Chapter 8

Question 1

What is the Early National Period?

Answer 1

The period after the War of Independence

1783-1865

Question 2

What man was a friend of Horace Mann’s and greatly influenced public education during the National Period?

Answer 2

Henry Barnard

Question 3

What were some factors that caused the decline of schools during the National Period?

Answer 3

Pastors became so busy with other ministries that they lost personal contact with the schools and schools lost their “religious” emphasis.
Lack of administrative control- minimal school oversight
Apathy by the citizens towards common schools - too much money and no need to sacrifice

Question 4

Why was Sunday School started?

Answer 4

A means to educating poor children.

Sunday was the only day available to children who worked six days a week in factories and mines

Question 5

What was taught in Sunday School?

Answer 5

Reading, writing, spelling, and general moral education

Question 6

Who started SS in England and when? Why did he start SS?

Answer 6

Robert Raikes in1780. He did not see success with reforming prisoners so he turned his attention to teaching children.

Question 7

Who began SS in America and in what year? How did he run it? Where did these SS sessions initially meet?

Answer 7

William Elliot in 1785 by inviting neighborhood children to participate in his Sunday evening SS. These met in homes.

Question 8

Where and when was the first denominational church based SS opened?

Answer 8

Broadway Baptist Church in Baltimore in 1804

Question 9

Describe the denominational church based SS program.

Answer 9

Teachers were paid
Students were payed 1 penny for attending
Clergy weakly supported the plan as they seldom met in churches

Question 10

When did SS transition to one-hour denominational meetings?

Answer 10

1830’s

Question 11

What did SS help do?

Answer 11

Train millions of children with the doctrine of basic Protestantism

Question 12

What caused the rise of public education to be gradual?

Answer 12

Heavy taxation to support schools was a concern

Question 13

Name two people who had concerns about public education and what their biggest concern was.

Answer 13

Timothy Dwight, President of Yale University and AA Hodge, Theology Professor at Princeton
They had concerns about irreligious teachers

Question 14

How did the Protestants in NY and Mass respond to public education

Answer 14

Accepted the change or started their own denominational schools

Question 15

What was a good indication that secularist ion did not spread to other states as quickly?

Answer 15

McGuffey Readers being used

Question 16

Where were Christian Academies established?

Answer 16

Everywhere but were prolific in the South

Question 17

Describe the Christian School movement during the Early National Period.

Answer 17

The academies were almost exclusively the secondary schools of America
Many parents did not see a need for educating children beyond the 8th grade
First secondary schools to offer education to girls

Question 18

Finish this quote: “The fight to establish and maintain the public schools has proved to be …”
Who said it?

Answer 18

At least a hundred years war

Beard and Carr

Question 19

Explain the Common Doctrine Policy and explain how the anti-Catholic sentiment was a unifying force among Protestants to support state schools.

Answer 19

The Common Doctrine Policy allowed the schools to teach the doctrines common to all mainstream evangelical churches. The policy placed an emphasis on teaching the Bible to students, but did not allow different groups to teacher doctrines specific to their sect. Although this policy was rejected in Massachusetts, the majority of the nation was Bible believing Christians. As Irish Catholics began to colonize the New World in mass numbers, the Protestant groups joined forces to avoid Catholic control of the schools.

Question 20

Explain how public schools became secularized and how the Catholic Church contributed to this.

Answer 20

In New York, the Catholic families were a minority but still made a big impact. New York’s Bishop Hughes led a group in a petition against the school using the King James Bible and any textbooks that included demeaning words about Catholics. As a result, the Maclay Bill was signed on April 9, 1842. It eliminated the teaching of any Christian doctrine from public schools. The public schools in New York were no longer teaching Evangelical doctrines, which came as a surprise to even the Catholics. The rest of the nation was still using the McGuffey readers at this time.