An educational reformer named Horace Mann proposed a solution to these social problems. He recommended that municipalities establish common schools funded by taxpayers` money. He believed that if children from different social, religious and economic backgrounds were raised together, they would learn to accept and respect each other. Co-educational schools teach common values, including self-discipline and tolerance towards others. These shared schools would socialize children, improve interpersonal relationships and improve social conditions. 1881 – Booker T. Washington becomes the first principal of the newly opened main school in Tuskegee, Alabama, now Tuskegee University. 1884 – The first practical fountain pen is patented by Lewis Waterman. 1885 – On October 15, Morris-Brown College opens in Atlanta, Georgia.
It is “the first educational institution in Georgia under the sole auspices of African-Americans.” 1887 – The Hatch Act of 1887 establishes a network of agricultural experimental stations associated with land grant universities established under the first Morrill Act. Historians note that reading and writing were different abilities in colonial times. Schools taught both, but in places without schools, writing was mostly taught to boys and a select few girls. Men were concerned with the affairs of the world and had to read as well as write. It was believed that girls only needed to read (especially religious documents). This educational disparity between reading and writing explains why colonial women often could read but could not write and could not sign their name – they used an “X”. [31] 1873 – The Panic of 1873 causes bank foreclosures, business bankruptcies and job losses. The ensuing economic depression led to a decline in education revenues. Schools in the South are particularly affected, which further aggravates a bad situation.
1873 – The Society to Promote Studies at Home is founded in Boston by Anna Eliot Ticknor, daughter of Harvard professor George Ticknor. Its goal is to give women the opportunity to study and enlighten, becoming the first correspondence school in the United States. 1874 – The Michigan State Supreme Court rules that Kalamazoo can raise taxes to support a public high school, setting an important precedent for similar decisions in other states. 1874 – Phebe Sudlow becomes the first female superintendent of public schools in the United States when she is appointed Davenport. Iowa Superintendent of Schools1875 – The Civil Rights Act is passed, prohibiting segregation in all public housing. 1876 – Edouard Seguin becomes the first president of the Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiotic and Feebleminded Persons, which becomes the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. 1876: Meharry Medical College is founded in Nashville, Tennessee. It is the first medical school in the South for African Americans.1876 – The Dewey decimal system, developed by Melvil Dewey in 1873, is published and patented. The SDC remains the most widely used library classification system in the world. 1877 – Reconstruction officially ends when President Rutherford B. Hayes withdraws the last federal troops from the South.
The foundations for a system of legal segregation and discrimination were quickly laid. Many African Americans are fleeing the South. 1879 – The first residential school opens in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It becomes the model for a total of 26 similar schools, all with the aim of assimilating Indian children into the dominant culture. Schools leave behind a controversial legacy. While some consider it a noble, though largely unsuccessful, experiment, many see its legacy as one of alienation and “cultural dislocation.” The Carlisle Indian Industrial School closed in 1918. Famous athlete Jim Thorpe is one of thousands of graduates of the school. Wirt implemented an elaborate night school program to Americanize new immigrants in particular. The introduction of vocational training programmes such as the wood shop, machine shop, writing and secretarial work proved particularly popular with parents who wanted their children to become foremen and office workers. During the Great Depression, most cities found the Gary Plan too expensive and abandoned it. [127] The “Gary Plan” was implemented in the new industrial “steel town” of Gary, Indiana, by William Wirt, the superintendent who served from 1907 to 1930.
Although the U.S. Steel Corporation dominated Gary`s economy and paid heavy taxes, it did not shape Wirt`s educational reforms. The Gary Plan emphasized the highly efficient use of buildings and other facilities. This model has been adopted by more than 200 cities across the country, including New York. Wirt divided the students into two trains – one train used the academic classrooms, while the second train was divided between shops, nature studies, auditorium, gymnasium, and outdoor facilities. Then the trains turned. The first special educational programs were crime prevention programs for “at-risk” children living in urban slums. The city`s school districts have designed manual training to complement their general education programs. By 1890, hundreds of thousands of children learned carpentry, metalworking, sewing, cooking and drawing in manual classes. In these classes, children also learned about social values. Early special education programs also focused on the “moral education” of African-American children.
The history of education in the United States encompasses trends in formal and informal learning in America from the 17th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Most states fail because of educational commitments for students with special needs: So what else is new? USA Today (August 8, 2020) 1734 – Christian Wolff describes the human mind as composed of powers or abilities. This doctrine, called faculty psychology, asserts that the mind is best developed through “mental discipline,” or long exercises and repetitions of basic skills, and then the study of abstract subjects such as classical philosophy, literature, and languages.