The National Press Attack On Academic Schooling

In May of 1911, the first salvo of a sustained national press attack on the academic ambitions of public schooling was fired. For the previous ten years the idea of school as an oasis of mental development built around a common, high-level curriculum had been steadily undermined by the rise of educational psychology and its empty-child/elastic-child hypotheses. Psychology was a business from the first, an aggressive business lobbying for jobs and school contracts. But resistance of parents, community groups, and students themselves to the new psychologized schooling was formidable.

As the summer of 1911 approached, the influential Educational Review gave educators something grim to muse upon as they prepared to clean out their desks: "Must definite reforms with measurable results give way"[p.36], it asked, "that an antiquated school system may grind out its useless product ?"[p.36] The magazine demanded quantifiable proof of school’s contributions to society—or education should have its budget cut. The article, titled An Economic Measure of School Efficiency, charged that "The advocate of pure water or clean streets shows how much the death rate will be altered by each proposed addition to his share of the budget. The favorable or unfavorable results of each past measure are clearly presented and a definite warning given to officials of the cost of neglect. Only the teacher is without such figures."[p.36] An editorial in Ladies Home Journal reported that dissatisfaction with schools was increasing, claiming "On every hand the signs are evident of a widely growing distrust of the effectiveness of the present educational system in this country."[p.1] In Providence, the school board was criticized by the local press for declaring a holiday on the Monday preceding Decoration Day to allow a four-day vacation. "This cost the public $5,000 in loss of possible returns on the money invested," readers were informed.¹

Suddenly school critics were everywhere. A major assault was mounted in two popular journals, Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal, with millions each in circulation, both read by leaders of the middle classes. The Post sounded the anti-intellectual theme this way:

Miltonized, Chaucerized, Vergilized, Schillered, physicked and chemicaled the high school [...] should be of no use in the world—particularly in the business world[p.66 →]

Three heavy punches in succession came from Ladies Home Journal: "The Case of Seventeen Million Children — Is Our Public-School System Proving an Utter Failure?"[p.66] This declaration would seem difficult to top, but the second article did just that: "Is the Public School a Failure? It Is: The Most Momentous Failure in Our American Life Today."[p.66] And a third, written by the principal of a New York City high school, went even further. Entitled "The Danger of Running a Fool Factory"[p.67], it made this point: that education is "permeated with errors and hypocrisy."[p.67], while the Dean of Columbia Teachers College, James E. Russell added that "If school cannot be made to drop its mental development obsession the whole system should be abolished."²