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During this era,
education began to rely more on formal and institutionalized education. Common
schools began in the 1830s in Massachusetts, and really only provided limited educational experience. There were three goals of common schools. They
were to provide free education, create a trained educational profession, and establish state control over local schools (Altenbaugh,
78). In the beginning, these schools acted as an “instrument of segregation”
where only children of Protestant background were allowed to attend. Later, there
were many efforts to achieve the ideal of a “common” school (Altenbaugh, 101). A
legislator, Thaddeus Stevens, said “the common school provided an equal opportunity that would have lasting effect on
the individual and the state” (Altenbaugh, 79). With slow efforts, there
was finally free schooling for most children, including women, which even spread to the secondary level.
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| School House during the Common-School Era found at http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1679 |
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During the
Common-School Era, parents began to allow schools to take educational responsibilities.
This era marked a “shift of educational responsibility from the family to the school” (Altenbaugh, 101). In common schools, children were taught literacy, community values, and religion. It is said that public schooling improved economic, political and social conflict
by producing competent and reliable workers, assimilating immigrants, and training wives and mothers. Contradictory to this, though, public schooling basically limited opportunities and ensured inequality. In reality, the Common-School Era was not so “common” and contradicted
many ideas regarding public schooling.
The Common-School Era saw a change of educational responsibility from the family to the school. This shift has contributed to the creation of public schools today. Public schooling in this time was considered an “imperfect panacea,” where education was the
universal cure-all, but was not perfect (Altenbaugh, 101). As Altenbaugh says,
“Even to this day, the public school concept is supported by an uneasy consensus” (Altenbaugh, 101). Teachers during the Common-School Era taught moral development, and displayed respectful, positive, and
civil behavior.
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