The educational views and influence of De Witt Clinton

Preface

The history of education in the United States has yet to be written — and the first big step in the process is the completion of a series of the educational history of the individual states. The present study is a contribution to the history of education in the State of New York, during the period of foundations, or rather, during the period of the transformation of the English colonial character — and consequently education — to a distinctly American one. This study centers about the rich personality of one of New York's greatest sons — De Witt Clinton. His educational significance has received very slight recognition from his biographers. Though he is not mentioned in either of the histories of education in the United States, and though mentioned, is not adequately treated, in any of the histories of education in New York State this study establishes, we believe, the claim that Clinton should be ranked with Mann and Barnard in a trinity of educational leadership in the United States. Preceding the study of De Witt Clinton, there is, by way of introduction, a statement of the physical, social and educational conditions in the State of New York from 1783 to 1805.

The student of the educational history of Massachusetts is, in general, oppressed by the wealth of material. It would seem that whenever any one did anything educationally, there was a fellowtownsman nearby to record his work, or else he himself took the time later to record it. Consequently, the educational history of Massachusetts is, at present, the most complete. The student of the educational history of New York has just the opposite

iii iv Preface

experience. He is oppressed by the scantiness of material. Governor Fenner, when he invited Henry Barnard to become State Superintendent of Education in Rhode Island, gave expression to what, unfortunately, may be called the New York view : that it was better to make history than write it.

The writer has quoted freely from the sources, especially in Chapter HI. The reasons for this are: (i) the conclusions are so novel to the general reader or teacher that they would probably be dismissed merely as other illustrations of reading into things conclusions, which the things themselves would not warrant being read out of them; (2) the reader has the opportunity of forming his own conclusions; (3) the material quoted from is either bulky or generally inaccessible; and finally (4) there may be those like George Eliot, who prefer to "learn from the man himself what he thought, than hear from others what he ought to have thought."

The author wishes to acknowledge his obligations to the librarian of the Columbia University Library, the Bryson Library, Teachers College, the New York State Library, the New York City Library, the Library of the New York Historical Society, the Lenox and the Astor Foundations, and the branch libraries (especially the Hamilton Fish Branch) of the New York Public Library, and to the authorities of the New York State Education Department, for many kindnesses, courtesies, and privileges. He is under deep obligations to Dr. Paul Monroe, of Teachers College, Columbia University, for patient, kindly, and valuable criticism extending over several years' study. His greatest obligation is to his mother, who, through long years of sacrifice, made it possible for him to secure an education.

E. A. F.

Contents

PAGE.

Part I Conditions In New York State, 1783-1805

I. Physical and social conditions i

Statistics of population i

The growth of population 2

Lack of ready and comfortable means of communication and transportation 2

Character of newspapers 3

The system of poor-relief 3

Philanthropy 5

The general movement toward secularization 7

II. Educational conditions 9

Introductory 9

Types of education 10

Common school education or the education of the

English school 10

The buildings 10

Organization 11

The teachers 12

The text-books 13

The Schoolmaster's Assistant 13

Pike's Arithmetic 14

Morse's Geographies 15

Dilworth's "New Guide to the English

Tongue" 16

Caleb Bingham's texts 17

Webster's Grammatical Institute of the

English Language 17

The content of a common school education .... ig

The method 20

The spirit 20

Academies — a classical education 21

V vi Contents

Fashionable education 23

Private schools 25

The educational movement — 1787-1800 26

The Regent's interest in common schools .... 26

The first statute relating to elementary schools 28

The law of 1795 28

The breakdown of the law of 1795 in the Long

Island towns 29

Educational conditions in various places 30

In New York City 30

In Albany 31

In Hudson 32

In Newburg 33

In the Mohawk and Black River countries 35

Higher education 36

History of the Regents 36

Academic education 38

Collegiate education 39

Libraries 40

Professional education 41

Divinity 41

Law 41

Medicine 42

The financial situation 42

Conclusion — ^the general situation 43

Part II The Educational Views Of De Witt Clinton And

THEIR SIGNIFICANCE

III. Educational views of De Witt Clinton 47

The fundamental proposition — the sociological conception 47

Its realization 49

The training of teachers 50

Supervision 51

Its extent 52

Women 52

Indians and Africans 52

Deaf and dumb 53

Criminals 54

Juvenile delinquents 57

Its institutional organization 58

Its scope 60

Contents vii

Enrichment of common school education .... 6o-

Medical 6i

Military 6i

Agricultural 6i

Technical C3

Its support 64

Restatement of proposition — the educational implications of democracy 65

IV. Significance of Clinton's views 67

The comprehensiveness of the plan 67

The emphasis on the less formal educational agencies . . 67

An underlying educational sociology 67

Part III Influence Of De Witt Clinton And Its Significance

V. The conditions and bases of Clinton's influence 73

VI. Clinton's influence on the less formal educational

agencies 78

New York Historical Society 78

Lyceums of Natural History 81

Libraries 83

The State Library 83

Other libraries 86

VII. Influence on formal education 89

Common school education 89'

The Public School Society 89

Summary loi

The minor school societies 102

The Economical School Society 103

The Orphan Asylum Society 105

The Infant School Society 106

The training of teachers 109

State legislation 109

Summary lii

The Society of Teachers 112

Free School Society's training of teachers 114

Secondary education 118

VIII. Influence on special forms of education 121

Education of women 121

Education of juvenile delinquents 124

"viii Contents

Education of deaf and dumb 127

Agricultural education 130

Technical education 131

Summary 13S

Medical education 135

IX. The significance of Clinton's educational influence .... 141

The problem of the chapter 141

The changed conditions in 1830 141

Elementary education 143

Infant schools 144

Higher education 144

Professional education 144

The less formal educational agencies 144

The significance of the less formal educational agencies. 145

The movement towards free public schools 147

The movement for the professional training of teachers. 149

A broader elementary school curriculum 152

Scientific basis for professional and technical training.. 152

Epilogue. The place of Clinton in American education 154

BrBLIOGRAPHY 156

Introduction

Mr. Edward A. Fitzpatrick, with whom I have no personal acquaintance, sent me the proof-sheets of his study of the relations of De Witt Clinton to American, and particularly to New York education, and asked me to comment upon his work. It is obviously impossible for one in my official position to assume such a task very often; indeed, I did not assume this one. But his subject is one of such peculiar interest to me that I could not refrain from reading enough to know whether he had written something worth reading, and thereupon found that what he had written was so well worth my reading that I read the whole of it.

Having done so, I can justly say no less than that the author has, in striving to do educational justice to the memory of De Witt Clinton, rendered a very substantial service to the history of education in the great state which Clinton served with so much distinction, and that of course means to the history of education in America. The work is not only marked by laborious research, but also by a confident grasp upon the general and widespread facts of educational history which is not often possessed by a young man in his college days.

He very appropriately portrays the New York educational situation as it existed in the last two decades of the eighteenth century and in the first decade of the nineteenth, in order to elucidate the educational activities which De Witt Clinton set in motion. This portrayal is doubtless more complete than the period has had at the hands of any previous writer. Educational facts have been gleaned not only from laws and official reports, but also from the newspapers and school announcements of the times and from other primary sources of information, until the work affords us a clearer view of the low state of education in New York a hundred years ago than any to which we have been accustomed.

ix

X Introduction

This, however, is only the prelude to the real work of the author — that of showing Governor Clinton's strong grasp upon the sociological situation and his remarkable fertility of mind in seeing the remedies for it, as well as that of revealing his foresight, energy, and courage, and his commanding influence in compelling New York to take the steps which have given her educational eminence, thus entitling him to a yet higher place in our history because of what he did for learning than because of what he did in the building of the Erie Canal, with which his name has been most conspicuously identified.

I have, of course, read much in the history of New York education, and have not been wholly ignorant of the obligations under which it lies to De Witt Clinton, but it involves no humiliation to say that I have not heretofore appreciated the manysidedness of his persistent activities for the intellectual progress of the state. I knew what he had said, many times and forcefully, in his state papers as Governor, but I had too much of the feeling that he had said it perfunctorily and because it was good political policy to say it. That was natural enough, as things ordinarily go, but Mr. Fitzpatrick's study shows that it was very unjust. The evidence here brought back to the light and assembled in a very systematic whole shows that at all times and places he worked sagaciously and incessantly to advance the moral and intellectual progress of his people, and, wholly apart from the other large things he did, is entitled to rank among the very first educational propagandists of America.

The young man who has made this apparent is entitled to and has the appreciative acknowledgments of the New York State Education Department.

A. S. DRAP:eR,

Commissioner of Education.

Albany, N. Y.,

CHAPTER I PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS Statistics of Population

In 1800 New York was a sparsely settled frontier settlement — in no sense the empire state. The settlements already made were on two narrow oblongs extending north and east from New York City; the one north was forty miles in breadth and was divided by the Hudson; the one east was Long Island. On the 44,000 square miles there lived, according to the census of 1800, 586,050 people; of those 20,613 were slaves and 10,374 were included in the class of "all other persons except Indians not taxed. "^

The population was almost entirely rural; there was an average of less than fourteen persons to the square mile.^ There were but three incorporated cities: New York, Albany, and Hudson. New York City had a population of 32,328 ; Albany had but 3,498 and Hudson only 2,584. Western New York remained practically a wilderness — this fact is indicated on Morse's map of the State ( 1804) by the absence of any names of towns in that part of the State. A few settlers had gathered at Buffalo. Neither Rochester, Rome, nor Syracuse had any existence. Utica was insignificant. Schenectady had "decayed" since the Revolution and had not been rebuilt. Canandaigua, the chief town in Ontario County, contained seventy dwelling houses, and Geneva contained a like number. Bath, the chief town in Steuben County, contained but thirty houses,^ and the enumeration of

^Pioneer Association of Genesee County. History of its organization, p. 20.

^For the relation between the growth of an urban population and the development of the graded school see Harris's monograph on Elementary Education in Butler's Education in the United States.

2P. 1183 — "A description of the Genesee Country in the State of New York" ; Document H, in O'Callaghan's Documentary History of New York.

I the inhabitants in the town itself and the district eight miles around it, showed that there were "above eight hundred souls."* Steuben County had but 1,788 souls. There were seven other counties with less than ten thousand inhabitants. Richmond had 4,563; Kings, 5,740; Rockland, 6,353; Tioga, 6,889; Onandago, 7,406; Clinton and Essex Counties together, 8,514; and Schohary, 9,808. But very few counties had more than twenty-five thousand inhabitants. It is no wonder, then, that with such a scattered population, schools were not more adequately provided.

The Growth of Population

But the growth of population is more significant than the fact of population. In 1790 the population of New York City was 33,131; in 1830 it was 197,112. In 1790 there was one city of over eight thousand inhabitants and the total urban population was 33,131 ; in 1830 there were seven cities of over eight thousand inhabitants with a total urban population of 271,481. The population of the state in 1790 was 340,120, and in 1830 it was 1,918,608. The increase of population in the State was considerably over fivefold (5.64) ; the increase of urban population was over eightfold (8.19).^

Lack of Ready and Comfortable Means of Communication AND Transportation

Nor was this population welded closer together by easy and ready means of communication, or transportation. The stage coach was the usual means of land travel. A contemporary advertisement reads :

"Federal Line (of Stages) for Philadelphia will leave for New York every day at eight o'clock in the morning (Sundays excepted) and arrives at Philadelphia early next. Fare of each passenger, four dollars.

"Albany stages will leave New York every day at ten o'clock in the morning; arrives at Albany the fourth day at nine o'clock in the morning. Fare of each passenger, seven dollars."

*P. 1135 — "Description of the Settlement of the Genesee Country in the State of New York in a series of letters from a gentleman to his friend" published in O'Callaghan's Documentary History of Nev/ York.

^Cf. Census Reports.

Physical and Social Conditions 3,

Roads were few and in exceedingly poor condition. Travel was expensive. The trip to Albany was less comfortable and less regular than the voyage to Europe. There was no Erie Canal. There were no steamboats and no railroads.^

Character of Newspapers

Newspapers were not the significant social force that they are to-day. The newspapers at the end of the eighteenth century consisted almost entirely of advertisements and the "latest European intelligence." Advertisements occupied about half of the newspaper and, occasionally, two-thirds. The "latest European intelligence" was mostly political and was published at least two months after the facts occurred, occasionally taking the form of a detailed report of the debates in the British House of Commons. "The Spectator" published the debates in the United States Congress, giving over half of the paper to this department. Occasionally laws passed by Congress were published. Besides the foregoing, these eighteenth century newspapers contained long political discussions by "Scipio" and the like, quotations from a "late London paper," or other newspapers, or an extract from a letter from an American in Paris dated three months earlier. Surely there was little possibility in this material to arouse the people to an adequate conception of their social needs.'^

The System of Poor-Relief

One of the big problems connected with a rapid increase in population and especially of its concentration in rather small areas is poor-relief, with its usual development of beggars, criminals and the like. The system of administration of poor-relief was borrowed from England,^ and it was accompanied here by the

*"The number of letters was almost one a year for every grown inhabitant in the United States." Adam's History of the United States, v. 1, p. 62.

''"Of American newspapers there was no end, but the education supposed to have been widely spread by eighteenth century newspapers was hardly to be distinguished from ignorance. The student of history might search forever these storehouses of political calumny for facts to instruct the public in any useful object." Adam's History of United States, v. 1, p. 120.

^"The principles of administration of poor relief laid down in the act of Elizabeth and modified by the Act of Charles II. remained practically un-

4 The Bdiicational Views and Influence of De Witt Clinton

same evil results as there. The situation is clearly and sharplystated in the following rather long quotation from De Witt Clinton. It may be observed here in passing that his remedy, "intellectual, moral and religious cultivation," is not an English one.

"Our statutes relating to the poor are borrowed from the English system, and the experience of that country, as well as our own, shows that pauperism increases with the augmentation of the funds applied to its relief. This evil has proceeded to such an alarming extent in the City of New York, that the burden of heavy taxation which it has imposed, means a diminution of the population of that city, and a depreciation of its real property. The consequences will be very injurious to the whole State; for the delay of our great market will be felt in every department of productive labor. Under the present system the fruits of industry are appropriated to the wants of idleness ; a laborious poor man is taxed for the support of an idle beggar; and the vice of mendacity, no longer considered degrading, infects a considerable portion of our population in large towns. I am persuaded that the sooner a radical reform takes place the better. The evil is contagious, and a prompt extirpation can alone prevent its pernicious extension. The inducement to pauperism may be destroyed by rendering it a greater evil to live by charity than by industry, its mischiefs may be mitigated by diminishing the expenses of our charitable establishments and by adopting a system of coercive labor; and its cause may be removed by preventing intemperance and extravagance and by intellectual, moral and religious cultivation. It is the decree of heaven that our lives should be spent in useful or active employment. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground," was the declaration of the Almighty to our first parent; and a course of blind, indiscriminating, prodigal benevolence defeats its own object, by attempting to counteract the laws of our nature, and the designs of Providence. Charity is an exalted virtue, but it ought to be founded on reason, and regulated by wisdom. While we must consider as worthy of all praise and patronage the religious and moral societies, Sunday, free and charity schools, houses of industry, orphan asylums, saving banks and all other establishments, which prevent or alleviate the evils of pauperism, by inspiring industry, dispensing employment and inculcating altered until after the separation of the colonies from the mother country. Though none of the poor relief orders may be traced to any single enactment of Parliament, it is clear that the early settlers drew largely upon their knowledge of English law and tradition in their administration of public relief." Cumming's Poor Laws of Massachusetts and New York, p. 16.

Physical and Social Conditions 5

economy; by improving the mind, cultivating the heart, and elevating the character, we are equally bound to discourage those institutions which furnish the ailment of mendacity, by removing the incentive to labor, and administering to the blandishments of sensuality."^

Philanthropy

This leads to the larger question of charity or philanthropy which, as the next section and the thesis proper show, had important bearings on education. The prevailing conception of charity is well illustrated in the free ("free" was, at this time, synonymous with "charity") schools. These were maintained by churches, exclusively, and were restricted to the poor of the denomination — until, in some cases, it was financially profitable to admit others.^" At best it was a recognition of a group obligation toward the unfortunate members of the group — and the group was usually a religious denomination. In fact, charity (and education was a phase of charitable endeavor) was regarded as a primary duty of the church, and it was the church which administered the system of public relief. Unquestionably this was the course of the main current, but below there was a strong undercurrent. The movement toward secularization was its most general expression, and is discussed later. Its concrete embodiment in this connection is found in the poor-relief law of 1784/^ and the organization of the Association for the Sick Poor in 1795. By the law of 1784, the offices of the church-warden and the vestryman in the city of New York and in Queens, Richmond and Westchester counties were abolished, and the relief of the poor was made a public function, to be administered not as heretofore by church officers, but by public officers. This is a significant indication of the direction in which things were moving. The name of the "Association for the Rehef of the Sick Poor," is not exactly descriptive of its function, for it was educational as well as humanitarian in the general sense. Its constitution restricted its membership to the Society of Friends, but provided that "no relief be afforded to the people

^Messages from the Governors (1818), v. 2, pp. 914-5.

loCf. Documents in School Controversy as published in Bourne's History of Public School Society, pp. 61-63. iiChap. 35, Laws of 1784.

6 The Educational Viezvs and Influence of De Witt Clinton

called Quakers." When the society opened a school in 1801, it was intended for those whose parents belonged to no religious society, and who, from some cause or other, could not be admitted to the charity schools of the city.^^

As a private matter, philanthropy was sustained by religious sanctions as now, but much more universally then — the personal reward of the charitable in a future life. Or as Cunimings rather aptly puts it: "The system of poor relief was founded upon a liberal interpretation of the doctrine that it is more blessed to give than to receive, which mainly regarded the poor and needy merely as a means of grace given by divine wisdom to the end that the elect may have proper exercise for their virtues."^^

But that misery or indigence was frequently of social origin and no matter zvhat its origin, had important social effects, and that the remedy, charity, or whatever you choose to call it, was a vital social problem — a view which Clinton was about to impress upon his generation in a masterly way — had hardly been conceived by the community itself or by any large group in the community — except possibly the Quakers. The proposal that the community was the only power to deal with the problem in a large and comprehensive way, was against the individualistic bent of the people; it was "undemocratic." And yet it is easily demonstrable, were this the place, that such community action is the only possible reconcilation between charity and democracy.

As remarked above, the poor relief law of 1784 was an indication of the direction in which things were moving, i.e., the movement from a religious to a secular view of human affairs. The Free School Society itself offers further indications of this movement. It announced as a "primary object" that in Sunday School as in the Common School, "it will be a primary object, without observing the peculiar forms of any religious society, to inculcate the sublime truths of religion and morality contained in the Holy Scriptures." As usual the religious motive is asserted. This of itself is not noteworthy. But the publications of the society during its first year (1805) are prophetic of the new tendency.

^Cf. Original name of Public School Society. I'Poor Laws of New York, p. 16.

Physical and Social Conditions 7

From the address "to the pubhc" we learn that its purpose was not merely moral and religious instruction, but "the common rudiments of learning, essentially requisite for the due management of the ordinary business of life." In its memorial to the Legislature, this new note was sounded more clearly: "The consequences of this neglect of education are ignorance and vice, and all those manifold evils resulting from every species of immorality, by which public hospitals and aim-houses are filled with objects of disease and poverty, and society burthened with taxes for their support." And again: "The rich having ample means for the education of their offspring, it must be apparent that the laboring poor — a class of citizens so evidently useful — have a superior claim to public support."

The General Movement Toward Secularization

But the movement toward secularization was broader than this, and had been gaining impetus steadily during the eighteenth century. It is impossible here to indicate its progress in Europe since the Reformation, nor its course in New York State during the colonial period. Its momentum can be judged by two facts of post-Revolutionary history.

The first, of wider significance, is found in the Constitution of the United States. Section three of article six requires that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States," and the first clause of the first amendment is : "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The other is the Regents legislation. By the Act of May, 1784, the church was permitted no ex officio regents and instead there was to be an elective clerical representative who might be a member of any sect. Further, any denomination might establish a professorship in divinity. And, finally, there was to be no religious tests for professors. This applied only to Columbia College, and any prospective colleges organized by the Regents. The legislation of 1787 went even further by providing that there was to be no clerical representation as such on the Board of Regents or the trustees of any college or academy. It was provided with reference to Columbia, for example, that the old charter be "absolutely ratified and confirmed in all respects except .... that no persons shall be trustees of the same in virtue of any offices, characters, or description whatever, excepting also such clauses as require the taking of oaths and subscribing the declaration therein mentioned, and which render a person ineligible to the office of President on account of his religious tenets ; and prescribe a form of pubHc prayer to be used in the said college." Practically the same provisions were made for the academies.

CHAPTER II EDUCATIONAL CONDITIONS Introductory

Educationally, things were at a low ebb at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Naturally the upheaval caused by the Revolution was evident in every phase of human activity. Governor George Clinton in his message of January 21, 1784, says: "Neglect of education is among the evils consequent on war — perhaps there is scarce anything more worthy your attention than the revival and encouragement of seminaries of learning; and nothing by which we can satisfactorily express our gratitude to the Supreme Being for his past favors, since piety and virtue are generally the offspring of an enlightened understanding."^

Education was very inadequately provided for at the beginning of the century ; elementary education more so than either secondary or advanced.^ There were no public elementary schools, few academies, and only two colleges. There were a few professional schools, but attendance at these was not a necessary passport to the practise of the profession.

The elementary schools so far as they existed were ungraded and housed most unsuitably. More often the elementary school was the living room of some old woman of the neighborhood — the "dame school." Teachers were untrained and were in many cases illiterate. Expert supervision of instruction was probably not dreamed of. Text-books were few and poor. Compulsory school attendance and all the machinery of the present-day educa-

^There is no mention of education in the first constitution of the State.

"Cf. the folio-wing divisions of this chapter "Higher Education," and "Private Schools within New York City." Cf. especially Gov. George Clinton's statement in 1795 given later.

lo The Bducahonal Views and Influence of De Witt Clinton

tion were non-existent. So likewise was the provision for defectives and delinquents.

Types of Education

Common School Education or the Education of the English

School^

The Buildings. In the Regents Report to the Legislature in 1794, it was pointed out, as already indicated, that common schools were greatly neglected in those parts of the State remote from the academies. However, there were common schools independent of the academies; such schools as, for example, the one kept by Ichabod Crane. These buildings v/ere usually small, one-room, one story frame buildings, "without the slightest attempt at architectural beauty." A detailed description of the school buildings in New Rochelle from 1 791-1796, follows :

"The inside of these school houses was of the crudest and cheapest finish. As to the outside, they were small, unpainted shanties, usually located on some surplus angle of the streets or rocky land, unfit for cultivation, thus economizing ground and making these barren spots, where no vegetation could grow, produce the precious fruits of education. The houses were ceiled round with unpainted boards shrunken from their grooves; consequently no ventilators were needed. Their fixtures were extremely rude and simple, consisting for the most part of pine boards nailed up to the sides and ends of the rooms for desks, with sometimes a shelf underneath on which to keep books and slates. They were furnished with seats of long oaken slabs, with legs driven into auger holes at each end, and all of the fixtures and furniture were curiously notched and carved into many fantastic and grotesque images by the busy jack-knives of the mischievous tyros. The school-room was sometimes warmed by a fire in an open fireplace, but mostly by a small cast-iron stove set upon a pile of bricks in the middle of the room."*