Section Sixteen (1957)

[Music] [Music] when the first settlers came to this country they didn't have much time to think of Education there were too many things to be just plain scared of life was hard there was the simple matter of keeping away cold and hunger of making a home fighting off hostile Indians trying to keep body together with food and soul together with prayer the Deep religious fervor of these first settlers had a lot to do with the beginnings of American Education one of the things they were scared of was Satan the Devil the El to protect themselves from Satan the pilgrims passed the first education law in America the old deluder Satan law under it every child had to learn to read from the Bible so that he could ward off the old deluder Satan himself who was to teach the children to read their Bibles the answer was the Dame school they were pretty crude schools everyone with children chipped in a few shillings to pay the good Dame for her services with the hornbook [Music] and they learned a few figures too after all these students were going to grow up to be shrewd yankee traders and you don't learn that entirely from the [Music] Bible discipline was strict in 1647 a law was passed in Massachusetts every town with more than 50 householders had to provide an elementary school and those having 100 householders a Latin grammar school so the children were herded into the Town Meeting Hall which was usually the church to get their lessons from a teacher paid by each pupil as was the day all children in colonial days were expected to work and work was more important than formal education so in strict Puritan New England the school schools served only the church and one church at that but in Pennsylvania things were different in 1689 the Quakers were granted a charter by William Penn and they founded the Penn Charter School the first of many schools this group was responsible for education in Pennsylvania was characterized by more freedom than the pilgrims of New England granted there were many religions in Penn's land many churches and each was allowed to worship and teach according to its own beliefs and all this time a nation was stirring and the new world was growing up and the old things were changing and then suddenly the new world had to be free and it had to fight to get that way and it took a lot of good men's lives to make the new world free and to make the biggest change of [Music] all the American Revolution left precious little time for education but when the fighting was done they began to worry about this problem of educating their children laws were passed and the first federal law on education read that every new Township in the unsettled Land north of the Ohio River should set aside Lot number 16 for the construction of public schools this was the land ordinance Act of 1785 sounded fine but often they forgot to put up the school on lot 16 [Music] education before 1820 was still a pretty sketchy business some families didn't live near enough to town to send their children and so the wandering teacher traveled from Farm to farm in early America spending a few days with the children America was growing the small towns spread out each Town divided itself into districts and each district had a [Music] school and these district schools were to become pretty F all of them could be symbolized by this one a little red schoolhouse the Little Red Schoolhouse has been idealized in songs and slightly corny poets but the Little Red Schoolhouse was pretty grim and primitive stuff one room for all grades teachers who had to stay Only One Jump Ahead of the pupils by our standards today the Little Red Schoolhouse was crude indeed and its materials were crude and his methods in Adam's fall we sinned All America needed better public education more Americans were voting our new nation had to have educated voters and America was opening up new Americans were coming from Europe land hungry and Restless families were packing the ox wagon moving Inland through Pittsburgh where the religious freedom of Penn land is again seen in the school set up by the Scottish Presbyterian in the new West Americans found what the Spaniards had left the Mission School the Mission School remained in the west and in the East this in at crew and disorganized seemed entrenched forever because to Americans it was all the school that a new land needed the year is 1837 a Great Depression has settled over the American land in Massachusetts a lawyer gives up his prosperous practice to become the state's first Secretary of Education his name was horis man Horus Man fought a battle for American schools he worked to get better schools tax supported and publicly controlled free to war and he fought most of all to get people interested in education talking about it and people began to talk talk about this problem of book learning Forest man made us aware of the Little Red School houses shortcom and so we took the matter into our town meetings and in the usual American manner we argued about it who shall the new teacher be what about a better school building how about more taxes to pay for it eager to improve Teaching Standards Horus man built the first state normal school in America he introduced subjects like geography and government but in the midst of this new School progress something else was happening to the nation America was going to war again this time against itself the Civil War drastically curtail School progress and when it was over we was still in the Little Red Schoolhouse but way back in 1821 they had built something called a high school the first one was English High School in Boston and after the Civil War more high schools and grade schools appeared still more spotted around the land and pretty soon these wood frame and brick buildings were going up all over America towns were growing and the schools were growing with them the one room Schoolhouse was recognized as inadequate the materials in the schools were questioned and the teacher who had to stay only one grade ahead of her pupils was inadequate [Music] too America was changing old ways were being abandoned new ways were being found in power and Industry and all during the exciting change from the 19th century to the 20th American Educators were trying to keep pace for the first time the schools began to teach children how to do things all sorts of things to meet every interest Educators began to look upon each student as an individual with individual problems and [Music] interests since 1900 High School attendance has increased 90 fold and building tried to keep Pace as best it could with the depression of 1929 American School building came to a hall started again in the 30s but World War II put a stop to it allog together new problems came during the second world war teachers found better paying jobs in defense plans there was a huge wartime baby crop and when other teachers came home from the war they went into more lucrative profession by 1946 our schools were badly crowded with thousands of new students not enough teachers and not enough facilities of the right kind we started on a new school building program but many of the old problems Remain the struggle to educate Americans has been long and many great men have waged it the stakes are high because these children who are children at the moment only will hold the nation's Destiny in their hands tomorrow because if America is to remain strong so must his schools [Music]