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Public

ninth annual report, "that a foreign people,

retary of the newly formed Massachusetts

born and bred and dwarfed under the despo-

Board of Education. Over his 12-year tenure in

schooling

tisms of the Old World, cannot be transformed

that position, Mann would become a powerful

typically sprouted

into the full stature of American citizens, mere-

political force thanks to his zealous advocacy

up organically,

ly by a voyage across the Atlantic, or by sub-

for government­controlled schooling.

scribing the oath of naturalization. . . . As the fit-

While Mann offered numerous rationales

with homoge-

ting apprenticeship for despotism consists in

for creating a state system of "common

neous groups

being trained in despotism, so the fitting

schools," ranging from the promotion of bet-

apprenticeship for self-government is being

ter hygiene to keeping people out of prison,

voluntarily

trained in self-government."28 The latter, Mann

his most celebrated argument was that com-

establishing

mon schools would unify the state's citizens

asserted, should be the job of the common

schools for

and equip them to execute their civic duties.

schools--essentially, state schooling should

As he declared in his 12th and final annual

teach freedom.

their local

report, it was almost beyond dispute that

Despite Mann's confidence in common

communities.

"general intelligence" was necessary for a

schools' ability to prepare all Americans to be

republic to succeed, and that "the spread of

upstanding citizens, the common schools

education, by enlarging the cultivated class

likely had at best tangential influence over

or caste, will open a wider area over which the

American unity in the 19th century, and there

social feelings will expand; and, if the educa-

is no evidence that they made children better

tion should be universal and complete, it

citizens then they otherwise would have been.

would do more than all things else to obliter-

For one thing, even after Massachusetts made

ate factitious distinctions in society."26

education compulsory in 1852, it did not

become compulsory in most states until 1890,

Mann's promises for public schooling did

and even where such laws existed, enforce-

not, however, stop at unity. Indeed, he touted

ment was almost always lax.29 Common

its potential to do little less than perfect the

moral fabric of all whom it touched. "Without

schooling, in other words, was typically used

money and without price," he declared, a free

only if people already wanted what it had to

school system "throws open its doors, and

offer. Next, one of the major reasons that com-

spreads the table of its bounty, for all the chil-

mon schooling was initially able to grow was

dren of the state. Like the sun, it shines, not

that most Americans were already educating

only upon the good, but upon the evil, that

their children. As a result, common schooling

they may become good; and, like the rain, its

was at first able to assert itself with little

unrest.30 Finally, public schooling typically

blessings descend, not only upon the just, but

upon the unjust, that their injustice may

sprouted up organically, with homogeneous

depart from them and be known no more."27

groups voluntarily establishing schools for

their local communities, meaning that unity

As a result of Mann's influence and the work

generally preceded common schooling. In this

of like-minded reformers, common school sys-

way, early common schools differed little from

tems became more prevalent and education

what de Tocqueville identified as a foundation

increasingly centralized as the 19th century

of American society: voluntary associations,

progressed. The famine-induced arrival of huge

rather than systems imposed from above.31

waves of Irish Catholic immigrants in the 1840s

stoked a sense of urgency among the reformers,

This is not to say that even during the rela-

especially in northern states like Massachusetts.

tively tranquil opening decades of common

At the time, Mann himself hinted at a growing

schooling the system did not have divisive

discomfort caused by burgeoning immigration

effects. Even in small, homogeneous commu-

and asserted that the common schools were

nities, there were periodic disputes over the

necessary to shape poor immigrants into good

schools. Historian David Tyack, for instance,

Americans. "Every body acknowledges the just-

relates an incident in 19th-century Iowa, in

ness of the declaration," Mann stated in his

which "dissident farmers secretly moved a

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