Table Of ContentThe Founding Fathers, Education, and
“The Great Contest”
Historical Studies in Education
Edited by William J. Reese and John L. Rury
William J. Reese, Carl F. Kaestle WARF Professor of Educational Policy Studies
and History, the University of Wisconsin-Madison
John L. Rury, Professor of Education and (by courtesy) History, the University of
Kansas
This series features new scholarship on the historical development of education,
defined broadly, in the United States and elsewhere. Interdisciplinary in orientation
and comprehensive in scope, it spans methodological boundaries and interpretive
traditions. Imaginative and thoughtful history can contribute to the global conver-
sation about educational change. Inspired history lends itself to continued hope for
reform, and to realizing the potential for progress in all educational experiences.
Published by Palgrave Macmillan:
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By Kathleen Weiler
The Global University: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives
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Catholic Teaching Brothers: Their Life in the English-Speaking World, 1891–1965
By Tom O’Donoghue
Science Education and Citizenship: Fairs, Clubs, and Talent Searches for American Youth,
1918–1958
By Sevan G. Terzian
The Founding Fathers, Education, and “The Great Contest”: The American Philosophical
Society Prize of 1797
Edited by Benjamin Justice
The Founding Fathers, Education, and
“The Great Contest”
The American Philosophical Society Prize of 1797
Edited by
Benjamin Justice
THE FOUNDING FATHERS, EDUCATION, AND “THE GREAT CONTEST”
Copyright © Benjamin Justice, 2013.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013
All rights reserved.
First published in 2013 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
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this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
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Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-44453-3 ISBN 978-1-137-27102-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137271020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Founding Fathers, Education, and “The Great Contest” :
The American Philosophical Society prize of 1797 / edited by
Benjamin Justice.
pages cm.—(Historical studies in education)
Includes index.
ISBN 978–1–137–27101–3 (hardback)
1. Public schools—United States—History—18th century.
2. Education—Awards—United States—History—18th century. 3.
Contests—United States—History—18th century. 4. American
Philosophical Society—Awards—History—18th century.
I. Justice, Benjamin, 1971– editor of compilation.
LA215.F68 2013
370.97309033—dc23 2013004446
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: July 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Foreword by Carl F. Kaestle ix
Acknowledgments xiii
1 Introduction 1
Benjamin Justice
Part I Methods
2 The Mysterious No. 3 23
Lisa Green
3 “Raked from the Rubbish”: Stylometric Authorship
Attribution and the 1795 American Philosophical Society
Education Contest 45
Eric Strome
Part II Meanings
4 False Start: The Failure of an Early “Race to the Top” 69
Campbell Scribner
5 “Encouraging Useful Knowledge” in the Early
Republic: The Roles of State Governments and
Voluntary Organizations 85
Nancy Beadie
6 Race and Schooling in Early Republican Philadelphia 103
Hilary Moss
7 Gender and Citizenship in Educational Plans in the
New Republic 119
Margaret Nash
8 The Significance of the “French School” in Early
National Female Education 135
Kim Tolley
vi CONTENTS
9 The Place of Religion in Early National School Plans 155
Benjamin Justice
10 T he Perceived Dangers of Study Abroad, 1780–1800:
Nationalism, Internationalism, and the Origins of the
American University 175
Adam R. Nelson
Part III Materials: Essays from the American
Philosophical Society Education Contest, 1795–1797
Introduction to the Essays: Reading the Late Eighteenth
Century in the Early Twenty-First 201
Benjamin Justice
Remarks on Education 205
Samuel Harrison Smith
An Essay on the Best System of Liberal Education 219
Samuel Knox
Review of Essay No. 3 233
On Education and Public Schools 239
Hiram
A Plan for the Education of Youth 243
Academicus
Concerning Education in Public Schools 251
Hand
Concerning Education in Pennsylvania 259
Freedom
Notes on Contributors 271
Index 275
Figures and Tables
Figures
3.1 Mendenhall’s curves of composition for select authors 56
8.1 Comparison by decade of subjects appearing in
North Carolina school newspaper advertisements,
1800–1809 and 1830–1840 147
11.1 Cover sheet in the handwriting of Jon Williams 252
11.2 Drawings of a hand signature from “Notes on
Dr. Rush’s lectures,” by John Archer (1796–97) 252
Tables
2.1 Curriculum comparison of central schools in the
Daunou Plan and No. 3 31
3.1 Raw counts and descriptive statistics 53
3.2 Percentages of once- and twice-occurring types 55
3.3 Sample Delta results for 100 MFWs 59
8.1 Expansion of the curriculum in the Female Department,
Raleigh Academy, 1806–1811 145
8.2 Percentage of female venture schools and female
departments in coeducational academies advertising
specific curriculum subjects in North Carolina
newspaper advertisements, 1800–1840 146
Foreword
Carl F. Kaestle
When I began graduate work in the history of education in 1966, the inter-
pretive battles and methodological discussions going on energized me. Some
historians saw education as the whole process by which knowledge was trans-
mitted across generations; other historians saw public education not as an
engine of democracy but as a mainstay of class relations. It was a time of
great debates and new developments.
But I was also fascinated by the narratives, facts, and stories that I was
learning for the first time. I had always been interested in education, but I
was new to the study of its history. What were the nine colonial colleges and
their denominational affiliations? What effects did those affiliations have for
their students? What did our founding leaders say about the role of educa-
tion in a republic? What effects did they have? In the 1840s, who were the
leading school reformers in Indiana, in Ohio, in New York? Did they all say
the same things as Horace Mann of Massachusetts? One job of graduate
students and young scholars is to ascertain whether the interesting questions
about each story have been adequately researched and interpreted.
One episode that we all learned about was the contest sponsored by the
American Philosophical Society (APS). Competitors were asked to propose
a system of education for a republic, specifying its rationale, its organiza-
tion, and its purposes. I still have my copy of Frederick Rudolph’s Essays on
Education in the Early Republic, which appeared just as I entered graduate
school. It includes the two cowinners of the APS contest. Over the years I
have quoted one of them, Samuel Harrison Smith, to illustrate republican
education theory. Smith said, for example, that in a republic “it is not in the
interest of such a society to perpetuate error, as it undoubtedly is the interest
of many societies differently organized.” And again, “Under a republic, duly
constructed, man feels as strong a bias to improvement as under a despotism
he feels an impulse to ignorance and depression.”1
Yet I barely scratched the surface of these essays. When I later wrote
about the early national period, I focused on existing educational practices,
contrasting urban and rural settings. This had its merits but did not deal
adequately with the contending philosophies and ideas about the political
x FOREWORD
economy that influenced educational debates in the early national period.2
The subsequent years did not bring a great deal of research and interpreta-
tion to this interesting episode. Et voila, now we have this gem of a book.
Why is it a “gem”? First, it arose from a research mentoring program at
a professional meeting, a worthy enterprise. Six graduate students met with
two experienced historians to develop an agenda and dig into the materials
at the American Philosophical Society. Research training is of course ubiqui-
tous in academia, so in that sense, this venture was hardly unique. Many of us
recall large research projects that engaged graduate students in researching
and writing of books on the history of education.3 But the circumstances of
this collaboration were interesting. It was begun at a meeting of the History
of Education Society. I applaud this initiative, because I have long believed
that our small subfield has been characterized by productive and supportive
relationships across the generations of scholars, both through the History
of Education Society and Division F of the American Educational Research
Association. So what could be a better idea than to actually do some collab-
orative research when getting together at a meeting?
Second, the setting of that training session was Philadelphia, where the
1795 contest also took place. This volume recreates a vivid sense of the
importance of Philadelphia, and the American Philosophical Society, in the
heady days of the early republic, when that city was not only the national
capital but also the largest city in the country, and the APS was the hub of
intellectual life in the capital.
Third, some great sleuthing went on in this project. I don’t want to give
away secrets, but these researchers actually established—either certainly or
with great probability—the identity of three of the seven authors. The two
winners were identified at the time, and the other two remain unknown.
Two of the chapters of this book describe the methodologies used to make
these identifications. I got excited just reading about these discoveries.
Fourth, this volume is good intellectual history. The “founding fathers”
are too often quoted on education as if there was wide consensus about
the role of education in a republic, which turns them into a sort of Mt.
Rushmore pantheon. The discussions in this book place the APS contest in
the longer context of Enlightenment discussions of education, and they care-
fully address the issues of consensus and diversity of views. On the positive
connection between education and republican government, editor Benjamin
Justice remarks that three important ideological frameworks in the early
republic—Enlightenment, Radical Whig, and Calvinist—agreed on the pos-
itive relationship of widespread education to the creation of virtue and stabil-
ity among citizens. Almost missing in the new United States was the Tory
view, influential in England, which stressed limits on popular education lest
it breed discontent and instability. In the United States those who extended
the Tory view to restrict poor white students were a wistful conservative
minority.4 Despite this vague general consensus about the value of educa-
tion in a republic, the promoters of education in the early American republic
differed on important details: on the education of women, on the role of
