Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:13:57.109Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Business Efficiency, American Schooling, and the Public School Superintendency: A Reconsideration of the Callahan Thesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Barbara Berman
Barbara Berman*
Affiliation:
Humanities Department of the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A highly regarded work in recent educational history, Raymond E. Callahan's Education and the Cult of Efficiency (1962), persuasively described early twentieth-century educators' capitulation to principles of business management. However, my research into nineteenth-century teacher-training literature has indicated that, long before 1900, schoolmen had assumed a business rather than a scholarly identity. Subsequent investigation into the origin and development of the public school superintendency amplified my earlier findings.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , Fall 1983 , pp. 297 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Footnotes

1. Education and the Cult of Efficiency continues to exert influence. Alfred T. Vogel's The Owl Critics (Alabama, 1980) bases its recommendations for current educational practice upon Callahan's assumptions.Google Scholar

2. In addition to general works dealing with the superintendency, a number of studies of the development of school administration in specific communities were consulted. Among the most useful: Claude Hardy, H., Evolution and Development of the Office of Superintendent of Schools, Westchester County, New York (New York, 1932); Pierce, Paul Revere, The Origin and Development of the Public School Principalship (Chicago, 1935); Randall, S. S., A Digest of the Common School System of the State of New York (Albany, 1844); Sherman, Jay J., “History of the Office of County Superintendent of Schools in Iowa,” The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 21 (January, 1923); Suzzallo, Henry, The Rise of Local School Supervision in Massachusetts (New York, 1906); Wickersham, James Pyle, A History of Education in Pennsylvania (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1886), especially chapters 18, 23–25.Google Scholar

3. See, for example, Reller, Theodore Lee, The Development of the City Superintendency of Schools in the United States (Philadelphia, 1935), p. 175, and May, Samuel J., “The Revival of Education. An Address to the Normal Association, Bridgewater, Mass.” (Syracuse, 1855), p. 40.Google Scholar

4. Callahan, Raymond E., Education and the Cult of Efficiency (Chicago, 1962), especially pp. vii–viii, ix, 6–7, 15–16, 19, 52, 247–48, 256, 258–59, 262–64.Google Scholar

5. Smith, Timothy L., History of Education Quarterly, 4 (March 1964):76–77.Google Scholar

6. Yengo, Carmine A., “John Dewey and the Cult of Efficiency,” Harvard Educational Review 34 (Winter 1964):33–35; and Curti, Merle, The Social Ideas of American Educators (New Jersey, 1965), pp. 203–60.Google Scholar

7. Tumin, Melvin, American Sociological Review, 28 (June 1963):480–81.Google Scholar

8. Cartwright, William H., The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 49 (March 1963):722–23.Google Scholar

9. Cremin, Lawrence A., Teachers' College Record, 65 (November 1963): 184–86.Google Scholar

10. Callahan, Raymond E., The Superintendent of Schools—A Historical Analysis (St. Louis, 1966), p. 14.Google Scholar

11. Dictionary of American Biography, 21 vols. plus supplements, 1928-, s.v. “Mowry, William Augustus.” See also Mowry, William A., Recollections of a New England Educator, 1838–1908 (New York, 1908).Google Scholar

12. Mowry, William A., “Powers and Duties of School Superintendents,” Educational Review 9 (January 1895):47, 49–51.Google Scholar

13. Callahan, , Cult, pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

14. See, for example, Mowry, , Recollections, pp. 247–48. For an indication of Harris's own admiration for business efficiency, see Harris, W. T., “Editor's Preface” to Pickard, J. L., School Supervision (New York, 1895).Google Scholar

15. Callahan, , Cult, p. 8; Callahan, , Superintendent, p. 208; Button, Henry Warren, “A History of Supervision in the Public Schools, 1870–1950) (Ph.D. dissertation, Washington University, 1961), pp. 26, 84.Google Scholar

16. Mattingly's, Paul H. The Classless Profession: American Schoolmen in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1975), pp. 171–72 notes that “in post-bellum American schoolmen frequently moved from superinten-dencies to principalships of normal schools, headmasterships of preparatory academies and large city high schools or even in some cases to college faculties.” So spectacular was the rise and influence of the superintendent that by 1890, more presidents of the American Institute of Instruction had been drawn from the ranks of the superintendents than elsewhere in the profession. For additional information see Ohles, John F., ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Education, 3 vols. (Westport, Conn., 1978). A compilation of state and city superintendents in the Journal of Education, 50 (December 7, 1899):372–80, analyzed for different purposes in Tyack, David, “Pilgrim's Progress: Toward a Social History of the School Superintendency, 1860–1900,” History of Education Quarterly, 16(Fall 1976), Appendix 1:295–300, also contains much information.Google Scholar

17. Reller, , City Superintendency, p. 146.Google Scholar

18. Button, , “History of Supervision,” pp. 30–41.Google Scholar

19. Greenwood, James M., “Some Educators I Have Known,” Educational Review 25 (April 1903):405–6.Google Scholar

20. Gove, Aaron, “The Trail of the City Superintendent,” Addresses and Proceedings, National Educational Association, 1900, p. 215.Google Scholar

21. Ohles, , Biographical Dictionary, p. 534.Google Scholar

22. Greenwood, James M., “Some Educators I Have Known:” 295–96; and Greenwood, , “Educators” Educational Review 25 (April 1903): 405–10. See also Mattingly, , Classless Profession, p. 153.Google Scholar

23. Jones, Lewis H., Education as Growth or the Culture of Character, A Book for Teachers' Reading Circles, Normal Classes, and Individual Teachers (Boston, 1911). Jones was then President of Michigan State Normal College.Google Scholar

24. Greenwood, , “Educators:” 401. Public schoolmen's attempt to transcend ancient Sophist/Socratic instructional antagonisms between the liberal and professional emphasis in education became a major preoccupation of nineteenth- and twentieth-century educators. See Borrowman, Merle, The Liberal and Technical in Teacher Education (New York, 1956), passim but note especially p. 4. Boas, Both George, The Major Traditions of European Philosophy (New York, 1929), and Gutek, Gerald L., A History of the Western Educational Experience (New York, 1972), offer much insight into the origins of this dilemma.Google Scholar

25. Charles Francis Adams, quoted in Philbrick, John D., “Which Is the True Ideal,” Education 1 (January 1881):300–302; Common School Journal and Annals of Education (Connecticut), 8 (August 1860), quoted in Reller, , City Superintendency, p. 124; Gove, Aaron, “Trail of City Superintendent,” p. 215. See also Reller, , City Superintendency, pp. 134–35.Google Scholar

26. Reller, , City Superintendency, p. 172. The difficulty of determining the nature of the superintendency—especially in its initial phases—is illustrated by Borrowman's The Liberal and Technical in Teacher Education, pp. 60–61, 102. Borrowman suggests that most of the early members of the National Association of School Superintendents “were probably trained in the liberal arts colleges.” Consequently, a dualistic system was quickly established wherein normal school graduates did not frame educational policy, “those who did were educated in liberal arts colleges.” Somewhat later, however, Borrowman argues that “outside of the larger cities, the lay board of education assumed leadership, not only in laying down basic policy, but also in administering that policy. The American local school superintendency evolved essentially from these lay boards rather than from the teaching-body.” Google Scholar

27. Gove, , “Trail of City Superintendent,” p. 218. The concept of schoolmen as educational statesmen did not appear frequently within nineteenth-century educational literature. The first extended elaboration upon this theme appears in normal schoolman William F. Phelps' The Teacher's Hand-Book, printed in 1874. Phelp's work strongly supports city superintendents' quest for efficient school operations via business and military tactics. City superintendents' influence upon normal school pedagogy is discussed in the final section of this paper.Google Scholar

28. Palmer, Thomas H., The Teacher's Manual: Being an Exposition of an Efficient and Economical System of Education, Suited to the Wants of a Free People (Boston, 1840), pp. 3, 5–6.Google Scholar

29. Philbrick, John D., quoted in Forty-Ninth Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Michigan (1885), p. 83.Google Scholar

30. Northend, Charles, The Teacher's Assistant, or Hints and Methods in School Discipline and Instruction (Boston, 1859), p. 304.Google Scholar

31. Potter, Alonzo, The School: Its Objects, Relations, and Uses (New York, 1842), pp. 152–53.Google Scholar

32. Kingsbury, John, Lectures on Failures in Teaching (Boston, 1848), pp. 22–23. Kingsbury, a successful teacher, was also one of the founders of the American Institute of Instruction. Mattingly Classless Profession, p. 96. For a discussion of the general tendency toward anti-intellectualism within nineteenth-century teacher education see Borrowman, Merle, The Liberal and Technical in Teacher Education, pp. 33, 77, 90–91.Google Scholar

33. Hickok, H. C., quoted in Wells, W. H., The Graded School (New York, 1862), p. 7.Google Scholar

34. Holbrook, Alfred, School Management (New York, 1872), pp. 110–112.Google Scholar

35. Wade, Alexander L., A Graduating System for Country Schools (Boston, 1881), pp. 7–8, 270, 408–10. Wade's book was strongly endorsed by Rev. J. R. Thompson, President of West Virginia University.Google Scholar

36. Mason, A. C., 1000 Ways of 1000 Teachers (Chicago, 1887), pp. 7, 9–10, 175. In his introduction Mason listed over one hundred prominent contributors, many of whom were superintendents; Baldwin, Joseph, The Art of School Management (New York, 1881), pp. 336–37.Google Scholar

37. Both normal school men and women as well as kindergarten enthusiasts tended to be imbued with the concepts of nature worship, natural science, and child study. The Kindergarten and Potted Plant Association's activities in the vicinity of New York City were but one of many expressions of this amalgam. See Educational Gazette, 10 (February 1894):44.Google Scholar

38. John Ogden in American Normal School Association, American Normal Schools (New York, 1860), pp. 71–73.Google Scholar

39. J. P. Gordy noted that “we may truly say that the successful introduction by the Worcester Normal School of the method of studying children as a part of the work in psychology marks an important era in the history of training teachers in this country.” Gordy, J. P., Rise and Growth of the Normal-School Idea in the United States, Bureau of Education Circular of Information No. 8, 1891 (Washington), p. 88. A description of the introspective, anti-rationalist and anti-intellectual “revolt” of normal school training in general and of the child study movement in particular is presented in Borrowman, The Liberal and Technical in Teacher Education, especially pp. 103–109.Google Scholar

40. Katz, Michael B., The Irony of Early School Reform (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1968), pp. 132–51.Google Scholar

41. The way in which “soft-line” and “smooth-line” positions could synchronize is best illustrated in the work of Francis W. Parker. Despite Parker's rapturous espousal of joyous childhood spontaneity, he also emphasized that “the aim of school education” was “to train a child to work, to work systematically, to love work,” One of Parker's major contributions to both “soft-line” public school pedagogy and “smooth-line” frictionless systematic efficiency was his concept of “Busy Work.” Judging from the endless references to it within late-century pedagogic literature, Busy Work was gratefully used in public classrooms. Patridge, Lelia E., The “Quincy Methods” (New York, 1885), pp. 13, 184, 293, 296–97, 448, 492, 539–40, 576, 633; Parker, Francis W., Notes of Talks on Teaching (New York, 1883), pp. xvi, 179, 181–82.Google Scholar

42. As public education moved from its early nineteenth-century concern with moral salvation to its twentieth-century emphasis upon adaptation to the social environment both Teachers Colleges and administrator training programs in universities embraced the study of sociology. However, as Merle Borrowman points out, “it is useful to look at teacher education in 1895 as torn between the new graduate school of pedagogy at New York University, with its courses in sociology … on the one hand, and the Oswego Normal School with its well-organized training school and systematized courses in methods … on the other.” Methods courses have always been based upon the study of child psychology. Borrowman, , The Liberal and Technical in Teacher Education, p. 119. See also superintendent William T. Harris's call for the study of sociology, p. 112, and Borrowman's observations concerning psychology and sociology in Teacher Education in America (New York, 1965), pp. 235–238.Google Scholar

43. Campbell, Jack K., Colonel Francis W. Parker: The Children's Crusader (New York, 1967), p. 199. See also Parker, Francis W., Talks on Pedagogics, rev. ed. (New York, 1937), p. 341; originally published in 1894.Google Scholar

44. American Teacher, 1 (1883):163.Google Scholar

45. Randall, S. S., A Digest of the Common School System of the State of New York (Albany, 1844), p. 115. Randall was General Deputy Superintendent of Common Schools for the State of New York. His book was published with the full support of S. Young, Superintendent of New York State Common Schools.Google Scholar

46. Reller, , City Superintendency, pp. 55, 58, 106.Google Scholar

47. Report of the Worcester Massachusetts School Committee, 1865, quoted in Reller, , City Superintendency, pp. 50–51; Randall, , Digest of Common School System, p. 28; Massachusetts Secretary of the Board of Education Barnas Sears, quoted in Reller, , City Superintendency, p. 50. See also Mattingly, , Classless Profession, pp. 184–85.Google Scholar

48. Steele, O. G., “History of Buffalo Schools,” Annual Report of the Superintendent of Schools (Buffalo, New York, 1862), pp. 77–79.Google Scholar

49. Seventh Annual Report of the Kansas City Public Schools, Kansas City: Board of Education, 1878, quoted in Gilland, Thomas McDowell, The Origin and Development of the Power and Duties of the City-School Superintendent (Chicago, 1935), pp. 219–20.Google Scholar

50. Gove, Aaron, “Trail of the City Superintendent,” p. 216; Hobson, Elsie Garland, Educational Legislation and Administration in the State of New York from 1777 to 1850 (Chicago, 1918), pp. 58, 62. Throughout the nineteenth century, many superintendents' closest connection with classroom supervision appears to have been as a routine teacher certification agency, often not of the highest caliber. In Iowa, for example, a county superintendent was not required to hold a teacher's certificate until 1897. See Sherman, Jay J., “History of the Office of County Superintendent of Schools in Iowa,” The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 21 (January 1923):64.Google Scholar

51. Guinn, J. M., “Pioneer School Superintendents of Los Angeles,” Historical Society of Southern California, Publications 4 (1907):76–81.Google Scholar

52. Gilland, , City-School Superintendent, pp. 6–8, 34. See also Borrowman, , Liberal and Technical in Education, pp. 30, 74–75.Google Scholar

53. Ibid., pp. 162–69.Google Scholar

54. See Gilland, , City-School Superintendent, Tables XVII and XVIII, pp. 226, 241. Note that while the period 1870–1900 saw a great influx of pupils into city schools along with a tremendous increase in capital outlay, the greatest expansion of enrollment and costs was between 1900–1930, which corresponds exactly with the efficiency movement.Google Scholar

55. Callahan, , Cult, p. 223. Indeed, it was just this emphasis upon public relations skills—upon language, suggestion, and “the ability to convince”—that Horace Mann saw as the primary means of allying public fears of the potential coercive powers of the superintendent. Mattingly, , Classless Profession, p. 183.Google Scholar

56. Report of Visitors of Common Schools delivered by New York State Superintendent of Public Schools, April 13, 1840, in Randall, , Digest of Common School System, p. 69.Google Scholar

57. Ibid., p. 269.Google Scholar

58. Payne, William H., Chapters on School Supervision (Cincinnati, 1875), p. 21.Google Scholar

59. Harris, William T., “How to Improve the Qualifications of Teachers,” Education 2 (July 1882):606; Reller, , City Superintendency, p. 283.Google Scholar

60. National Educational Association, Report of the Committee of Twelve on Rural Schools (Chicago, 1897), p. 19, and Appendix M, p. 194.Google Scholar

61. Ibid., pp. 49, 54–55, 57, 61.Google Scholar

62. Reller, , City Superintendency, p. 44.Google Scholar

63. Parker, , Talks on Pedagogics, p. 337.Google Scholar

64. Annual Report of the Board of Education (New Haven, 1880), p. 49. City training schools were frequently called normal schools but they should not be confused with state normals. Unlike the Oswego, New York, city training school established by Superintendent Edward Austin Sheldon, which subsequently became a state normal school and the paradigm of soft-line Pestalozzian pedagogy for years to come, most city training schools were purely “schools of practice.” Here women grade school teachers received “a systematic drill in the art of teaching.” Not until the 1880s was much in the way of “theoretical” instruction introduced. See Reller, , City Superintendency, pp. 175–79.Google Scholar

65. See particularly Hall, Samuel R., Lectures on School-Keeping (Boston, 1830), p. 121.Google Scholar

66. It is difficult to find any teacher-training text published between 1870 and 1890 which did not advocate the strenuous use of business and military tactics, but see especially Baldwin, Joseph, The Art of School Management (New York, 1881) or Phelps, William F., The Teachers Handbook (New York, 1874).Google Scholar

67. Payne, School Supervision, pp. 13–17, 22, 24, 84, 161.Google Scholar

68. Annual Report of the Board of Education (Chicago, 1888), quoted in Gilland, , City School Superintendent, p. 112.Google Scholar

69. Mattingly, , Classless Profession, p. 186.Google Scholar

70. Particularly representative is Gesell, Arnold and Gesell, Beatrice Chandler, The Normal Child and Primary Education (Boston, 1912). Beatrice Gesell was Primary Training Teacher at the Los Angeles Normal School. See also Vandewalker, Nina C., The Kindergarten in American Education (New York, 1923). Nina Vandewalker was Director of Kindergarten Training Department, Milwaukee State Normal School, former Critic Teacher in the Michigan State Normal School, and Teacher of Methods in Whitewater State Normal School. Her historical overview of the kindergarten and New Education movements makes it clear how Redding S. Sugg's “Motherteacher” gained entry into public education.Google Scholar For, Vandewalker noted, the kindergarteners' “exaltation of motherhood … became the symbol of the new education.” Together such enthusiasts “made the ideal mother the standard for the teacher.” How many school executives would have enjoyed that label? Vandewalker, , Kindergarten, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

71. Payne, , School Supervision, pp. 15–17, 24.Google Scholar

72. Callahan, , Cult, p. 18; Palmer, , Teacher's Manual, p. 68.Google Scholar

73. Callahan, , Cult, pp. 263–64.Google Scholar