 |
The Making of Our Wisconsin Schools
|
Education for Everyone
High Schools
Although the people of Wisconsin generally accepted the principle that education is a public function and that schools should be supported by taxation, it was not so easily put into practice.
Happily, the concept was a part of the social inheritance of the builders of Wisconsin, native and foreign born alike, but it took strong and able leaders to translate it into action. Men like Henry Barnard, Eleazer Root, and Michael Frank were largely responsible for the incorporation of the principle in the state constitution. Barnard outlined it, Root wrote the formula in Article X and Frank was the driving power and constant and effective advocate. One might almost describe their combined activities as the flowering of the free school idea in the Old Northwest.
There were other obstacles to be overcome before the ideal of an educational ladder reaching from kindergarten through the university could be realized. The notions that the masses needed little formal education or none at all, and that any education beyond the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic would drive young people away from manual labor were not uncommon. It was also argued that any school beyond the elementary level was not a concern of the state. These opinions did much to retard the upward extension of the common school system. Legally the right of a school board to establish high schools without express statutory authority was not judicially settled until 1872 by the Supreme Court of Michigan, in a decision commonly referred to as the Kalamazoo High School case. The opinion of Judge Cooley in this case ranks with the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 in determining the right to extend educational opportunity to all classes through schools “as good, indeed, for the poorest boy of the state as the rich man can furnish his children with all his wealth.”
The substance of the decision is in this sentence, “We content ourselves with the statement that nowhere in our state policy, in our constitution or in our laws, do we find the primary school districts restricted in the branches of knowledge which their officers may cause to be taught, or the grade of instruction that may be given, if the voters consent in regular form to bear the expense and raise the taxes for the purpose.”
Another moot question settled in this case was the power of a school board to employ a superintendent. This right was affirmed as emphatically as was the authority to establish high schools.
The Supreme Court of Illinois and many other states soon followed the findings of the Kalamazoo Case and thus judicially established the high school as a part of the public school system. Wisconsin had by implication accepted high schools under the constitutional provision for the establishment of academies, although not formally by legislative enactment until 1875.
The territorial legislatures had authorized the establishment of universities at Belmont, Green Bay, and Madison. Academies and seminaries were incorporated at Beloit, Racine, Milwaukee, Mineral Point, Cassville, Waukesha, Delavan, Platteville, and Madison. After the organization of the state, the University of Wisconsin was created by an act of the legislature approved July 26, 1848. Numerous academies and colleges were given corporate rights, although many of them never passed the dream stage. The academies were usually private or semi-public institutions under stock company control and were frequently sponsored by a religious organization. Their announcements - and some of them were as flamboyant as the patent medicine advertisements - emphasized their purpose as preparation for college. Many also appealed to those who wanted a liberal and classical education or preliminary preparation for their professions. In their later years they also offered commercial courses and instruction in all of the branches required for passing examinations for teacher’s certificates. The quality of teaching in the academies varied from superior to sheer educational quackery. On the whole, they rendered a real service to the state long before high schools were established. Contrary to common opinion, the high school did not grow out of the academy, but gradually displaced it and weakened its influence. The high school as we know it is indigenous to the United States and is our most distinctive contribution to public education.
The university and the elementary schools developed out of two widely separated concepts but with a partial vacuum between them. The university extended downward by setting up a preparatory department, while the elementary school developed a graded system whose upper or “grammar grades” slowly evolved into high schools.
As soon as there were enough children in a school district for more than one teacher, a division into classes, forms, or grades was made with the Prussian scheme of eight grades as the ideal. As might have been expected, the Southport schools were promptly graded and the higher classes were known as the high school. In 1850, a year after Frank had put this high school into operation, Manitowoc and Fond du Lac moved their grammar grades up to the high school level. As yet there was no explicit legal sanction for such a movement, but it developed its own momentum.
Before the beginning of the Civil War, Wisconsin had 50 graded schools. Most of them had high school departments with the commonly accepted academy courses forming their curricula. Many of them were high schools in name only, loosely connected with the grades below and not quite meeting college or university. Subjects were taught from textbooks as Steele’s “Fourteen Weeks in Chemistry” were recited upon the old question-and-answer method. The instruction, of course, was limited, verbal, and superficial except when an unusually capable teacher supplemented the text by collecting specimens, observing natural phenomena, and using library books. The courses generally included Latin and Greek, mathematics, rhetoric, word-study, declamations, literary history, logic, ethics, history, and civics. Emphasis was upon preparation for college and so attracted more boys and girls, for co-education was practically unknown before 1860.
The first class in Wisconsin to graduate from a high school received diplomas from Superintendent John G. McMynn at Racine on December 24, 1857. They numbered ten. Ninety years later, almost 30,000 boys and girls graduated from the high schools of Wisconsin. This was indeed an educational revolution.
The first high school in Milwaukee was opened on January 1, 1868, with an enrollment of 128, all but 17 of whom were from the public schools.
It has been pointed out by many educational historians that every major war is followed by an educational advance. The first years following the Civil War, known as the Reconstruction period, did not result in immediate action, but within a decade dreams of universal high schools began to take form. The Legislature of 1875 passed the first effective high school law. There were then 27 independent city school systems maintaining high schools. This act appropriated $25,000 for state aid to two types of high schools. Cities with a population of 6,000 or over were authorized to offer courses four years in length while others were limited to three years. Eleven high schools were established under this law. Fifteen years later there were 166 high schools in operation, with an attendance of 11,994 taught by 330 principals and assistants. The average salary of principals was $900 and of assistants was $463.
Although the principal purpose of the high school was preparation for college, many graduates had difficulty in passing entrance examinations. The Legislature of 1872 passed a law requiring the University of Wisconsin to admit all Wisconsin high school graduates without examinations. That year, eleven students were admitted under this legislative requirement.
In 1885 the state superintendent was given authority “to exercise such personal supervision, and make such personal inspection of the work of the free high schools as they seem to require, and other duties of his office may warrant.” In 1891 he was authorized to approve the legal qualifications of principals and assistants and to refuse state aid to those schools which employed unqualified teachers. Two years before this he had been authorized to appoint an assistant to visit, inspect, and supervise high schools, and help towns, in which there were no graded schools, to organize and maintain a high school.
Since this was a difficult assignment for one person, the need of formal instruction for organization and teaching was apparent. This was supplied by a High School Manual which had almost as much influence upon high school instruction as the Common School Manual had in the elementary school field. The manual was the combined result of work by the state department and members of the University staff.
In the next year, 1894, there appeared one of the most influential educational documents ever issued in the United States, the Report of the Committee of Ten sponsored by the National Education Association. President Eliot of Harvard was the chairman and leading college teachers of the United States assisted in preparing the various subject matter reports. Nominally agreeing that the purpose of the high school was not mainly that of college preparation, they canceled it by saying that the same subjects taught in the same way constituted the best preparation for life. They approved “the dogma of formal discipline” by urging that mental training was a principal outcome of every academic subject. Mr. Dooley, the philosopher of the early 1900's, rewrote this philosophy by saying “It don’t make so much difference what a boy studies so long as he don’t like it.” They recommended better correlation of subjects, and then set up a standard five-hour period per week for each subject. Twenty recitation periods per week were recommended with double periods for laboratory work. They thus set the pattern for the Carnegie unit system of credits with 16 units necessary for graduation - most of them specific and required. Each subject was considered equivalent to any other if presented successfully for the same length of time. This report had a far-reaching effect on high schools, and still has.
In 1894 the system of accrediting for college entrance had so far advanced that a group of college men in the Midwest organized an accrediting organization known as the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges. By 1900 it had began to be effective in Wisconsin and has exerted a powerful influence on the high schools in its territory.
Various modifications of the high school program have originated in Wisconsin, but by and large, our high schools follow the pattern of the schools west of the Appalachians. The lack of close articulation between the high schools and colleges has always been a problem to both, and many efforts since the Report of the Committee of Ten and the organization of regional accrediting agencies have been made to solve it. One of the answers was the junior high school which has been useful in larger school systems, although it has not been generally accepted in Wisconsin. A similar movement to establish junior colleges has made much headway in some states, but has not as yet gone very far.
A common criticism of the early high schools was that they were for the well-to- do only. So serious did this criticism become that in 1891, State Superintendent Wells made a survey of the 183 high schools then operating to determine the occupations and financial standing of the parents of high school pupils. The answers showed that children of farmers led with 1,623 farmer families, day laborers were second with 659, merchants third was 385, and 361 widows supported high school students. Only 20 teacher families were represented, apparently teachers were very young or were unmarried. Of the professions, physicians led with 80; ministers numbered 72; dentists 16; and editors 18. Lawyers and engineers tied with 16 each. The thoroughness of the study is shown by the reporting of 112 saloon keepers and two “worthless drunkards.” The investigation and the incomes and tax assessment studies which accompanied it revealed that the high school was emphatically the school of the poor man and of those in moderate circumstances.
The demand for a more “practical education” resulted in the introduction of manual training, domestic science, agriculture, commercial work, and the like. These subjects were promoted by granting of state aid. Music and drawing were often referred to as “fads,” and met with a good deal of resistance until they moved out of their formal and academic disguises and became real cultural influences in the lives of the pupils, the school, and the community. Bands, orchestras, choruses, and stage presentations gave the extra-curricular activities social prestige. Athletics, of course, needed none. The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association grew out of the need for the control of sports.
The modern high school in Wisconsin is legally just 73 years old. Its growth since 1900 has been astounding, as now about three out of four boys and girls of high school age in Wisconsin attend secondary schools. Reports to the state superintendent for the school year 1946-47 showed that enrollment in the 464 high schools of Wisconsin was 141,919 and the number of teachers was 6,328. The reported cost of operation and maintenance was $22,259,536.12.
Vocational and Adult Education
Leaders in industry, labor, and education were not satisfied with the incorporation of manual training for cultural purposes in the school curriculum. There was a growing sentiment throughout the country for definite training for vocations. In 1906 the Milwaukee trades school, a private institution, was started by local manufacturing firms. In 1907 the Wisconsin legislature passed a law authorizing cities to establish trade schools as part of the public school system. The city of Milwaukee immediately took over the Milwaukee trade school. The State of Wisconsin thus became the first state of the union to authorize public trade schools, and Milwaukee became the first city in the United States to operate a public trade school.
It was predicted that many such trade schools would be set up in the cities of Wisconsin. But the public trade school development in Wisconsin ended with the Milwaukee school, which is still in operation and flourishing as a full-time school for young people of high school age. The reason that the system did not expand in Wisconsin is probably the fact that four years later a new system was set up, based on a different principle.
The new system grew out of the investigation and recommendations of an interim committee appointed by the Legislature of 1909. In accordance with the recommendations of the committee made after careful study of materials which the reference library had collected for their use and after Dr. Charles McCarthy had spent months in Europe and the British Isles studying developments there at first hand, the Legislature of 1911 provided for a State Board of Industrial Education. The board was composed of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Deans of the Extension Division and the Engineering College of the University, and six members to be appointed by the governor; three employers and three employees. The law provided that “In every town or village or city of over 5,000 inhabitants there shall be, and in towns, cities and villages of less than 5,000 inhabitants there may be, a local board of industrial education whose duty it shall be to foster and establish and maintain industrial, commercial, continuation, and evening schools.” This board was to consist of the city superintendent of schools and four other members appointed by the local school board: two employers and two employees. These schools were to be financed by local funds from a mill tax supplemented by state aid.
Whenever such schools were established in a community, all the young people 14 to 16 years of age not enrolled in full-time schools and not high school graduates must attend not less than five hours a week. A companion law brought apprenticeship into the class of public education agencies. The Industrial Commission was directed to develop apprenticeships, supervise the making of contract, and the giving of instruction on the job; and the new part-time school system was directed to provide related instruction for a definite number of hours per week to all indentured apprentices. Young people could be apprenticed after reaching the age of 16.
The new educational agency thus started out with the purpose and philosophy to which it has adhered in the 37 years of its existence. Many changes have occurred in details, but not the in principle on which it is based - that of taking care locally of the educational needs of the working population on a part-time basis.
Such changes as have come have grown naturally out of state and community needs. In 1915 the required school attendance was changed to a period of four hours a week - a half day - to the age of 17. In 1917 this was changed to eight hours a week - a day a week - still to the age of 17; and in 1921 to half-time to the age of 16 and eight hours a week to the age of 18.
The character of the enrollment has changed greatly with varying conditions, and the character of the instruction has of course changed with it.
In the early years, the day school attendance was almost entirely young workers of the age of required part-time attendance, and the evening school attendance was small. In the school year 1919-1920, for example, the day school attendance was 26,881, of whom practically all were young workers under 17. Evening school enrollment was less - only 23,305.
Twenty years later, in the school year 1939-1940, the day school enrollment was 36,090, while the evening school was 90,317. Moreover, of the 36,090 in day attendance, 24,765, or practically two-thirds, were past the age of 18. That meant that something like 12,000 were juvenile workers coming under the requirement of the law, while over 115,000 were adults attending voluntarily.
The change in the character of the enrollment has come about for various reasons, including scarcity of jobs for young people. During the decade of the great depression, not only were young people without jobs, but thousands of adults were idle. They were the ones who flocked to both the day and evening classes of the part-time schools, in order to use their enforced leisure to prepare for hoped-for re-employment. The war demands of the forties sent thousands of adults to school for training for war industries. The end of the war brought thousands of veterans for training on federal expense money. As fast as one emergency has been met another has appeared with a new set of demands.
But along with these changing emergency demands are certain steady demands in both vocational and general fields. Homemakers want help with their family problems in food, clothing, care of children, care of the sick, the entertainment of the family - good reading, films, and radio. New apprentices are always coming into the skilled occupations and need related training, and workers in industry, in distributive occupations, and in offices need help to keep up with the changing trends. Whatever their occupation, there are always many who want to go on with their general education; to strengthen themselves in the fundamentals if they need it; to complete their high school course through evening classes once or twice a week; to join the community orchestra or chorus sponsored by the school; to receive training in taking part in public affairs; to keep in touch with current books and current problems; to learn some of the languages that will help their contacts with other peoples and countries of the world.
These needs on the part of adults are met by regular teachers employed on a full-time basis to teach certain subjects, by teachers employed on a part-time basis - housewives, industrial and business workers, teachers employed in the full-time day schools, and by circuit teachers. In the vocational fields, the schools of vocational and adult education have their own staff of circuit teachers.
With increasing enrollments and more advanced work due to the higher percentage of adults, it has been found necessary to increase the local mill tax gradually from the half mill provided in 1911 to two mills. State aids for teachers’ salaries have also been increased, but not in proportion to the number enrolled. Starting with $30,000 in 1911, when there was only one school in the state, it has been raised gradually to $425,000. But there are now 57 schools as of January 1, 1948 - with other communities asking to be taken into the system.
In 1917 additional financial aid came to these schools through the federal legislation providing federal aid to trade and industrial, homemaking and agricultural education. To meet the new situation, the nomenclature was changed to State and Local Boards of Vocational Education, and the State Board was reorganized to consist of the State Superintendent, three employers, three employees, three farmers, and a representative of the Industrial Commission. The name was changed again in 1937 to State and Local Boards of Vocational and Adult Education. With all the changing of names, the fundamental character and purpose of the system has remained the same - to supply education, both vocational and general, to the out-of-school group, to young and adult workers on a part-time basis, or a “What-time-have-you?” basis.
This development of an educational system outside of the regular and traditional school had to meet much strong and determined opposition. The leaders, and they were strong men and women, went ahead with the same energy and determination as the men of a century ago had used to establish a system of free, universal, tax- supported public schools. The Wisconsin system of vocational and adult education is unique, effective, and closely correlated with other types of schools.
Stout Institute
Two state institutions directly concerned with vocational work are the Stout Institute and the Wisconsin Institute of Technology. The Stout Institute was the outgrowth of the interest of Senator James H. Stout of Menomonie in practical education. Early in the 1890's he founded the institute largely for the purpose of serving young men and women in the area of his city. It expanded rapidly and became a pioneer in introducing manual training and household arts in the high school and upper grades. As these subjects developed in the public schools of the state, Stout became a training school for teachers specially prepared to teach them. After the death of Senator Stout, the Legislature took the Institute over as a state school with the same rank as the normal schools. In 1918 its courses were extended by the action of the legislature to four years and was given authority to grant degrees. Later graduate degrees were offered, although undergraduate work still dominates the program.
Stout was the first, and still is, the only college in the United States to limit its work wholly to the preparation of teachers of industrial education, home economics, and vocational education.
Wisconsin Institute of Technology
Another, but unique institution, is the Wisconsin Institute of Technology at Platteville. It was established in 1907 to supply trained persons for the mining industry of Southwestern Wisconsin then in a boom stage. With the decline of mining, the type of work was changed somewhat and the name changed to more nearly identify its function. The present name was authorized by the Legislature in 1939. The Institute is housed in the old normal school building whose central portion was once the Platteville Academy.
Higher Education
From the beginning there was great concern for higher education in Wisconsin. In the minds of many of the leaders in early days it was even more important to educate for leadership than to have mass education on the lower levels. Many colleges and universities were chartered, although most of them never got beyond the paper stage. The University of Wisconsin is issuing this year a history of its development, so it is unnecessary to undertake more than already appears in other parts of this short history. Other public and private institutions are making similar studies. This has been restricted to the public elementary, secondary schools, and vocational education, including the preparation of teachers.
Special Schools
It was early recognized that special schools were required for its unfortunate and exceptional children. Schools for the blind, deaf and dumb, feeble-minded, orphans, and young boys and girls who were habitual or occasional violators of the law. An Institute for the Blind at Janesville which had been under private management was taken over by the state in 1850 and two years later a similar Institute for the Deaf and Dumb at Delavan became a state institution. In 1837 the State Reform School at Waukesha was approved and its name subsequently changed to Industrial School for Boys. A similar school for girls was taken over by the state at Milwaukee in 1877. It has since been moved to a beautiful site near Oregon.
In addition to these there are now many locally supported and state supervised schools for the blind, deaf and dumb, and other handicapped children. There are two colonies for the feeble-minded at Chippewa Falls and Union Grove, and a State Public School at Sparta. They have never been adequately supported by the state, but they have served and are serving Wisconsin well.
School Libraries
The census of 1850 reported that Wisconsin had 72 libraries with a fair number of books of the highest standing. The founding fathers - young men - wrote into the Constitution in the Article on education a provision for libraries coupling them with schools by saying, “The income of the school fund shall be applied to the support and maintenance of common schools in each district and to the purchase of suitable libraries and apparatus.” Here was another new idea in fundamental law.
The first legislature appropriated ten percent of all school money apportioned to the towns “for a common school library which shall be the property of the town.” Since this law was not to be effective until the income reached $60,000, the next legislature reduced the figure to $30,000 and authorized each district to expend $30 additional for books. In 1851, $3,524 was so expended, indicating that there was not a great deal of drive behind the idea. In 1854 the law was made optional and a real book famine began.
For 30 years there was a steady decline in school libraries except for a shot in the arm by Superintendent Draper in 1859 which had no permanent results. The low point seems to have been reached by 1878, for the report of the State Superintendent of that year showed only 328 of Wisconsin’s 5,361 school districts to have libraries. The total number of books reported was 17,069 or an average of three per district for the state. One school clerk reported only a single volume in addition to Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, which was furnished by the state without cost to the district, and that had the intriguing title of “Townsend’s Analysis of the Constitution of the United States.”
In this literary depression a few forward looking county superintendents followed the lead of Superintendent D.D. Parsons of Richland County by organizing library and literary associations for the distribution and discussion of books. This movement aroused interest in the re-establishment of libraries and finally to the Reading Circle movement.
In 1887 another township library law was enacted giving one-twentieth of the school fund income to libraries and requiring the counties to appropriate an equal amount. Ten years later the number of books had increased from 41,128 to 139,326 and by 1916 it had almost reached the two million mark. Under this law the state superintendent was required to issue an approved list of books. The first list had 340 titles. The 1946-48 volume has almost 10,000 books approved for purchase.
In 1889 the legislature changed the law by authorizing town clerks to withhold ten cents per capita for each person on the school census list. This applied to all school districts except those of third, second, and first class cities. Six years later the law was made mandatory and applied to all districts except those of third, second, and first class cities. Six years the law was made mandatory and applied to all districts under the supervision of county superintendents including cities of the fourth class. In 1921 the amount to be withheld was doubled and in 1943 all of the income of the state school fund distributed to these districts was required to be spent for library books. The last report shows $161,500 expended for school library books in the reporting districts.
In 1891 the state superintendent was authorized to employ a clerk who would be charged with supervision of school libraries - the second state to take this step. The designation of the position was changed to that of supervisor of libraries in 1915. Two men, Frank Hutchins and O.M. Rice, were pioneers in this field and to them Wisconsin owes much of its outstanding school libraries and the interest in books. The library is now an integral part of the school system as the founders of the State had intended. “Book-learning” of the older day is now better described as “books for learning.”
Posted March 6, 1998
 |
 |