The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-06-05
A Hundred Years of Public Schools
Thomas Jefrsons
the Whole People, Has Been Realized North South

Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Ad-
ans: You and will rejoice in heaven
over the coming of the glorious. day Of
the education of the whole people.
New York city is beginning to pre-
pare for the celebration of the CEN
tenary of its public schools several
months hence, and this is a profitable
occasion to review the enormous prog
ress made in public education in Amer
lea during the past century or more.
Thomas Jefferson was far ahead of
his age in his educational schemes
and dreams. He elaborated a compre-
hensive plan in 1879 for the education
of the children and the youth of the
country, but he lived to see only very
small part of it carried out. Especially
was he ahead of his own aristocratic
state of Virginia.
Away back in Colonial days the
British Commissioners of Foreign
Plantations" wrote to the governors of
the several American colonies to ask
what they were doing in the matter of
public education.
Il thank God there are no free
schools or printing presses" replied the
Governor of Virginia, and l hope we
shall not have any these hundred
years.
the colony is laid out in maintaining
free schools for the education of our
children" said the Governor of Con-
necticut.
BEFORE the Revolution.
Before the War of the Revolution
the wealthy planters in the Southern
colonies usually sent stheir sons
home" to be educated in English
schools and universities. If this was
not done, some English clergymen
who had left his country for his coun-
try's good, a person of the type who
taught the Warrington boys in THE
Virginians," was engaged as a tutor
In what used to be known as the
middle Colonies" commercialsrn
held sway and bred men of affairs
who recognized that the creation of
an educated people was necessary to
the success of their business ventures
In this way the foundations of a sys-
tenn of public instruction were laid.
But It was in New England that
education was most general from the
earliest Colonial days. Among the
settlers there was a large proportion
of university men, many of whom
We're ministers of religion, and, Is a
distinguished authority has said,
they fixed the mould from which the
public school education of America
grew up" AS they died off, other
men whom they had trained took up
their work The tendency of the New
England settlers to congregate in
towns made It easier to establish
schools there than in the other colo
MES, where the people were thinly
scattered on farms and plantations.
After the Revolution.
After the Revolution most of the
states tried to secure the best pos
sible system of schools within their
power. 1t was a natural instinct on
the part of people who had fought
for freedom, but they builded better
than they knew. for the school system
which they established with no
thought beyond benefiting their own
children, became in later days a most
efficient machine for Transforming the
raw material of European immigra-
tion into satisfactory American citi-
zens.
Undoubtedly the public schools
played great part, from the days of
washington to our own, in building
UP the American commonwealth. but
1t is the fashion to give them too
much credit in the matter. This may
seem a daring opinion, but even