COMPULSORY SCHOOLING AND THE CIVIL WAR

But we’ve had a society essential under central control in the United States since just after the Civil War, and such a society requires compulsory schooling-government monopoly schooling-to maintain itself.”
-John Taylor Gatto

IDEA:
Instances of widespread political disorder, such as citizen revolts and civil wars, threaten political elite’s power, and are a a key factor that prompt elites to turn to compulsory schooling as a means to contain future political instability by using these institutions as a tool to instill values of order, submission, obedience, and fixed habits of reaction to authority that will prevent future rebellions from occurring against the State. In the short-term, schools help contain students and prevent their participation in rebellions in the streets; and in the long term, schools serve as a tool to prevent future adults from developing a desire to rebel against authority.

EXPLANATION:
The concept of political elites responding to civil wars and other forms of resistance with State-controlled public school systems that prevent such resistance to authority from repeating itself-by cultivating a population of weak, docile sheep-has been put into practice for centuries.

Prussia
Let’s take a look at Prussia, for example. Before the outbreak of the 7 Years War, King Frederick II had plans to institutionalize a state-run compulsory school system. However, the outbreak of war forced him to postpone his plans until after. The economy and way of life was changing rapidly in Prussia in the 1740s and 1750s. In response to inflation leading to higher cost of goods, wealthy landowners increased the number of days their peasants were required to work. Filled with rage at their exploitation, the peasants revolted against their masters. It was a bitter battle, and it ended with King Frederick II passing an ordinance that reduced the number of days peasants were required to work to appease the situation. With the authority of the landowners over the peasants having diminished significantly, the need for a new authority to replace the former arose. This “need” was executed through the establishment of a state run compulsory school system. About which King Frederick II believed, “we do not confer upon the individual or upon society any benefit when we educate him beyond the bound of his social class and vocation.” Attendance in State-run compulsory schools after the war skyrocketed, and soon Prussia would become the model of efficiency and implementation for other countries to follow, including the United States of America.

Argentina
After the prolonged series of civil wars that lasted between 1814-1880, the Federation of Buenos Aires was established and Julio Roca was elected as president. Roca led the formation of a centralized state bureaucracy and appointed Domingo F. Sarmiento as the Superintendent General of Schools. Domingo was tasked with drafting a bill that mandated primary education for children ages 6-14 and teachers to be trained in State-mandated Normal Schools. This bill became known as Law 1420. Following the war, accelerated attendance in schools immediately followed.

Chile
In January of 1859, military leaders in Atacama rebelled against the central government in Santiago. They questioned authoritarianism, opposed Church and State intromission, and demanded lower export taxes on copper and silver. After four gruesome months, the Chilean government defeated the revolting citizens. In 1860, following the end of the war, Congress passed the first national law regarding the government’s involvement in education, The General Law of Primary Education, which established the central government as the primary controller of schools in Chile. By 1863, there was a rapid increase in the number of schools and students enrolled in them. The timing of the 1860 law is suggestive that the 1859 Civil War prompted Congressional members to work together in unison toward the formation of a national compulsory schooling system that would help prevent future rebellions against authority. Interestingly, the central government’s efforts to expand compulsory schooling were far greater in provinces where the rebels had been most difficult to defeat and posed the greatest challenge to the State.

The United States of America
Let’s take a look at our beloved America. Could it be possible that The American Civil War (1861-1865) was much more than a battle of differences between the North and South; and that it, too, served the greater purpose of establishing more government control through the implementation of State-mandated compulsory schools?

In his 1916 publication of Public School Administration, Ellwood P. Cubberley, the Dean of the Stanford School of Education, wrote “The battle for the establishment of tax-supported public schools was a bitter one, but after about 1850 it had been won in every Northern state...In the Southern states, with two or three exceptions, little was accomplished until after the Civil War and the period of reconstruction were over.”

Just how bitter was this battle against state-mandated public schools? According to John Taylor Gatto in his 1992 book Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, forced government schooling was “resisted sometimes with guns-by an estimated 80% of the Massachusetts population, the last outpost in Barnstable on Cape Cod not surrendering its children until the 1880s, when the area was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard.”

In his 1976 book The Goddess, the School Book, and Compulsion, Charles Burgess suggested that “Following the Civil War, a dramatically different concept of Union gained popularity, primarily among intellectuals. . . the imperatives of the Union required the Americanization of all citizens.” A trend toward national compulsion began: the enactment of compulsory voting laws, national rules on marriage and divorce, and the rise of state-mandated compulsory schools.

In discussing forced government schooling further, Cubberley notes, “This movement was well underway by 1850, but was checked for nearly three decades by the discussion preceding the Civil War, the war itself, and the period of reconstruction following the war. After about 1875 or 1880 the movement toward a greater unification and control of the different local school systems went forward rapidly, and since 1900 the progress of the movement has been very marked. The process has been one of the transference of powers from small communities to larger school units in the interests of greater efficiency in school administration. The school district has been forced to surrender powers to the township, the township in turn to the county, and the county in turn to the State.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Gatto, John Taylor. Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 1992.

Burgess, Charles. The Goddess, the School Book, and Compulsion. Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 46, No. 2, May 1976.

Cubberly, Ellwood Patterson. Public School Administration. Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916.

Les, The Origins of Compulsory Schooling in America. BibleBridge. November 21, 2014.

Paglayan, Augustina S. Civil War, State Consolidation, and the Spread of Mass Education. Stanford, CA: Stanford University : August 21, 2017.