised the Pilgrims for their commitment to religious principles rather than the quest for
wealth.7 Another essay in The New England Maggy; also praised the Pilgrims again in
1834 for their commitment to liberty and religion.“ Thus, in New England, the Pilgrims
and Puritans in nineteenth-century journals and sermons symbolized the benefits of
education and a lifestyle that centered around religion rather than wealth.

The Whig sentiment also manifests itself in several textbook accounts of
patriotism during the Revolution. While many authors of American history fostered
patriotism through narratives which celebrated America's past and the righteousness of
their cause against the British, a few conveyed a more ambiguous view of patriotism by
describing the Revolution’s costs. Although these narratives reinforce the F ederalists’
vision of the republic, the anti-war overtones also connect to Whig opposition to the War
with Mexico. Thus textbooks, when one considers their mixed views toward the Puritans
and connection to Bancroft, expose students to narratives that reflect the sensibilities of
both major parties of the antebellum period.

Capitalism with a Small C: The Lessons of Colonial America

Not all American history textbooks feature narratives that convey ambiguity over
social hierarchy or concern with an emerging market economy. Many textbooks describe
events such as the founding of the middle colonies and the battles during the American

Revolution without offering opinions, interpretation, or commentary on the economic or

174

social significance of these events. In addition, as Cooke points out , textbooks rarely
discussed or described in detail controversial events such as slavery and nativism. Elson
explains that, while Jefferson and Jackson presidency “agitated” the nation, few
textbooks comment or analyze the tensions produced during this time period. Thus one
can point to passages in American history textbooks which support Cooke and Elson's
more general argument that authors presented a sanitized account of America's past.
However, when nineteenth-century authors describe events in United States
history more detached from their own time such as the Puritans, Pilgrims, and the
Jamestown settlers, they do in fact address controversial issues. For example, while
authors never address the nativism of the late 18403 and early 18503, they still discuss the
larger issue of intolerance through their description of the Puritans. In addition, though
authors rarely discuss slavery, several textbooks note the arrival of slaves to Virginia and
Grimshaw offers a very critical account of it.9 Thus, while textbook authors rarely
commented on the social divisions brought out by Jefferson and Jackson's presidency,
they still featured narratives that exposed students to controversial social, political, and

economic ideas.

The Virginians
As Reese and Elson contend, textbook authors conveyed a negative view toward
socialistic and communitarian societies while praising qualities of a market economy such
as hard work and private property. Many textbooks express this idea through their
narrative of the difficulties Jamestown's first colonists suffered. Grimshaw, Willson, John

Frost, and Peabody all contend that the J arnestown colonists initially held their land in

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common. When they divided their property, industry and prosperity in Virginia increased.
Thus textbook authors, by citing the increased industry that followed the division of
property, reinforced the argument advanced by supporters of a market driven economy
which included both Democratic and Whig supporters.

However, while narratives of J amestown's difficulties as a colony reinforce the
argument for a market economy, they also reinforce arguments for a republic built around
the middling sort. Authors accomplished this by attributing Jamestown's early difficulties
to its first settlers, often described as either very rich or very poor or as individuals who
lacked the farming and artisan skills needed to build a new colony. For example, Samuel
Goodrich's narrative blames the colony's early problems on a lack of farmers and
mechanics.10 Berard’s Jamestown narrative also reinforces the idea that the middling sort,
who labor with their hands, make better founders of a republic. She writes that the first
settlers “were chiefly ‘gentlemen and goldsmiths,’ and so taken up with the desire for
gold that no other industry was practiced.”ll She also notes that John Smith, upon
returning to England, requested “carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen,
blacksmiths , and masons... rather than a thousand of what he had.”‘2 By attributing
J amestown’s early troubles to immoral and wealthy settlers who lacked practical skills,
these authors indirectly convey the importance of the middling sort to a republic while
questioning the value of the idle rich and poor as citizens. While both major political
parties of the antebellum period espoused the virtues of a republic composed of a roughly
egalitarian citizenry, the following textbook authors posited a vision that closely
resembles the Democratic party vision on account that it extolled the benefits of artisans

and craftsmen to early republics.

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Other writers feature narratives that reinforce a republican vision that resembled
the Whig party perspective when describing the early Jamestown settlers. R. Thomas
characterized the frrst colonists as the “unruly” sort and as “poor gentlemen, broken
tradesmen,” as well as “rakes and libertines.” His story implies that those at either end of
the social-economic ladder as well as those lacking religious conviction made undesirable
founding furthers for a republic.'3 Egbert Guernsey, also describes the early settlers as
“rakes and libertines, men more fitted to corrupt than to found a commonwealth,” and
attributes the colony's early problems to the absence of moral people." These narratives
highlight issues Whigs liked to discuss in that they link Jamestown’s early failure, to the
absence of moral individuals rather than the absence of skilled workers. When combined
with other narratives, they show how textbooks exposed readers to both the Democratic
and the Whig vision of a republic.

The New Englanders

According to Elson, textbook authors during the antebellum period used history to
portray an idealized image of the United States to readers. Their narratives of the earliest
New England settlers, especially the Pilgrims and the Puritans, played a special role in
this because they portrayed these colonies as representing the origins of America's
democratic political values.Is Elson contends that narratives of the Pilgrims convey the
idea that the United States had eliminated “social distinctions” and that the United States
offers equality of opportunity to every man.16 She interprets these statements as a form of
propaganda designed to convince readers of the United States’ superiority over Europe.

A review of textbook narratives of the New England colonists, however, shows

that another interpretation exists. While narratives of equality of opportunity among New

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England colonists might reflect a desire to present a rosy picture of the first settlers, they
also reflect a desire to reinforce ideals similar to northern Democratic ideology that
viewed citizens of the middling sort as the cornerstone of a republic. In addition,
narratives of New England colonists reflect a desire to highlight alternatives to market-
place values such as remaining true to one's religious and philosophical principles rather
the pursuit of wealth. For example, Charles Goodrich in Histog of the United States
published in 1824, writes “Among the motives which influenced them to remove to
America, the prospect of enjoying a purer worship and a greater liberty of conscience,
was the principal.”'7 Although Goodrich presents few details about the Pilgrims and
Puritans and ignores their intolerance, he describes them as principled people who value
liberty. He never condemns capitalism or the values of a free market economy. However,
Goodrich nevertheless praises those colonists motivated by religious principles rather
than social mobility during a time when some Americans attempted to acquire wealth
through increased trade and speculation. Goodrich's narrative presents readers a positive
view of America's first settlers which supports Elson's general argument. However, by
describing them as motivated by religious principles, he also conveys an alternative to
competition and the pursuit of self-interest during a time of an emerging market economy.

Emma Willard's praise of the Puritans in her 1831 History of the American
Republic also conveys the larger idea to students that individuals who value religious and
philosophical principles merit greater status and respect than those who excel at acquiring
wealth

They possessed a much higher cast of moral elevation than any
who had before sought the new world as residence. The hope of

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gain was the motive of the former settlers-the love of God, was theirs.

In their character, and in their institution, we behold the germ of that

love of liberty, and those correct views of the natural equality of man,

which are now fully developed in the American constitution."

On one hand the phrase “in their character, and in their institutions, we behold the germ
of that love of liberty, and those correct views of the natural equality of man” fits into
Cooke's argument that authors presented United States history as the steady progress
toward a more liberal and tolerant society. However, by praising the Puritans for valuing
“moral elevation” rather than “the hope of gain,” Willard also conveys a genuine belief
that those with strong religious convictions deserve more respect than those who excel at
accumulating wealth. In addition Willard's phrase “and those correct views of the natural
equality of man,” also conveys a preference for a republic with minimal social inequality.
This ties into the aversion to consumerism expressed by many utopian communities such
as the Shakers that were associated with the Second Great Awakening. Thus, while her
narrative of the Puritans never questions the respectability of successful capitalists, it
romanticizes those with modest amounts of wealth and reflects elements of both Whig
and Democratic party ideology.

John Frost's description of the Pilgrims in his 1848 textbook also expresses a
preference for a society where citizens value religious and moral principles more than the
pursuit of wealth.

The character of moral integrity and political firmness which
characterized its leaders (the Pilgrims of Plymouth)was stamped upon

the influential class of the other communities which sprang around

them. In later times the spirit of the pilgrims has actuated their

descendants in all that relates to the great interests of religion and

education, and has pervaded their whole political and social system,
preserving its moral soundness, and giving it the health and vigor

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which belongs only to institutions planted in the firm soil of independence,
and flourishing in the embracing air of the civil and religious freedom."

On one level, Frost's statement supports other textbook analysis that authors used
narratives of the Pilgrims and Puritans to portray the birth of American civilization in a
positive light. For example, he credits the Pilgrims with inspiring the “influential classes”
to support both religion and education. In this way he shows that the Pilgrims’ “moral
integrity” and “political firmness,” rather than the pursuit of wealth, should be valued. He
also praises the Pilgrims by writing that their ideas “preserved the moral soundness” of
institutions associated with democratic societies. Thus in this passage Frost expresses his
preference for those colonists who valued religious principles and morality more than
marketplace values such as the pursuit of wealth or social mobility. Featuring a narrative
that values a group for their morality reflects the sentiments of both the Whig and
Democratic party ideology. While many northern Whig party supporters favored greater
government involvement in promoting morality, this narrative also reflected the Second
Great Awakening and Jeffersonian Democratic sentiment that viewed morality as the
cornerstone to democracy.

John Lord also expresses the larger idea that civic virtue and republicanism reside

in those with moderate levels of wealth rather than society's elite.

Wherever we go in the United States, we see the influence of their
(the Puritans) example and principle-we see the effect of their laws,
colleges, their books, their notions, and their habits. They may not
hold in their hands the balance of political power; but they furnish

a disproportionate share of the schoolmasters, the clergy, the lawyers,
the physicians, the authors, the editors, and the successful merchants
of every great city.20

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Like other textbook authors, Lord never uses his description of the Puritans to attack all
values associated with the market economy. He even includes successful merchants in his
list of virtuous Puritans. However, by writing that they influenced educators and
professionals and other successful citizens with their “examples, habits, and laws,” Lord
reinforces the idea that moral values manifest themselves most strongly in those who
possessed only modest amounts of wealth. However, it should be noted that not all
textbook authors associated lawyers with the middling sort and sometimes they linked
them with elite citizens.

While Lord associates the Puritans with professionals, he also explains that they
never represented the elite.

They were not adventures in quest of wealth; they were not broken

down gentlemen of aristocratic taste and connections, seeking to

escape poverty and mortification in England; they were not dissolute

young men, whom their friends exiled to avoid disgrace and shame;

they were not paupers who fled their country to escape famine and

disease, and who were willing to submit to a base dependence; but

they were religious intelligent men of the middle walks of life, who

sought freedom to worship God, and for the full development of their

energies....They may have inclined to visionary views of truth, and

doubtless had many peculiarities which were repulsive and gloomy;

but they had those positive and exalted virtues which pre-eminently

fitted them to lay the foundations of ultimate greatness and influence."
Lord’s view that the Puritan's “exalted virtues” allowed them to “lay the foundations of
greatness,” shows his preference for colonists, like the Puritans, who value religious
principles more than wealth. Lord also points out that colonists with these exalted virtues
and who were intelligent and religious were neither aristocrats or paupers. While he

acknowledges their faults, writing that they had “peculiarities” that were “repulsive and

gloomy,” Lord also notes that they possessed the right kind of values to “lay the

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foundation of greatness and influence.” By attributing to a group of colonists who were
neither aristocrats or paupers to “lay the foundation of greatness,” Lord conveys the larger
idea that those like them such as the middling sort, rather than privileged elites, offer the
most benefit to a republic.

Willson's narrative of the Puritans shows that the middling groups are more suited
to building a republic in a different way. He writes that

many the settlers were from illustrious and noble families, and having

been accustomed to a life of ease and enjoyment, their sufferings

from exposure and failure of provisions were great, and before December,

two hundred had died. A few only, disheartened by the scenes of woe,

returned to England.22
Willson’s statement that many Puritans “were from illustrious and noble families”
indicates that he, more than other authors, viewed them as coming from England’s social
elite. While he never directly states that those with modest amounts of wealth make the
best citizens for a republic, Willson, in a backhanded way, conveys the idea when he
writes “having been accustomed to a life of ease and enjoyment, their (the Puritans from
noble families) sufferings from exposure and failure of provisions were great.” Although
Willson states that only a few returned to England, by citing their previous lifestyle as a
cause of their suffering, he implies that citizens from wealthy families make poor
founders of a republic.

Quackenbos, unlike other authors, presents a very neutral description of the

Puritans in his 1857 textbook. Through his fairly detailed description of them, he exposes

readers to values that all Americans might view with a degree of ambiguity.

The Puritans of New England had naturally imbibed a strong aversion

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to the manners and practices of those who had persecuted them.

They were opposed to veils, wigs, and long hair, condemned silken

hoods and scarves, required women to restrict the size of their sleeves,

and discountenanced all frivolous fashions in dress....They were stiff

and formal but at the same time industrious, enterprising and moral.

The laws of the Puritans condemned all war that was not defensive

and provided penalties for gambling, intemperance, and other

immoralities. They forbade the taking of interest on loaned money,

and punished blasphemy and idolatry with death.”

Quakenbos credits the Puritans as industrious and enterprising colonists which, reinforces
some values connected to a market economy that all political parties of the antebellum
period embraced. However, he never praises the Puritans for their strictures on
“gambling, intemperance and other immoralities.” In addition, he merely states that they
restricted superfluous dress such as wigs and silken scarves and simply notes that they
restricted collecting interest on loans, restrictions that would conflict with the values of a
free market economy. Thus Quakenbos’ neutral description allows readers to reject the
Puritan and Pilgrim’s alternative to the marketplace values emerging in the United States
during the antebellum period. However, he never pushes them in that direction.

Other authors, in describing the colonies organized by the Puritans and Pilgrims,
also reinforce the artisan and small farmer vision of America as a relatively egalitarian
society with citizens who valued moral principles over economic success. Peabody and
Berard featured narratives of the Puritans and Pilgrims that offered only tepid support for
market values. Peabody, in her History of the United States published in 1856, wrote
“that the spirit that animated this colony (Massachusetts Bay Colony) was not commerce,
but religion.”24 Through this description, Peabody, like other authors, presents an

alternative to market oriented values such as competition and the pursuit of self-interest

that were emerging during the antebellum period. Berard also conveys this by describing

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the Puritans and Pilgrims as colonists characterized by “sobriety, honesty, and an aversion
to drinking and gambling?“ While some values Berard attributes to the Puritans were
amenable to a market economy, they also reflect the values of individuals who only
pursued wealth in moderation. Finally, both authors, through their praise of the Puritan’s
morality, religiosity, and aversion to vice, alerted students to alternatives to the values of
a purely market-driven society. Such a set of values contained elements of Democratic,
Whig, and later, Republican ideology.

A few textbook authors feature narratives of the Puritans and Pilgrims that
strongly reinforce marketplace values. While describing the Pilgrims as brave, Samuel
Eliot argues that they distinguished themselves no more than any other colonists.26 Thus
Eliot, by minimizing their achievements, conveys the idea that individuals, inspired by
religious conviction rather than the pursuit of wealth, brought no special benefits to a
republic. William Grimshaw’s textbook, published in 1820, conveys the disadvantages of
a society that rejects many marketplace values through his criticisms of the Puritans and

Pilgrims' economic system.

The colonists of New Plymouth, in imitation of the primitive
Christians, threw all their property into common stock, and
carried on every work of industry by their joint labor, for the
public benefit. This method, though it displayed the sincerity

of their professions, retarded the progress of their colony

. ....Their religious principles were so extraordinary and unsocial,
that at the end of ten years, these well-meaning people, when
they became incorporated with their more powerful neighbors of
Massachusetts Bay, did not exceed three hundred.27

Like other textbooks, Grimshaw credits the Pilgrims for their religiosity. However, by

explaining that the Pilgrims failed to expand their colony because they held property as

184

“common stock,” he features a narrative that illustrates the drawbacks of a communal
society. Grimshaw, by describing the Pilgrims as “unsocial,” also implies that a republic
that values commerce, not only could more effectively grow and flourish but could also
thrive as much larger republican community than that which the Pilgrims had established.
His narrative represents one of the few examples that reinforces marketplace values and
could serve as a tool for those who wanted to show the limitations of some utopian
communities that comprised part of the Second Great Awakening. It, in many ways,
reinforces elements of the J acksonian Democratic vision that embraced free markets but
was tepid toward the religious morality that typified the Whigs.28

While many textbook authors in their description of the Puritans and Pilgrims
convey a positive image of America's early settlers, their narratives also express social
and economic ideas that represent an alternative to marketplace values. Textbook
narratives of the New England colonies reinforce a preference for republics with only
marginal differences in wealth among citizens and where religion and morality trump
marketplace values taken to excess. This vision contains elements of both the Democratic
and Whig party ideology. While both Whigs and Democrats espoused parts of this vision,
it was more associated with the northern Democratic party during the antebellum period
as evidenced by their preference for a relatively egalitarian society that valued morality
and religiosity.

These ideas resonated in the social and cultural milieu of the northern United
States during the antebellum period. As shown in earlier chapters, the Niles, Weekly
Mister, Working Man's Advocate, the Democratic Review, and The American Citizen

all featured essays which condemned bankers, speculators and the very wealthy while

185

 

praising artisans and small farmers. In addition, other studies point to a more general
concern among the middling sort for potential social conflict caused by an emerging
capitalist economic system. Reese contends that a number of parents enrolled their sons
in high schools to offer them escape from the decline of “the old economic order.”29
Common school reformer Horace Mann also evidenced concern about emergence of
gross inequality and hoped that education might limit disparities of wealth, poverty, and
an overly diverse republic. Even Labaree, who contends that Central High School
promoted values connected to capitalism, notes that school reformers wanted to promote
republicanism as a counter to marketplace values.30
Narratives of the American Revolution and the Middle Class

Elson concludes that textbook authors used the history of the American Revolution as a
tool to promote national unity. However, several textbook authors used narratives of the
American Revolution, especially the Continental arrny’s defeat on Long Island, to
reinforce the ideology, prevalent among J acksonian as well as J effersonian Democrats,
that the middling sort make the best citizens in a republic. Grimshaw's account of the
Continental army's defeat on Long Island illustrates this .

Scarcely one of the people joined the retreating army, whilst number

were daily flocking to the royal standard, to obtain forgiveness

and protection. Not only the lower classes changed sides in this

gloomy season of adversity, but some of the leading men in

New Jersey and Pennsylvania, particularly, Mr. Gallaway and

Mr. Allen, two members of congress adopted the same dastardly

expedient, and declared themselves, at all times, adverse to

independence."

His statement that the “lower classes” more readily changed sides implies that members

of this particular social class exercised much less public spirit than other social classes.

186

 

By explaining that two “leading men,” Gallaway and Allen, renounced the Revolution,
Grimshaw also implies that prominent citizens and even elite citizens cannot be trusted to
support republican causes. Grimshaw’s account of how the lower and upper classes’
failed to support the Revolution reinforces the argument made by many artisans and
yeoman farmers that the middling sort defended republican values with the most
enthusiasm.

Willard's narrative of General Howe's clemency offer to American soldiers also
conveys the larger idea that the middle class posses greater enthusiasm for republican
institutions than elite citizens.

The distresses of the Americans were increased by the desertions of

supposed fiiends of the cause. Howe, taking advantage of what he

considered their hapless and vanquished and hopeless condition, offered

free pardon to all who should now declare for royal authority. Of the

extremes of society, the very rich and the very poor, numbers now sued

for the royal clemency; but few of the middle class deserted their country

in its hour of peril.32
She puts forth only a vague description of the middle class, describing them as neither
rich or poor individuals. However, scholars such as Blumin and Gilkeson define middle
class during this time as small farmers, artisans, craftsmen, small merchants, and others
who either grew or made things. Her narrative of their loyalty during Revolution's darkest
hour conveys the idea that the middling sort protect republican principles more willingly
than others. By writing that members of the middle class rejected royal clemency more
often than rich and poor soldiers, Willard expresses both the importance of small farmers,

teachers, artisans and other kinds producers to a republic while illustrating the

unreliability of privileged elite citizens. Her narrative, in praising the middle class,

187

 

reinforces the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian vision of a republic with only a small disparity
of wealth between citizens.

Charles Goodrich's narrative of the American Revolution, in a more limited way,
shows the middling sort as most supportive of a republic by claiming that the very rich
supported the British.

Dr. Ramsay, in classing those persons, in America, who were

in favour, and those who were opposed, to the revolution, notices

among the former, the Irish emigrants generally; the more

enlightened Germans: the Presbyterians, and the Independents;

the opulent slave holders, in the southern states; and generally,

the young, the ardent, the ambitious, and the enterprising, throughout

the country. Among those who were opposed to the revolution, were

the Scotch emigrants, Quakers, Episcopalians, many old men, and

most of the rich, in the eastern and middle states.33
This passage comes at the end of the page as a footnote rather than as part of the narrative
of the American Revolution. Nevertheless, through this footnote, Goodrich conveys the
view that one's social economic status at least partly influenced their decision to support
the American Revolution. Although he lists “opulent slaveholders” as supporters of the
American Revolution, the footnote also indicates that rich colonists supported the British.
While much less emphatic about the dangers of the very rich to a republic than other
authors, Goodrich's footnote still reinforces the ideology held by many antebellum
Americans that the middling sort constituted the most reliable citizens.

The extent to which the Revolution was a narrative of middle class respectability
must not be overstated. A few textbook authors still believed that certain types of elite

citizens could benefit a republic. Willard, in her narrative of the American Revolution,

likened George Washington to the Roman aristocrat and senator Fabius.” Quackenbos,

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by explaining that General Putnam left his plow to join the battle of Lexington, likened
him to Cincinnatus, a famous (though very poor) Roman aristocrat and general who also
left his farm when Rome faced a crisis.35 Many other textbook authors never used the
American Revolution as a narrative to illustrate the superior morality of the middling sort.
Quakenbos, Willson, Frost, and Eliot also describe the colonists' struggle on Long Island
in their textbooks but never write that members of one particular class remained more
loyal to the cause than any other groups. Berard, Samuel Goodrich, and Willson never
mention the episode. Nevertheless, Willard, Grimshaw, and Goodrich illustrate how some
textbook authors, through American history, produce a favorable impression of citizens
with modest amounts of wealth while raising suspicions of the very rich and poor
citizens.

Patriotism and National Unity and the American Revolution
Cooke illustrates how authors used examples of military heroics by individuals such as
George Washington to inspire a sense of patriotism in students. Such a conclusion is not
surprising in light of the fact that national pride constitutes an important part of being a
citizen. However, this section shows that some American history textbooks presented
more sobering account of the Revolution. For example Reverend Cooper, a British
textbook author, described the American Revolution in his 1789 textbook as a tragedy in
which thousands of young soldiers died because England's leaders insisted on caring out a
war that the people increasingly opposed.36 It is understandable that Cooper, an
Englishman, would not glorify the Americans. However, as one of a few American
histories available during the last decade of the eighteenth century, it reminded readers of

the Revolution’s costs.

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Several other writers also describe the American Revolution’s costs. John
McCulloch, an American author, called the American Revolution a tragedy in the sense
that it forced many colonists to flee the United States.37 Charles Goodrich, in his 1824
account of the American Revolution, indicates that, while the Revolution united
Americans, it also produced a decline in public morals or virtue, writing “the war
seriously affected the moral and manners of the people of the United States” and
“encouraged infidelity?“ Although Goodrich praises the colonists, his description of the
Revolution’s negative effects reinforces Americans who believed republics should avoid
war in general. Goodrich concludes by writing “while intolerance decreased after the
Revolution, the spread of bad French ideas increased.”39 Not only did Goodrich dislike
this trend but also most conservatives in New England. In describing the Revolution’s
drawbacks as well as its inspirational moments, Goodrich and McCulloch exposed
readers to the idea that wars have costs and provides examples for who wanted to
question patriotism as simply unquestioned loyalty.

These more sobering presentations of the American Revolution, reinforce a
conception of citizen less reliant on classical notions of martial valor and more on
personal morality that had begun to emerge at eighteenth century’s end. The fact that
these accounts appear during the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century
indicates that Federalist ideology, which viewed British institutions and society favorably,
impacted their history. Charles Goodrich, especially, is known to have been a staunch
F ederalists. While these types of statements do not appear in antebellum United States
history textbooks, antiwar statements do appear in other places such as magazines and

journals, especially those opposed to the Mexican American War.

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Capitalism and Virtue
As noted in chapter one, the nineteenth century, especially the antebellum period, was a
time of rapid economic expansion. It is also during this period that America recalibrated
itself through new uses of the law, new institutions such as banks, and new technologies
to maximize economic growth.40 However, in the face of changes came warnings from
magazines representing farmers and artisans such as the Democpatic Review and the
Working Man’s Advcmatp that institutions such as banks constituted a threat to the
republic.

This fear of high finance and speculation also comes through in several textbook
narratives of the Panic of 1837 which express Jeffersonian-type concern about the
excesses of capitalism such as speculation, ambition, and the quests for wealth. Emma
Willard in her 1849 edition of Universal History blames the panic on attempts to
accumulate large amounts of wealth through land speculation?l Her comments indicates
that the Panic exerted a positive impact on America by reviving the importance “industry
and economy” and by discouraging further speculation in land.

Other textbook authors, through their description of the Panic of 183 7, also
reinforce the J effersonian sentiment that excessive capitalism endangers republics. Egbert
Guernsey conveys this idea when he writes “The old roads of honest industry were
abandoned, and fortunes were made in an hour by speculation.” In lamenting increased
speculation caused by easy credit, Guernsey reminds readers how the activities of banks
and institutions, which facilitated speculation, threaten virtue and morality in the United
States. However, while he condemns speculation, Guernsey never rejects capitalism or a

market economy altogether, especially if citizens gained wealth through hard work.

191

Finally, Lord's description of the Panic of 1837 also conveys a Jeffersonian

sentiment that citizens should value wealth only in moderation.

In this general calamity a change to some extent was wrought in

the habits of the nation. The people who had been speculating and

trading became farmers. The land still remained capable of unfolding

illimitable wealth. The agricultural populations received a great

accession of respectability and means. Farms rapidly improved.

Importance was attached to the cultivation of the soil, which had

been unknown since the Revolutionary war.

There are no real sources of wealth, in any nation except in

habits of industry, directed to manufactures, agriculture, and a

limited commerce. After all, land is the formation of wealth, not gold

and silver, since land alone will feed the hungry and clothe the naked.42
His statement questions the profit motive element of a market oriented economy by
stating that gold and silver brought only limited benefits to a society because it
encourages speculation and an aversion to hardier and more rugged ways of producing
wealth. However, Lord also explains that a market economy benefits a republic when
citizens pursue profits in moderation through farming, manufacturing, and commerce. His
reference to farming especially highlights the Jeffersonian vision Lord’s narrative
conveys. In commenting on the Panic's negative results, Lord reinforces the argument that
the United States should modify the riskier aspects of a market economy while not
rejecting it all together.

The historical context in which these narratives appear suggests that many
antebellum Americans would find them ideal tools to promoting restraints on market
excesses. Authors published their textbooks in a milieu where different writers warned

citizens about the dangers to a republic of institutions associated with a market economy

such as the banking interest and industrialization. William Charming, in a sermon

192

delivered on May 26, 1830, attacked not only greed and the quest for profits but also
division of labor which indicates that he viewed the emerging factory system and
economic rationalization as a threat to a republic.” One essay in an 1835 issue of the
Wcfltprg Man's Advocaga entitled “The Rag Money or Banking System” characterizes
bankers as little better than robbers, writing

The Pickpocket takes the produce of your labor without your

knowledge, and does not pretend to give you an equivalent for it.

The banker gets the produce of your labor by deceiving you into the

belief that he renders you an equivalent, when in fact he does not“

This statement implies that bankers might even be worse than pickpockets by writing
that, unlike pickpockets, bankers “deceive” one into thinking that they will receive
something in exchange for their “produce” (the produce in the form of interest payments
to the bank) when they do not. Another short essay in the Working Man's Advoca_tp
entitled “Character of the Whig” contends that the “bankites” could not have chosen a
better name since the essay contends that the Whigs “ruined” England.” Such a harsh
view toward banks also shows that the advocates of small farmers and artisans during the
18303 feared many capitalist institutions.

An essay entitled “The Moral Crisis” in The Democratic Review also conveys fear
of institutions associated with capitalism during the 18303 by explaining the negative
impact of banking on the productivity and morality of the United States.

A general over-action, over-borrowing, and over-lending, over-buying

and over-selling, over-speculating and over-spending, over-importing

and relative under-producing and exporting- all growing out of the

common parent evil- over banking, contain the sum and substance
of the cause of the late convulsion.

193

This essay, written in October of 183 7, attributes a whole list of excesses, ranging from
speculating, over-lending, and over-buying to banking. The phrase “contain the sum and
substance of the late convulsion” likely refers to the Panic of 1837 and the range of
excesses speculation that produced it. However, by citing “over-banking” as the
“common parent evil,” The Democratic Review more specifically places blame on
banking for the nation’s economic problems.

These essays indicate that when textbook authors, by attributing the Panic of 1837
to speculation, conveyed a more profound idea to students that institutions and values
associated with capitalism such as banks can endanger a republic, especially when they
lead to reckless investing. In doing so they show that secondary schools never conveyed
unquestioned support of a capitalist economic system. While many J acksonian Democrats
actually supported a laissez faire economy, a factor many believed caused the Panic, those
embracing the a Jeffersonian vision viewed the Panic as emblematic of out-of-control

capitalism.

Conclusion
Most studies of secondary education published after 1960 accept Elson's argument that
textbooks sought to create “a fantasy world” around a set of “ideologically simple” set of
economic, social, and political ideas.46 One can find examples from American history
textbooks that support this conclusion. However, American history textbooks, through
their narratives, also convey a much more ambiguous set of political, economic, and
social values than these studies indicate. While authors embraced some market-place

values through praise of property and industry, they express concern with the excessive

194

drive for wealth through their narratives of J amestown's early failures and narratives
describing the Panic of 1837. They also introduced students to alternatives to market-
place values by praising the Puritans and Pilgrims’ preference for maintaining religious
principles and morals rather than pursuing wealth. This illustrates how textbooks exposed
students to a set of stories that embrace J effersonian and J acksonian, as well as some
Whig ideals.

Most stories of the American Revolution glorify the military successes of the
colonists. However, a few written during the time when the Federalist party still held
power, present narratives less supportive of national pride because they showed the
Revolution’s cost in lives and morality. This makes sense when one considers the fact
that antebellum period educators increasingly valued citizens who could think
independently rather than fight as soldiers. It also illustrates how textbooks, at times,
conveyed a more complex notion of citizen.

Finally, authors reinforce the vision popular among J acksonian and J effersonian
Democrats that the middling sort provided the best material for republics through their
American history narratives. Their stories of the Puritans, Pilgrims, and the Revolution
lauded the respectability of the middling sort who possessed farming skills, worked with
their hands, and never speculated on land. Their stories also note the unreliability of elite
citizens in building a commonwealth during the Revolution. Textbook ambivalence
toward excessive capitalism and the place of elites in a republic reflects a more complex
attitude toward social hierarchy than other studies have presented. Thus rather than
encouraging students to accept a hierarchal society as Elson argues, many United States

history textbooks fostered ambivalence to it.

195

That textbooks would feature histories that convey ambiguous attitudes toward
social hierarchy, market-place values, and patriotism during the antebellum period makes
sense when one considers the broader historical context. These values echo those
advanced by small farmers struggling against large landowners for access to public lands
and artisans seeking to maintain their wages in a laissez faire economy. In addition they
echo those values laid out by education reformers such as Horace Mann who was
associated with the Whig party and who also championed a republic with limited
disparities in wealth. Thus while most studies have looked to the Whig party as the source
of ideas common schools exposed to students, values in line with the Democratic party
ideology also permeated American history narratives. Elson labels these textbooks as
“Guardians of Tradition.” However, the fact that they promoted a culture that valued a
middle class and challenged those who practiced capitalism to excess, illustrates how they

also functioned as tools for reform and change.

196

Conclusion

Most studies of nineteenth-century textbooks primarily highlight the way texts
taught students clear and conservative positions on social equality, gender roles, and
patriotism while concealing social controversy. One can find passages in textbooks that
support these arguments, especially in those that covered United States history. However,
these conclusions fail to explain why the America South, very conservative during the
antebellum period, rejected the use of northern textbooks in their schools. Furthermore
these conclusions fail to fully explain why many artisans and others of the middling sort,
groups who often favored fundamental social change, would support institutions that used
these textbooks if the ideals they convey are conservative.

My study offers an explanation as to why the South and other conservatives would
reject northern textbooks while those supporting social change and reform would not. It
shows that world, universal, and even United States history textbooks designed for
secondary school students conveyed a complex set of attitudes toward social hierarchy, a
market economy, social control, gender roles, citizenship, and western expansion. Not
only did these narratives feature alternatives to the dominant social values, they also
connected, rather than concealed, readers to the social controversies of their own times. In
doing this they served as tools for social reform rather than as “guardians of tradition.”

Studies contend that nineteenth-century textbooks responded negatively toward
communitarian and socialistic societies in history, claiming that they always supported a
market economy. To be sure, some textbook authors, such as Worcestor, expressed
disdain for Sparta’s policy of restricting commerce. In the case of North America, several

writers chided the Pilgrims and the Jamestown settlers for trying to hold their land in

197

common. However, my study shows that narratives of Greece and Rome in world and
universal history textbooks for secondary school students portrayed communitarian
societies differently. Many authors wrote neutral or mixed descriptions of communitarian
societies such as Sparta and noted that its social policies maintained social tranquility by
redistributing property. Most textbook authors passed up opportunities to attack it. Pierce
and Peabody even responded favorably to the communitarian society Sparta created
because it reduced social inequality and educated women. It is not hard to see why the
Southern gentry would want to keep books espousing such ideas out of the South.

Textbook narratives also conveyed ambivalence toward market economies. For
example, several American history textbooks cite speculation and the excessive pursuit of
wealth as the cause of the Panic of 1837. Others credit the emergence of republican
values in America to the Puritans' religiosity and modest lifestyle rather than the market.
Although textbooks never characterized the Puritans as colonists who rejected a market
economy, they nevertheless praised them as settlers who placed a higher priority on
religious values. Thus, while textbooks never rejected market-place values out of hand,
they still valued American colonists who placed other values ahead of the pursuit of
wealth. This indicates that textbooks conveyed a more ambivalent attitude toward a
market economy than other studies contend and suggests that it be reformed.

One also finds ambivalence toward the market and social hierarchies in narratives
of ancient Greece and Rome. While many writers disliked Sparta’s restriction on personal
autonomy and commerce, they also credited its policy of dividing land equally among
citizens and limiting commerce with increasing the virtue of its citizens and ending its

internal conflict. Textbooks also reinforced ambivalence toward hierarchy by featuring

198

narratives that praised Solon’s policy of ending conflict between Athens' citizens by
requiring creditors to absolve the debts of poor citizens. In addition, most textbooks
conveyed ambivalence toward social hierarchy by expressing disdain for Rome’s
patricians who foisted gross inequality on most other citizens during the late republic.
More specifically, they vilified the aristocratic Roman senate for preventing the Gracchi
from making public lands available to plebeians.

Finally, nineteenth-century authors reinforced a preference for economic equality
in the passages from United States history. Many textbooks, for example, expressed scorn
for the elite settlers of Jamestown while praising the Puritans for their modest lifestyle. A
few, such as Willard and Grimshaw, conveyed dislike of elites by stating that they more
readily sold out to the British during the American Revolution than other social groups.
Although most studies of textbooks never report this ambivalence with economic
inequality, its existence squares with what other scholars of the broader antebellum
America have shown. Americans of all stripes, Whigs and Democrats, took pride in the
United States’ relative equality when compared to Europe and believed that extremes in
wealth could endanger a republic. George Bancroft, who grew up in affluence, came to
support the interest of the middling sort. While many Americans opposed radical forms
of leveling and never rejected social hierarchies outright, they still supported reforms
such as public education because they believed it might bring a greater degree of social
and economic equality to the United States.

Most studies highlight examples of how school textbooks cultivated patriotism as
a love of country. American histories, which tell the story of battlefield heroics, certainly

might inspire patriotism, pride, and loyalty to the United States. However, most broad

199

studies of educational histories report a desire for more sophisticated students who could
fulfill their duties as citizens in a variety of ways, not just through a simple love of
country. This study shows that textbooks introduced students to a broad notions of
patriotism. Textbooks sometimes emphasized patriotism as physical fitness, obedience,
and discipline; qualities that one might desire in a patriotic citizen. Patriotism also meant
knowledge, literacy, good judgment, independent thinking, and even sentimentalism;
these qualities sometimes conflict with patriotism as unquestioned loyalty to one’s
country. For example, Emma Willard, in her introduction to her Universal History
textbook, notes that history is the study of politics, of which the avoidance of war
constitutes an important lesson. Elizabeth Peabody, in her preface, proclaims that history
offers readers a more complete education which allows them to more effectively serve a
republic. In the histories themselves, authors feature passages illustrating how Sparta's
educational system, designed primarily to cultivate patriotism, failed to teach empathy,
kindness, and benevolence. In addition, authors explained how Spartan women, by
inspiring their husbands and sons to die bravely in battle too enthusiastically, sacrificed
their role as nurturing mothers. Finally, several United States history textbooks featured
anecdotes which characterize the American Revolution as a tragedy that produced social
disorder. Thus, while narratives describing the United States’ victory at the Battle of New
Orleans might inspire patriotism as national loyalty and pride, other narratives textbooks
expose to readers a different notion of patriotism.

By featuring narratives about citizenship and patriotism, textbooks introduced
readers to a larger dilemma in antebellum society and one of the ironies of education.

Many scholars have described supporters of public education typically as Whig party

200

supporters who valued an educational system that promoted discipline and obedience.
However many educational proponents also valued an education that produced
individuals capable of independent thinking and questioned overly restrictive teaching
methods used to produce a well ordered society. Thus in describing, in somewhat
ambivalent terms, Sparta’s very rigid approach to instilling discipline and patriotism in
citizens, authors indirectly introduced readers to a conflict in their own society between
those who favored an authoritarian type of education and those who favored one that
inspired independent thinking.

Conflicting notions of republican motherhood manifested themselves in the
different ways authors described the way Sparta educated women. Some narratives that
favored a softer and more sentimental notion of republican motherhood explained how
Sparta extirpated a “woman’s soft and benevolent” side by instructing them in “manly”
exercises and by teaching them to celebrate the death of their husbands and sons in battle.
However, while most textbook authors used narratives of Sparta to embrace the
traditional vision of a woman’s place in a republic, a few used narratives of Sparta to
offer an alternative to the dominant view. For example, Sullivan and Peabody featured
positive descriptions of Sparta’s practice of educating boys and girls together and thus
highlighted the merits of a more egalitarian education for women. Thus, using world and
universal history textbooks, a few history textbooks offered readers an alternative to the
more traditional vision of what a woman’s place in a republic should be.

That textbook authors would contribute to an education which taught secondary
school students a complex set of economic, political, and social values makes sense in

light of what several more general histories of education show. Kaestle, especially points

201

out that schools sought to produce an informed citizen as well as one inspired with
strident nationalism. While schools taught students values amenable to a market
economy, they also reinforced concerns with its excesses. Although secondary schools
might have favored upper middle class interests as Reese contends, they never listed the
creation of a new aristocracy in the United States as a goal and often described secondary
schools as instruments to increase social equality. Finally, more general studies of
education indicate that some schools supported coeducation, even though they promoted
traditional roles for women in a republic. Thus when textbooks featured histories
illustrating the dangers of excessive self interest, ambition, and social inequality to a
republic, they echoed sentiments already present in both schools and society.

Finally textbooks, especially when offering narratives of Greece and Rome,
exposed readers to the conflicts of their own times rather than minimizing these conflicts.
Sparta especially represented a controversial solution to many social and political
problems that beset nineteenth-century United States. For example, the issue of control
permeated every aspect of public education during the antebellum period ranging from
the proper degree of state control, whether instilling discipline and order should be the
primary focus of school, and whether corporal punishment should be used. In the broader
American culture Sparta represented both the positive and negative aspects of control. By
exposing students to narratives of this republic, textbooks exposed readers to a
controversial symbol of control and order in antebellum America.

Surreptitious Reform
Scholars have often described education, especially public education during the

nineteenth century, as a reform movement set on transforming America by bringing

202

literacy and other academic skills to the masses. However, while they often described
education as a reform movement, most scholars explain its use as a tool for maintaining
order and control. This study illustrates another way textbooks functioned as agents of
reform and change rather than a tool to maintain the status quo. While on the surface
textbooks appear to proffer nothing radical, they surreptitiously slipped in alternatives to
society’s dominant social, economic, and cultural ideals. When Elizabeth Peabody
praised Sparta for educating women, she praised an educational system known to teach
less sentimental notions of republican motherhood. Their quest for an accurate account of
history led some authors to expose students, perhaps unwittingly, to stories of republics
that represented alternatives to the dominant economic model embraced in the United
States. For example, Worcestor, who loathed Sparta, nevertheless acknowledges that it
had produced a stable republic peopled by obedient and loyal citizens. Although
unsupportive of Sparta’s policies, by alerting readers to it, he introduced them to an
alternative to the dominant economic structure in nineteenth-century United States. Thus,
while reinforcing some traditional ideas, history texts also exposed students to

alternatives and functioned as an antecedent of firture social and cultural change.

203

ENDNOTES

Introduction

1. William Reese, The Origins of the American High School (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1995), 118.

2. Carl Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society
1780-1860 (New York: Hill and Way, 1983), 137.

3. Stuarte Cooke, “J acksonian Era American Textbooks” (Ph.D. diss, University
of Denver, 1986), 246.

4. Reese, 117.

5. David F. Labaree, The Making of an American High School: The Credentials

market and the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1838-1939 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1988) 39; Reese, 166-167.

6. Ibid., 39.

7. John S. Gilkeson, Middle-Class Providence, 1820-1940 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1986), 4, 44.

8. Ibid., 53.

9. Reese, 1, 115-117; John Nietz, American Secondary School Textbooks
(Rutland: University of Pittsburgh Press), 238-256.

10. Edward McClellan Moral Education in America: Schools and the Shaping of
Character from Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Teachers College, Columbia

University, 1999), 27-30.

1 1. William Smith, Secondary Education in the United States (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1932), 38-39.

12. McClellan, Moral Education in America, 27-30.

13. Robert L. Church and Michael Sedlak, Education in the United States: An
Interpretive History, 1976 (New York: The Free Press), 49.

14. Michael Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian
Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 34-36.

204

15. Daniel Howe, American Whig: Anthology (Yale: John Wiley and Sons Inc,
1973)5.

16. Charles Carpenter, Histog of American School Books (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963), 200-202.

17. Cooke, 267-373.
Chapter One
1. Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of tha; American Revolrgion: How a Revolution

lransformedayMonarchical Society into a Democratic One that had Never Existed (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 104.

2. Garry Wills, George Washington and the Enlightenment (New York:
Doubleday and Company, Inc, 1984), 23,159.

3. Drew McCoy, The Elusive Republic: PoliticalEconomy in Jeffersonian
America (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1980), 9.

4. Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 20-30.

5. Bailyn, 26.
6. McCoy, 70.

7. J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and
the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 77.

8. Louis Hartz, The Libegrl Tradition in America: An Interpretation of America_n
Political Thought Since the Revolution (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, Inc.,
1955), 3.

9. Ibid., 108.

10. McCoy, 70.

11. John F. Kasson, Civilizing the Machine: Technology and Republican Values
in America: 1776-1900 (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976), 35.

12. Nathaniel Bouton, The Respon§ibilities of Rulers: A Sermon Delivered at
Concord, June 5, 1828, Before the Constituted Authorities of the State of New Hampshire
(Concord: Henry F. Moore, 1828), 20.

205

13. Wood, The American Republic: A History (New York: A Modern Library
Chronicles Book, 2002), 103-104.

14. “Patriotism,” The New England Magazine: (April 1832): 319-322.

15. TB. Fox, “The Law of Christ: A Sermon Delivered at the Warren Street
Chapel, January 1840,” Common School Journal 1 (January 1841): 87.

16. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution 215-217.

17. Taylor Lewis, Discourse on the True Nature of the State as a Religious
Institution, Together with the Family and the ChurchLOrdained by God (Andover: Allen
Morrill and Wardwell, 1843), 22.

18. Sean Wilentz, grants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the
American Working Class, 1788-1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 17

19. Wills, Cincinnatus, George Washington, 25.

20. Ibid., 23-25, 159.

21. Ibid., 170-172.

22. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 349.

23. Kim Talley, The Science Education of American Girls (New York: Routledge
and Falmer, 2003), 33-34.

24.Ibid., 29.

25. Henry May, The Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1976), 358-359.

26. E. H. Chapin, The Relation of the Individual to the Republic (Boston: Dutton
and Wentworth, 1844), 21.

27. F .D. Huntington, Christian Citizenship and Honest Legislation (Boston:
William White, 1858), 7.

28. Talley, 28.

29. Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education, The National Experience 1783-
1876 (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), 55.

30. Nathan 0. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 14.

206

31. Paul E Johnson, A Shop Keepers Millennium: Society and vaivals in
Rochester, New YorlQ8lS-1837 (New York: 1978), 8.

32. Wilentz, 145-149.
33. Tyack, 3.

34. Francis Fitzgerald, (Boston: Little Brown, 1979) America Revised: History
Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century 75.

35. Robert W.T. Martin “Reforming Republicanism: Alexander Hamilton’s
Theory of Republican Citizenship and Press Liberty,” Jomal of the Early Republic 25 1
(2005): 35.

36. Ibid., 23.

37. David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious
Belief in Early New England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 69.

38. Carl F. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American
Society 1780-1860 (New York: Hill and Way, 1983). 21-22.

39. Ibid., xi-xii.

40. David Nasaw, Schooled to Order: A Social History of Public Schooling in the
United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 13.

41. Kaestle, The Evolution of an Urban School System: New York, 1750-1850,
(Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973) 186.

42. Diane Ravitch, The Great School Wars: New Yorl_< City, 1805-1973: A
History of the Public School as Battlefield of Social Change (New York: Basic Books,
Inc, 1974), 32.

43. David Tyack and Elizabeth Hansot, Managers of Virtue: Public School
Leadership in America 1820-1980 (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1982),55.

44. Common School Journial (1840): 66.
45. Nasaw, 7-9.
46. Samuel Hall, Lectures on Good School Keeping, 21.

47. Nasaw, 40-41.

207

48. Ibid., 40.

49. Kaestle, The Evolution of an Urban School System,186.

50. Charles Sellers. The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1825-1846
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 368-369.

51. Common School Journal, 3 (1841): 56

52. Ibid., 57.

53. Common School Journal (1840): 66.

54. Maris A. Vinovskis, Education, Society and Economic Opportunity: A
Historical Perspective on Persistent Issues (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995),
x111.

55. Ibid., xiii.

56. Annual Report of the Public Schools of New Jersey for the Year 1851
(Trenton: Philip and Boswell, 1851), 57.

57. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic, xi-xii.
58. Ibid., 70-71.
59. Annual Report of the Public Schools of New Jersey for the Year 1851, 60.

60. Michael Katz, Class BureaucracLand Schools: The Elusion of Educational
Change in America (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 59-63.

61. Katz, Class Bureaucracy and Schools 48-51.

62. Ibid., 49.

63. Southern Quarterly Review 2 (1855): 452.

64. John L. Rury, “Who Became Teachers?: The Social Characteristics of
Teachers in American History,” Edited by Donald R. Warren, American Teachers:

Histories of a Profession at Work (New York: Macmillon,l989), 21.

65. J urgen Herbst, “Teacher Preparation in the Nineteenth Century,” American
Teachers, 217.

66. Reese, 127.

208

67. Wilentz. 94-95.
68. Manning, Key of Liberfl. 145.

69. “The Moral of the Crisis,” The United States Magazine and the Democratic
Review (October 1837): 108.

70. “The Rag Money or Banking System” Working Man's Advocakq 26 (January
1833): 1.

71. Mike Walsh, “Agrarianism,” Working Man's Advocate (March 1844): 2.
72. “The Land Question,” The Western Quarterly Review 1(January 1849): iii.
73. “Aristocracy,” The American Citizen 7 (November 1849): 1.

74 “National Convention of Young Whigs” The Subterranean and Working Man_'s
Advocate 26 (October 1844): 2.

75. “The Lower Classes,” The American Citizen 3] (October 1849): 1.
76. “Societary Theories,” The American Review (June 1848): 632-633.

77. Samuel Jackson, Religious Principles -- A Source of Public Prosperity
(Andover: William Pierce, l843),13.

78. Mann, Twelfth Annual Report, 88.

79. Reese, 40.

80. S.G. Goodrich, Recollections of a Lifetime, or Men and Things I Have Seen:
in a Series of Familiar Letters to a Friend, HistoricakBiomphical, Anecdotical, and

Descriptive (New York: Miller, Orton, and Mulligan, 1857), 363.

81. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown, and
Company, 1945), 505.

82. Ibid., 348.

83. William A. Smith, Secondary Education in the United States (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1932), 33.

84. Ibid., 27.

85. Ibid., 38.

209

86. Robert L. Church, Sedlack Michael L, Education in the United States: An
Interpretive History (1976), 185.

87. Reese, 67.
88. Ibid., 43, 65-67.
89. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic, 21-22.

90. “Editor’s Address,” Americfian Annals of Education and Instruction, and
Joml of Literary Institutions 1, 1 (August 1830): 3.

91. “Captain Partridge’s Lecture,” America Journal of Educakion (July 1826):

 

397.

92. Gilkeson , 44-54.

93. Ibid., 53.

94. “Captain Partridge’s Lecture” America J ouLn_al of Education (July 1826):
396.

95. Southern Quarterly Review 2 (1855): 455.

96. “Editor’s Address,” Annals of Education (August 1830): 4-5.

97. Ann Douglass. The F eminization of American Culgrre: How the Victorian
Alliance between Women and the Clergy and the Popular Literature which flat Alliance
Gave Birth, Fosterecflt Sentimental Society and the Beginning of Modern Mass Culture
(New York: Alfred A Krof’t Inc., 1977), 10-12.

98. Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Michigan for
the Years 1855, 1856, 1857 (Lansing: Hosmer & Kerr, Printers to the State, 1858), 465.

99. Ibid., 472.
100. Ibid., 454.
101. Linda Kerber, Toward and Intellectual History of Women 43.

102. Jan Todd, Blysical Culture and the Body Beautiful (Georgia: Mercer
University Press, 1998), 46.

103. Ibid., 19-20,76.

104. Douglass, 10-1 1.

210

105. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic, 5.

106. “Mr. Waterston’s Lecture,” Common School Journal (15 July 1839): 230.

 

107. Common School Journal 3 (January 1841): 96.
108. Tolley, 33.

109. Ibid., 54.

110. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic. 67.

111. Reese, 132.

112. Ibid., 132.

113. Hatch, 11.

114. Reverend Dr. Babcock, Common School Journal (March 15, 1842): 135.

 

115. Hall, 230.

116. Lee Soltow and Edward Stevens, The Rise of Literacy and the Common
School in the United States: A Socioeconomic Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1981), 70-71.

117. Lawrence Cremin, American Education: The National Experience: 1783-
1876 (New York: Harper and Row, 1980),126.

118. Smith, 36.

119. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic, 182.

120. David Tyack and Hansot, Elisabeth, 84.

121. Tyack and Hansot, 84-85.

122. Ibid., 84-85.

123. “Modern Education,” Southern Quarterly Review 11,2 (April 1855): 455.

124. Annual Report of the State Sgperintendent of Public Schools of New Jersey
for the Year, 1850 (Trenton: Phillips and Boswell, 1851), 76.

125. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic. 69.

211

126. Diane Ravitch, The Great School Wars: New chk City, 1805-1973 (New
York: Basic Books Inc., 1974), 32.

Chapter Two
1. Wills, 175.
2. McCoy, 204.
3. Holt, 250.
4. “Patriotism” The New England Magazine, (April 1834): 321.

5. Thomas Corwin, edited by Daniel Walker Howe, American Whfiigs: An
Anthology (New York: Wiley, 1973), 215-216.

6. “Calhoun's Speech Against the Conquest of Mexico,” The American Review
(March 1848): 220-221.

7. Report of the committee to whom was referred so much of the President's
message as relates to the re-organization or reclassification of the militia of the United
States, “Classification of the Militia,” Niles‘ Weekly Register 8 (February 1817): 395-
396.

8. Ibid., 395.

9. Ibid., 394.

10. Captain Partridge, “Captain Partridge’s Lecture,” American Journal of
Education (July 1826): 397.

11. “Captain Partridge’s Lecture,” 398.

12. Common School Journal 1 (January 1841): 96.

13. “Lycurgus and His Times,” The Working Man's Advocate 30 (October 1844):

14. Maris A. Vinovskis, Education, Society. and Economic Opportunity: A
Historical Perspective on Persistent Issues (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995),
32-34.

15. “Review of the Report of the Manual Labor Academy of Pennsylvania”

American Annals of Education and Instruction, and Journal of Literary Institutions
(August 1830): 39.

212

16. Ibid., 43.

17. Common School Journafl, (1838): 9-10.
20. Todd, 19.

21. Ibid., 34.

22. The Lady's Book (May 1836), 239.

23. “Lycurgus and His Times,” The Waiting Man’s Advocate 30 (October 1844):

24. “Mr. Waterston's Lecture,” Common School Journal 4 (July 1839): 230-231.

25. Common School Journal 1 (January 1841): 96.

26. Mark Hopkins, A Sermon Delivered Before His Excellency Edward Everett,
Governor, His Honor George Hull, Lieutenant Governor, and the Honorable Council an_d_
the Legislature of Massachusetts on the AnniversarLElection (Boston: Dutton and
Wentworth, 1939), 27.

27. Ezra Sampson, The Brief Remarker on the ways; or Compendious
Dissertation Respecting Social and Domestic Relation_s and Concerns (New York: 1855):

72.

28. Catherine Clinton, The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South.
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1982), xv.

29. Lydia Howard Sigourney, “The Mother of Washington,” Southern Literary
Messenger 1 (1834): 6.

30. E. F. Ellet, “Women of the Revolution” The Southern Quarterly Review 1,2
(July 1850): 353.

31. “The Lights of History” The Working Mg's Advocate 26 (October 1844): 1.
32. “Spartan meeting,” The Subterranean: 2.
33. “The Lights of History,” The Working Man’s Advocate, (October 26, 1844)

34. N. A. Whiting, “Translation of Marmontel’s Preface to Lucan’s Phasalia,”
The Working Man’s Advocate. (October 26, 1844): 1.

35. Ibid., 1

213

36. J .T. Wiswall, “Delusions’s of Fanaticism,” Debow’s Review 29 (July 1860):

58.
37. Ibid., 58.

38. Anne Johnson, The Mums, or. the Bright Side of the IndiaLCharzgter (New
York: D. Appleton, 1855), 24.

39. “The Study of American History” America_pAnnals of Education ang
I_n§truction and Journal of Literary Institution; (January 1832): 3.

40. “Niebuhr's Roman History,” North AmericaL Review: 438.
41. “Ancient Greece,” North American Review: 294.

42. “Recent English Historians of Ancient Greece” The American Review: A
Whig Journal, Devoted to Politics and Literature (February 1848): 178-179.

Chapter Three

1. Elson, 244.

2. Ibid., 339.

3. Ibid., 1.

4. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic. 137.

5. Twenty third Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the
State of Michigan, with Accompanying Documents, For the Year 1859 (Lansing: John
Kerr & Company, 1859), 294, 298,312 and Twenty six Annual Report of the
Superintendent of Public Insfiction of the State of Michigan, with Accompanying
Documents, For the year 1862 (Lansing: John Kerr & Company, 1862), 99,121,145,188.

6. Cooke, 362.

7. Twenty third Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the
State of Michigan: with Accompanying Documents, For the Year 1859. 312.

8. Connecticut Board of Education Annual Reports, Report of the Superintendent

of Common Schools to the General Assemble (New Haven: Carrington and Hatchkiss,
1856), 142.

9. Francis W. Sherman, Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction
and Accompanying Documents Made to the Legislature (Lansing: George W. Peck,
1853), 166.

214

10. State of Michigan, 1851 Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (January 1, 1851), 99.

11. Ibid., Cooke, 361.
12.1bid., 361.
13. Stuart, 355.

14. Nina Baym, “Women and the Republic: Emma Willard’s Rhetoric of
History,” American History Quarterly. 43 (March 1991): 7-9.

15. McClellan, 28; Labaree, 37.
16. Church and Sedlak, 48-49.

17. Benjamin Tucker, Sacred and Profane History Epitomized,yvith a
Continuation of Modern History to the Present Time (Philadelphia: Jacob Johnson ,
1806), iii-iv.

18. D. Fraser, A Comendium of the History of All Nations: Exhibitinga Concise
View of the Origin, Progress, Decline, and Fall of the Most Considerable Empires,
Kingdoms, and States in the World, from the Earliest Times to the Present Period (New
York: Henry C. Southwick, 1807), iv.

19. Kaestle, 80.

20. Sarah Pierce, Sketches of Universal History; Compiled from Several Authors,
For the Use in Schools (New Haven: T.G. Woodward, 1818), preface.

21. Frederick Butler, fltetches of Universal History, Sacred and Profane, From
the Creation of the World, to the Year 1818 of the Christian Era: In Three Parts
(Hartford: Cooke and Hale, 1818), 2.

22. Appleby, Hunt, Telling the Truth, 73.

23. Samuel Goodrich, A Pictorial History of Ancient Rome, with a sketch of the
History of Modern Italy (New York: Huntington and Savage, 1849), vi.

24. William Pinnock, Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's Abridgment
of the History of Rome: To Which is Prefixed an Introduction to the Study of Row
Histog, and a Great Variety of Valuable Information Added throughout the Workkon the
Manners, In_stitutior;s, and Antiquities of the Romans; With Numerous Biographical and

Historical Notes; and Questions of Examination at the End of Each Section (Philadelphia:
Key and Biddle, 1835), 4.

215

25. Joseph E.. Worcestor, Elements of History AncieL and Modem with a Chart
and Tables of Histog (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1838), vii-viii.

26. Marcius Willson, Outlines of Histog; Illustrated by Nu_merouis Geographical
and Historical Notes and Mapa (New York: Ivison and Phinney, 1854), iv.

27. The Reverend Royal Robbins, The World Digalayed in its History and
Geography; Embracing A History of the World from the Creation to the Present (New
York: Reed and Company, 1830), 8.

28. Emma Willard, Universal Histogy in Perspective (New York: A.S. Barnes and
Company, 1849), 3.

29. Nina Baym American Women Writers and the Work of History, 1790-1860
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 15-17.

30. Samuel Goodrich, A Pictorial Histcm of Ancient Rome, iv.
31. Ibid., iv.

32. Elizabeth Peabody, Universal Histcm (New York: Sheldon and Company,
1859), vi.

33. Baym, Feminism and American Literary History: Essays (New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press, 1992), 147.

34. Baym, American Women Writers, 138.

35. Ibid., 144.

36. Baym, Feminism and American Literm Histogy, 147.
37. Tyack, 84-85.

38. John Lord, A New History of the United States for the Use of Schools
(Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait and Company, 1854), v.

39. Selma Hale, History of the United States, from their First Settlement as_
Colonies to the Close of the War with Great Britain in 1815 (New York: Collins and
Hannay, 1830), A2.

40. Egbert Guernsey, History of the United States of America, Designed for
Schools (New York: Cady and Burguess, 1850), v.

41. Reverend Charles Goodrich, History of the United Statgg (Hartford: 1823), 5.

216

42. John Frost, The Pictorial Histog of the United States of America, from the
Discovery of the Northmen in the Tenth Centurj to the Present Time (Hartford: Case

Tiffany and Company, 1848), vi.

43. Augusta Berard, School History of the United Stag (Philadelphia: H.
Cowperthwait and Company, 1856), vi.

44. Eliot, Manual of United States Histog, iv.; Frost Pictorial History of the
United States vii.

 

 

45. Berard, School History. v.

46. Frost, The Pictorial History of the United States of America, vii.

47. Berard, School Histom, vi; Charles Goodrich, A Histog of the United States
(New York: Sumner, Inc., 1834), 243; Samuel Goodrich, A Pictorial Histog of the
United States (New York: Huntington and Savage, Nason and Law, 1850), preface.

48. Samuel Goodrich, A Pictorial History of the United States. 166.

49. The World Displayeg 7.

50. Sullivan, Historical Class Book, 13.

51. Elizabeth Peabody, Universal History, iv.

52. Emma Willard, History of the United Sates or Republic of America (New
York: 1831), xv.

53. Peabody, Chronologiaal History of the United Stags (New York: Sheldon,
Blakeman and Company, 1856), 7.

54. J. Olney, A History of the United States, on the Plan; Adapted to the Capacity
of Youth (New Haven: Durie and Peck, 1836), preface.

55. Elson, 1.
Chapter Four

1. John A. Nietz, The Evolution of American Secondary School Textbooks
(Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1966), 251

2. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic, 72.

3. Labaree, The Making of an American High School, 29.

217

4. Elson, 282.

5. Ibid., 283.
6. Tucker, 22-23.

7. “Review of the Report of the Manual Labor Academy,” Annals of American
Education (August 1830): 38-39.

8. “Classification of the Militia,” Niles’ Weekly Register (Baltimore: 1817): 395-
396.

9. C. Sedgwick, “Children’s Fallicies,” The Child’s Friend (Boston: 1843), 81-86.
10. Tucker, 33-34.

11. Soltow, 64.

12. Pierce, 163.

13. Ibid., 164.

14. Worcestor, 20.

15. Ibid., 21.

16. Cooke, 372.

17. Worcestor, 22.

18. Samuel Goodrich, Histogy of Greece, 116.
19. Willard, Universal History. 56.

20. Pierce Grace, Outlines of History, Compiled for the Use of Schools and
Academies (New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1851), 36.

21. George Weber, Outlines of History, from the Creation of the World to the
Present Time, Translated by Behr. (Boston: Jenks, Hickling, and Swan, 1853), 33.

22. Peabody, Universal History, 8.

23. Baym, Feminism and Women’s Literary History, 146.

218

24. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic. 67.

25. Alice Tyler, Freedom’s F errnent: Phases of American Social Histog from the
Colonial Period to the Outbreakpf the Civil War_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1944),
397-400.

26. Ruth Bloch “The Gendered Meaning of Virtue in America,” Sigps (August
1987): 57.

27. Baym, “Women and the Republic: Emma Willard’s Rhetoric of History”
American Quarterly, 4 (March, 1991): 1-23.

28. “The Mother of Washington,” The Southern Literary Messenger 1,1 (August
1834): 6.

29. Tucker, 105.

30. Pierce, 164.

31. Ibid., 165.

32. Samuel Goodrich, History of Greece; 21
33. Worcestor, 21.

34. Eliza, Robbins, Grecian History; Adapted to the Use of Schools and Young
Persons, (New York: 1833), 56.

35. Sullivan, Historical Class Book: Containing Sketches of History, from the
Beginning of the World to the End of the Roman Empire in Italy, AD. 476 (Boston:
Carter, Hendee, and Company, 1833), 87.

36. S. Goodrich, History of Greece, 1 14.

37. “Calisthenics.” The Lady’s Book,12 (1832), 277.

38. Willard, Universal History 56.

39. Ibid., 56.

40. Peabody, Universal History, 9.

41. Willard, Univegrl History, 56 ; Pierce, _S_l_<etches of History, 164; Worcestor,
Elements of History, 21 ; Samuel Goodrich, History of Greece 114-115.

219

Chapter Five
1. Orestes Brownson, The Laboring Classes (1840), Introduction by Martin
Dadna (New York: 1978) xviii.

2. Gilkeson, 53.

3. Horace Mann, The Education of Free Men: The Republic and the School,
edited by Lawrence A. Cremin (New York: Columbia University, 1957), 85.

4. “Societal Theories,” The American Review: Devoted to Politics and Literature
1, (June 1848): 632.

5. Nasaw, 40-41; Reese, 105; Holt, 118.
6. Elson, 287.

7. Tucker, 33.

8. Ibid., 32.

9. Fraser, 53.

10. Pierce, 161-162.

1 1. Butler, _S_l_<etches of History, 56.

12. McCoy, 83-85.

13. Tyler, 113.

14. Hatch, 14-15.

15. Alan Taylor, Liberty Men and Great Proprietors: The Revolutionary

Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1990), 6.

16. William Manning, The Key of Liberty: The Life and Democratic Writings of
William Manning, “a laborer,” edited and with an introduction by Michael Merrill and

Sean Wilentz, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1993),l44-147.
17. The Niles’ Weekly Register, 349.

18. Reeve Huston, Land and Freedom: Rpral Society, Popular Protest, and Par_ty
Politics in Antebellum New York, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 15.

220

19. Wilentz, 191.

20. Eliza Robbins, Grecian History (New York: 1833), 54.

21. Robbins, History of Greece, 77.

22. Worcestor, 20

23. Samuel Goodrich, History of Greece, 106.

24. Ibid., 122.

25. William Sullivan Historical Class BoolaContaining Sketches of History, from
the Beginning of the World to the End of the Roman Empire in Italy, AD. 476 (Boston:
Carter, Hendee, and Co., 1833), 87-88; Willard, 55.; Webber, 32-33.

26. Ibid., 87-88.

Chapter Six

1. Reese, 40.

2. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic, 78-79.

3. Elson, 280.

4. Tucker, 105.

5. Ibid., 105.

6. Bingham, A Historical Grammar, 47.

7. Butler, Universal History, 71.

8. Fraser, History of gal Nations, 61.

9. Worcestor, 75.

10. Henry Christman, Tin Horns and Calico: A Decisive Episode in the
Emergence of Democragy (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1945), 1-4.

11. Helene Sara Zahler, Eastern Workingmen and National Land Policy, 1829-
1862 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941), 29-3 0.

221

12. Oliver Pinnock. Pinnock's Improved Editions of Dr. Goldsmith's Abridgment
of the History of Rome (Philadelphia: 1835), 37-38.

13. S. Goodrich, 98.
14. Willard, Universal History, 120-121.
15. Tyack, Managers of Virtue, 56-59.

16. Cremin, The Republic and the School (New York: Columbia University,
1957), 85.

17. Willson, Outlines of History 728.
18. Ibid., 730.
19. Ibid., 730.

20. Royal Robbins, The World Displayed, 119; Grace, Outlines of History, 71-72;
Dr. Weber, Outlines of History, 90-91; Sullivan, Historical Class Book, 162-163.

21. Butler, 68.

22. Worcestor, 63.

23. Pinnock, 102-103.

24. Ibid., 103.

25. Samuel Goodrich, A Pictorial History of Rome, 43.
26. Tyler, 415-417.

27. Baym, Americana Women Writers, 59.
28. Worcestor, 73.

29. Willard, 120.

30. Willson, 167.

31. Peabody, 97.

Chapter Seven

222

1. Daniel Walker Howe, The American Whig: An Anthology (Yale University:
John Wiley and Sons. Inc., 1973), 3-5.

2. Nasaw, 40-41.
3. Cooke, 79-82.

4. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (New York: Little, Brown, and
Company, 1945), 164.

5. Peter Novick, Mt Noble Dream: The “Obiectivity Question” and the
Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 46.

6. Samuel Jackson, Religious Principles-A Source of Public Prosperity: A Sermon
Delivered before His Excellency John Davis, Governor, Honor George Hull, Lieutenap;
Governor, the Honorable Council, and Legislature of Massachusetts, 23 the Annual
Election (Andover: William Pierce, 1843), 12.

7. “The Perilous Condition of the Republic,” The New England Mafline
(October, 1831): 283.

8. “Discovery and Early History of North America,” The New England Magazine
(September, 1834): 173.

9. Frost, 104; Elizabeth Peabody, Chronological History of the United Statas
Arranged with Plates on Bern's Principle (New York: Sheldon, Blakeman and Company,
1856), 42.; William Grimshaw, History of the United States, from Their First Settlement
as Colonies to the Peace of Ghent (Philadelphia: Published by Benjamin Warner, 1820),
35.

10. S. Goodrich, 25.

11. Berard, 82.

12.1bid., 82.

13. R. Thomas, A pictorial History of the United States of America, from the
Earliest Discoveries by the Northmen, in the Tenth Century to the Present Time
(Hartford: E. Strong, 1845), 105.

14. Guernsey, 89.

15. Elson, 168-169.

16. Ibid., 263.

223

17. Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, Histog of the United States (Hartford, 1823), 29-
30.

18. Emma Willard, Histogy of the United States (New York: White, Gallaher &
White, 1831), 41.

19. John Frost, The Pictorial Histom of the United States of America from the
Discovery by the Northmen in the Tenth Century to the Present Time (Hartford,
Published by Case Tiffany and Company, 1848), 59-60.

20. Lord, 62.

21.1bid., 61.

22. Willson, 184; Grimshaw, 51;

23. GP. Quackenbos, Illustrated School History of the United States and the
Adjacent parts of America, From the Earliest Discoveries to the Present Times (New

York: D. Appelton and Company, 1857), 106.

24. Elizabeth Peabody, Chronolcgical History of the United States, (New York:
Sheldon, Blackman, and Company, 1859), 64.

25. A. B. Berard, School History of the United States, 15.

26. Eliot, 33.

27. William Grimshaw, History of the United States, from Their First Settlement
25131 Colonies to the Peace of Ghent (Philadelphia: Published by Benjamin Warner, 1820),

28. Howe, 4-5.

29. Reese, 167.

30. Labaree, 14.

31. Grimshaw, 132.

32. Willard, History of the United States, 193.

33. C. Goodrich, History of the United States, 245.

34. Willard, History of the United States, 190.

35. Quackenbos, 214.

224

36. Cooper, History of North America Containing a Review of the Customs and
Manners of the Original Inkabitants; the First Settlement of the British Colonies, The
Rise and Progress from t_hefEaaliest Period to the time of Their Becoming the United
States and Free and Indepandent States (London: new bury, 1789), 183.

37. John McCulloch, A Concise History of t_he United States from t_he Discovery
of America uatil 1795 (Philadelphia: John McCulloch, 1795),]65.

38. Charles Goodrich, History of the United States 242-243.

 

39. Ibid., 245.

40. Sellers, 96.

41. Willard, Universal History, 491.

42. Lord, 404-405.

43. William Charming, Election Day Sermon (May 26, 1830,) 51.
44. Working Man’s Advocate, iv (January 20, 1833).

45. The Working Man's Advocate, 5 34 (1834), 4-12.

46. Elson, 337-339.

225

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