Tag Archives: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Father of Progressive Education Movement

28 Jan

By Thomas Ultican 1/28/2024

John Dewey called Colonel Francis Wayland Parker, “more than any other person… the father of the progressive education movement.” True, his 1902 passing predated the movement’s heyday by two decades but he was the root, a Civil War veteran and educator, passionate in his quest for better education.

Born (1837) in Bedford, New Hampshire, Colonel Parker was a product of public school. He began his career as a village teacher at 16 and eventually took charge of all grammar schools in his hometown, Piscataquis. Then at 21, he became the principal of a school in Carrolton, Illinois.

During the Civil War, he joined the Union Army as a private in 1861, was elected 1st Lieutenant and later made company commander with the rank of Captain. After being wounded at the Battle of Deep Bottom, Virginia in 1864 and the attack on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, he became commander of the 4th New Hampshire and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. From then on, he was referred to as Colonel Parker. He was captured, held prisoner in North Carolina in May 1865 and fortunately, the war ended.

After mustering out of the army, Colonel Parker resumed teaching and became head of the normal school in Dayton, Ohio. When an aunt died and bequeathed him $5,000, he traveled to Germany for pedagogy studies.

Progressive Education        

Pedagogy practiced in nineteenth century was teacher-centered with extreme discipline. Students were given texts to memorize and lots of drill.

In 1872, Colonel Parker enrolled at Humboldt University of Berlin. He examined new methods of pedagogy developed by European theorists, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Froebel, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and particularly Johann Friedrich Herbart.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) considered his book, Emile or On Education, to be his greatest work, regarded by some as the first philosophy of education in Western culture with a serious claim to completeness. After the French Revolution, Emile served as the inspiration for what became France’s new national system of education. In the book, Rousseau played tutor to Emile and eventually, Sophie. It was here where his philosophy of education came to light. He gives advice like, “Always speak correctly before them, arrange that they enjoy themselves with no one as much as with you, and be sure that … their language will be purified on the model of yours without your ever having chided them.” (Emile Page 71)

Of course, no matter how advanced an 18th century man may be, his ideas can always use some perfecting. In discussing how women should be educated, Rousseau wrote:

“The first education of men depends on the care of women. Men’s morals, their tastes, their pleasures, their very happiness also depend on women. Thus the whole education of women ought to relate to men. To please men, to be useful to them, to make herself loved and honored by them, to raise them when young, to care for them when grown, to counsel them, to console them, to make their lives agreeable and sweet – these are the duties of women at all times, and they ought to be from childhood.” (Emile Page 365)

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi fell in with radical philosophers who supported Rousseau in the mid-18th century. After Emile and Social Contract were published, Rousseau was condemned as a danger to Christianity and state. Pestalozzi’s group wanted freedom and at 19, he wrote many articles, got arrested, charged with helping a newspaper editor escape but was released after three days.

He decided to become an educator, especially of the poor. The Swiss Government put him in charge of an orphanage in Stanz. Here he realized the significance of a universal method of education and spent the rest of his life perfecting one.

German philosopher and educator, Johann Friedrich Herbart, spent a year studying with Pestalozzi. Herbart suggested Pestalozzi read the French book, The Application of Psychology to the Science of Education. Pestalozzi’s French was not great but what he comprehended threw “a flood of light upon my whole endeavor.” (Green, The Educational Ideas of Pestalozzi 48)

In 1805, King Christian the VII of Denmark gifted Pestalozzi a sum of money while he was starting a school at Yverdon. With this, Pestalozzi was able to spend several months writing Views and Experiences relating to the idea of Elementary Education.

Pestalozzi’s method was used by the cantonal school in Aarau that Albert Einstein attended. Einstein said of Aarau, “It made me clearly realize how much superior an education based on free action and personal responsibility is to one relying on outward authority.” (Isaacson, Einstein His Life and Universe 65)

Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (1782 – 1852) was the student of Johann Pestalozzi who laid a foundation for modern education, based on recognizing children’s unique needs and capabilities. He created the concept and coined the word kindergarten, which soon entered the English language.

Froebel’s insight recognized the importance of activity for a child’s learning, that games were integral to it and had educational worth. In his book, The Education of Man, he wrote, “A universal and comprehensive plan of human education must, therefore, necessarily consider at an early period singing, drawing, painting, and modeling; it will not leave them to an arbitrary, frivolous whimsicalness but treat them as serious objects for the school.” (Page 228)

Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776 – 1841) was a German philosopher, psychologist and founder of pedagogy as an academic discipline. Homeschooled by his mother until age 12, he studied at the Gymnasium for six years, particularly drawn to philosophy, logic and Kant’s work involving the nature of knowledge.

Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy says:

“Johann Friedrich Herbart … is known today mainly as a founding figure of modern psychology and educational theory. But these were only parts of a much grander philosophical project, and it was as a philosopher of the first rank that his contemporaries saw him. … In psychology and pedagogy, however, his influence was greater and longer lasting. While no one took over his philosophy or psychology (and especially the impenetrable mathematics) as a whole, certain aspects of his thought proved immensely fruitful. Indeed, without Herbart, the landscape of modern psychology and philosophy would be unrecognizable.”

For the educator, his 1841 book, Outlines of Educational Doctrine, is particularly important and was of great interest to Colonel Parker. In it, Herbart sometimes made concise statements, such as, “A method of study that issues in mere reproduction leaves children largely in a passive state, for it crowds out for the time being the thoughts they would have otherwise had.” (Page 61)In other places, he went into great detail about concepts like preparation, presentation, association, systemization and application.  

Returning to America

After Colonel Parker returned to the United States, he noted:

“There was a great deal better way of teaching than anything I had done. Of course I had a great deal of enthusiasm and a great desire to work out the plan and see what I could do.”

He almost immediately secured a position as superintendent of schools in Quincy, Massachusetts. Colonel Parker’s innovations, labeled the “Quincy Plan,” gave him a national reputation.

“Quincy Plan” was an experimental program, abandoning prescribed curricula of rote memorization and harsh discipline, replaced with meaningful learning and active understanding. However it had many detractors. In 1879, Quincy students participated in state examinations of traditional subjects. Test results revealed they surpassed all the other students in Massachusetts.

Parker surprisingly responded, “If you ask me to name the best of all in results, I should say, the more human treatment of little folks.”

The following three years, Colonel Parker served as superintendent of Boston public schools. Because of constant opposition to his methods, he left Massachusetts in 1883 to become principal of Cook County Normal School in Chicago, an institute dedicated to training elementary school teachers. Chicago brought strong support from many local luminaries such as Jane Addams, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, and Anita McCormack Blaine.

In 1899, to free Parker from the continual harassment by politicians and the school board, Anita McCormack Blaine endowed a private school for him and his faculty. The new Chicago Institute was planned, developed and classes started. It was soon proposed that the Chicago Institute join with the Department of Education to form the School of Education at the University of Chicago. This plan became official on July 1, 1901 with Colonel Parker as director for the School of Education and John Dewey remaining Head Professor in the Graduate School of Arts, Literature and Science. In March 1902, Parker died and John Dewey was appointed his successor in the School of Education.

Anita McCormack Blaine also convinced Colonel Parker to establish the Francis W. Parker School, a private school, in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. This school, established in 1899, was to operate according to Parker’s education principles. A second Francis W. Parker School was founded in San Diego in 1912 with a city population of only 39,000.

Both private schools are still operating and very successful today.

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Why I Support Public Education

29 Mar

By Thomas Ultican 3/29/2021

The original cause for my supporting public education was that my rancher father married a school teacher. Growing up in southern Idaho, I learned many philosophical and theoretical reasons for supporting the establishment and maintenance of public schools from my mother. However, it was from watching mom and her dedicated colleagues in action that I learned to truly respect and appreciate public school.

I remember stories of my father being warned that he better not treat that woman wrong. For several years in a row she won the Elmore County sharp shooting contest. She didn’t like to chop a chicken’s head off so she would pull out her rifle and shoot it off.

Mom had some old school attitudes but maintained a mind of her own. There was a period in which she had to come home at lunch time and milk the cow. One Friday, after having to chase the cow across King Hill creek again, she had had enough; didn’t discuss it just loaded that cow into a trailer and took it to market.

In my home, there was no doubt about the value of education and also an abiding belief that the American public education system was unparalleled. My father was a high school basketball referee and an ardent supporter of music study.

As was common in the community, school events were family events. Helping the local school was one of the main missions of our civic organizations whether it was building viewing stands at the football field or sewing costumes for school plays.

My grandfather was an immigrant from Scotland who came to America on the Lusitania. Three years after his arrival that ship was sunk by a German U-boat killing 1,800 passengers and further pushing America into engaging with World War I.

It was through family in Scotland that my mother became familiar with the British Education system. She learned of its high stakes testing which was deciding a child’s education path; if that education would continue and whether it would be academic or vocational. To her, the great advantage for America’s schools was they did not have these kinds of tests determining a child’s future. American students were not immersed in testing hell.

Instead of being sorted out by testing, American students had multiple opportunities to reenter the education system in whatever capacity they desired. Immature 11-year olds, did not have their futures decided by dubious testing results.

Still today, Idaho has a greater than 90% white population making it one of the whitest places in the world. It used to be even whiter.

I did not meet a Black person until I was a 17 years-old high school student. That year the University of Idaho Vandaleers gave a concert at my high school. A local rancher’s wife threw an after party for the choir and that is where I met Ray McDonald. Not only was he a talented singer, he was also one of the top running backs in America who would soon be drafted in the second round by the Washington DC professional football team. All I really remember is I was star struck and he was a friendly guy who played piano.

Although there was very little racial diversity in the community there was significant religious diversity. We had Mormons, Mennonites, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Assembly of God and other denominations attending our schools.

In a 2001 interview conducted at the Gathering, Richard DeVos lamented that it was awful that public schools had replaced churches as the center of communities. He did not identify whose church was going to be accepted as the community center.

The unifying factor in Glenn’s Ferry, Idaho was the public schools. Children from rich families and poor families grew up together in those schools. At school functions, parents from the disparate religious sects came together and formed common bonds. Political decisions concerning community governance were developed through these school based relationships.

Public schools became the foundation for democratic governance in the region plus it was literally where people voted. To me, it is unfeasible that a healthy American democracy does not include a healthy public school system.

America’s Founding Fathers Believed in Public Education

The second and third presidents of the United States advocated powerfully for public education. Thomas Jefferson saw education as the cause for developing out of common farmers the enlightened citizenry who would take the rational action a successful republican democracy requires. Jefferson contended,

“The qualifications for self government are not innate. They are the result of habit and long training.”

When Jefferson who was a former ambassador to France was queried about the French Revolution, he responded, “It has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty and vice, could not be restrained to rational action.” He called for the establishment of universal free public education claiming it as a requisite for the survival of a democratic republic.

Jefferson and his peer John Adams were integral to the founding of the United States. Jefferson is credited as the main author of the Declaration of Independence. Our system of government with its bi-cameral legislative branch, judicial branch and executive branch came about in great measure because of John Adams’ advocacy.

Like Jefferson, Adams also saw public education as crucial for the survival of our fledgling democracy. In a 1775 essay, he wrote:

“reformation must begin with the Body of the People which can be done only, to affect, in their Educations. the Whole People must take upon themselvs the Education of the Whole People and must be willing to bear the expences of it. there should not be a district of one Mile Square without a school in it, not founded by a Charitable individual but maintained at the expence of the People themselves”

Shortly before the American Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had published the controversial novel Emile, or On Education. He was widely condemned by the ruling elite for the religious views expressed in the book. However, the main portion of the book was about education. Rousseau’s character in the book was a tutor for children of the wealthy. That was the nature of education in the 18th century. Only children of the wealthy had the wherewithal to be educated by private tutors or in one of the few private schools.

Jefferson and Adams were calling for egalitarian progress giving common people the tools required to be self-governing. They were calling for a public school system.

Between 1820 and 1860, the Massachusetts education advocate Horace Mann – more than any other American political leader – was responsible for the nationwide spread of public schools. With the challenges of industrialization, immigration and urbanization, public schools became the tool of social integration. Horace Mann became the spokes-person for schools being that instrument.

It was Mann’s point of view that children in the common school were to receive a common moral education based on the general principles of the Bible and on common virtues. The moral values to be taught in public school were Protestant values and the political values were those of republican democracy.

Integrating the Protestant religious view into the common schools caused a split in communities. The burgeoning Catholic immigrant population did not want their children indoctrinated with an anti-Catholic ideology. Following the civil war, these influences irrupted into the “Bible Wars.” Author Katherine Stewart shared that it was in this atmosphere that “President Ulysses S. Grant declared that if a new civil war were to erupt, it would be fought not across the Mason-Dixon Line but at the door of the common schoolhouse.”

Stewart also noted an insightful admonition from Grant:

“Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards I believe the battles which created the Army of Tennessee will not have been fought in vain.”

Early in the 20th century, public schools had been established serving every community from coast to coast. The results from this vast American public education experiment shine like a lighthouse beacon on the path of Democracy and social happiness. A nation that entered the century as a 2nd rate power ended the century as the undisputed world leader in literacy, economy, military power, industrial might, cultural influence and more.

Today, unbelievably, more and more forces are agitating to undo public education and even American Democracy itself.

As the 21st century dawned, the American public education system was facing a billionaire financed attack. Instead of financially enhancing public schools, libertarians called them “failures” and too expensive. They called public schools “monopolies” shutting out private business that would surely outperform “government schools.”

Hopefully the aphorism attributed Lincoln is true: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

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