When these colonies combined to throw off the financial and governmental control of England, it was only with the loosest sort of central organisation; and it took a decade of grievous failure after the Revolutionary War to convince the states of the need of greater transfer of power to the central government. With the adoption of the constitution, which came only after a bitter fight, many of the states believing that too much power had been ceded, relatively few powers were entrusted to the national government. The exact relation of the states to this government, and of the local units within the state to the state itself, has long been a matter of controversy. Virginia and Kentucky early threatened to declare void a national law within their boundaries. New England threatened to secede from the Union in 1815. South Carolina was dissuaded from nullifying the tariff of 1828 only by the strongest sort of pressure; while the great Civil War was fought out on this question. In general, the government assumes power over inter-state affairs, while the state has power over affairs within its boundaries. The southern states believe more strongly in the sovereignty of the local unit. In Tennessee to-day certain sections will refuse to obey a state law, and little is done to compel them.

The tendency of the past century has been away from the supreme sovereignty of the local unit to that of the state, and from that of the state to that of the nation. It is only by a realisation of this condition in the early history of the United States that one can account for the failure of the nation to provide for education as a unit, and for the failure of the states in many instances to control education within their boundaries.

This has had both a good and bad effect on education. It has allowed poor districts to remain poor, ignorant districts to remain ignorant. It has prevented American boys and girls from having equal opportunities. But it has allowed people to do as they please in educational work, it has permitted progressive communities with wise leadership to make great progress, and it has provided a multitude of good and bad schools that thinking American schoolmen to-day may imitate or avoid. It has enabled American education better to keep pace with change.

Diversity due to a Change in the Theory of the State.-Early colonists brought with them the prevailing European notion that governmental power and the direction of affairs was the just prerogative of the upper classes; and that the efficient government was the one with an inert, unthinking mass of people guided by an

alert, educated, benevolent autocracy. This is well shown by the early limitations put upon the suffrage. In the seventeenth century hardly one adult male in four had the suffrage in Massachusetts. By 1790, when the states were setting up their constitutions, probably not one adult male in five had the right to vote. In North Carolina, for instance, to vote for a representative in the national government a man had to be a tax payer; to sit as a representative he was compelled to own 100 acres of land; to vote. for a senator he must own 50 acres of land; to sit as a senator, 300 acres must be owned. A governor had to own £1000 in real property, thus restricting this office to wealthy land owners. Vermont alone, not yet admitted to the Union, granted full suffrage to all adult males.1 To-day the suffrage is widely extended. Women vote on all matters in many of the states, on school matters in many others.

The tendency of the past century has been toward the conception of a true democracy, where all men if not born equal shall at least have equal opportunities and where the salvation of the government rests upon the notion that all men shall vote, that all men shall have a right to an education, that the leaders shall be the ablest regardless of birth or wealth, and that all people shall meet the situations of life, not because certain action is compelled from above, but on the plane of reason. This change in the theory of the state, shown so clearly by the extension of suffrage, can be illustrated in countless ways. It is a slow change. It is still taking place. The aristocratic conceptions of education in certain sections can only be understood with this in mind, while the gradual growth of equality of opportunity in education is but one of the manifestations of this change.

As we study education in the United States, therefore, we see the intermingling and interaction of these three changes. We see varied starts given to varied educational ideas by varied peoples; we see progress in some sections, backwardness in others; we see aristocratic sections like the south withholding popular education; we see democratic sections like the west and the manufacturing centres fostering it in every way. We see diversity fostered by differing peoples, by local units jealous of the state, by the states jealous of the national government. But through it all we see slowly evolving centralised education of a unified people for life in a democracy.

1 West, American History and Government, p. 232.

II. DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION

It is to England in a large measure that America owes its educational traditions. At the time of early emigration to this country, two distinct types of education had there been developed, that of the classes at the great "public schools" and universities at private expense and that of the masses through the series of Acts, culminating in 1601, known as the Poor Laws. It had already been determined that all youths not of independent means should be apprenticed, that the master be compelled to educate his apprentices, that the overseers of the poor be compelled to provide the means and material for such education, that funds for this purpose could be raised by assessment against persons of means through the Compulsory Rate Bill, and that if this burden were excessive in one section it could be equalised by distributing the tax over a wider area.

The colonists in Virginia brought this conception with them, and remaining more like the mother country than the other American colonies, more nearly transplanted this system intact. Thus early education in Virginia dealt with two classes, the education of the privileged being provided for by the founding of William and Mary College and education of the poor by the provision for apprenticeship coupled with a meagre sort of schooling. In general, Virginia was indifferent to popular education, and exceptions to this were due to the initiative of small localities rather than to the interest in education of the colony as a whole. Education was a matter for the settlement of the individual, not the state. And in all the other colonies where small localities were English in thought and Church of England in faith such educâtion prevailed.

The decided difference shown in the development of education in Massachusetts was due not so much to a difference in educational tradition as to the extreme form of the Protestant faith which dominated their religious life. In Virginia the church demanded trained leaders, hence William and Mary College. In Massachusetts Calvinism demanded trained leaders, hence Harvard College (1638). But Massachusetts stepped forward in the education of the masses. By 1642 all of the English apprenticeship laws, except the one providing that apprenticeship fees be taken from the common fund, were transplanted to Massachusetts. In addition they provided that each child should be able to "read and under

stand the principles of religion and the capital laws" of thecountry. Calvinism demanded that each person should be able to read the Bible. Salvation depended upon that. Thus where a colony was largely composed of Calvinists education for all became general and consequently more and more a matter of state duty. In Massachusetts, step by step, education in reading and writing at least was provided for all at public expense; and while the local "towns" had to take the initiative, general authority was used to bring backward or apathetic communities into line.

Wherever Calvinism was dominant, whether among the English in New England, the Dutch in New York, the Scotch-Irish in almost all the colonies, the Quakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, or other sects in many other colonies, education for all the people was demanded. If all the people of a colony were of one denomination within Calvinism education became more nearly a public matter. If not, it was rather a matter of church business, the local unit playing the leading part. Nor was the education of leaders neglected, grammar schools, academies, and colleges being founded and supported that there might be no lack of educated ministers of the gospel.

Maryland proposed, but did not accomplish, the highest type of early education-a general system of education free for all throughout the colony and supported by general colonial taxation.

"The following principles not previously explicit in English practice were embodied in actual systems prior to the Revolution (1775): (1) the right of a state to require the education of all its citizens (Massachusetts, 1642); (2) the right of a state to compel local civil divisions to establish schools (Massachusetts, 1647); the right of a local civil division to support schools of general education by a tax levy on all rateable persons (Massachusetts practice, practically universal prior to 1750); and (4) the right of a state to appropriate state funds to a general system of schools (Maryland, 1694).” 1

Varying types of education were therefore developed in the American colonies prior to the Revolution. Where the Church of England held sway we find education provided for the leaders, with but little provision for the poor. Where Calvinism was the leading faith we find education for leaders and education for the poor. Where a colony was predominantly of one sect, as in Massachusetts, we find more educational power transferred to the general government, but where the colony was 1 Monroe, Cyclopedia of Education, ii. p. 118.

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composed of many differing groups, as was the general case, we find the local unit-the parish, the district, the town, the countythe authority in educational matters. Education varied, therefore, as the people in scattered isolated districts varied; and as settlers moved from these districts into the west they carried these ideas with them.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century education was at a low ebb in the United States. Colleges, grammar schools, and academies had been developed for the training of leaders. Sporadic attempts had been made to effect state school systems, such as Jefferson's plan for universal education in Virginia. But no approach to such a plan had been worked out. Education varied as to the locality involved. The local unit was supreme. The federal constitution made no mention of education, leaving that matter to the state. During the period 1776-1800 all of the states, except Connecticut and Rhode Island, adopted new constitutions, while Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee were admitted as new states in the same period. Of the sixteen states admitted before 1800, half made no reference to education in their constitutions, while the others were not particularly definite about it. In short, the national government passed educational power on; while the state, afraid of the local unit, further transferred the power. This allowed the local unit to do practically as it pleased.

The fear of providing for education in the states already formed did not deter the national government from providing for education in the rapidly filling territory in the north-west, the common property of all. Hence in the "Ordinance of 1787" one thirtysixth of the land was set aside for school purposes, which fostered education in the states of Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, which were shortly organised from that section of country.

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century little progress was made. Where the prosperous and aristocratic were in control, educational opportunities were provided for the rich at private expense, philanthropic efforts made some provision for paupers, while the great mass received but little attention. The Committee on Education of the Massachusetts legislature in 1825 found pitiable conditions. No town claimed less than eleven hours of steady work for young persons (6-17 years of age). "Seekunk reported that its child operatives work twelve hours; 'Some may get eight weeks Schoolg.' . . . Bellingham reports . . . ' Work twelve hours per day. No oppy for school except by employg substitutes.'... Boston said concisely, 'No Schoolg.' . . . Fall