CHAPTER XIII.

NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE UPON EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

By B. A. HINSDALE, PH. D., LL. D., Professor of the Science and the Art of Teaching in the University of Michigan.

PREFACE.

This chapter is exactly what its name declares it to be: Notes on the History of Foreign Influence upon Education in the United States. Some of the items here jotted down I came upon in the course of my general reading; some I found as the result of special investigation. My primary motive was the accumulation of original material relating to this important phase of our educational history. The value of the chapter lies almost wholly in the original items of information that it contains, for the accompanying narrative and commentary are but slight. It will be seen that the matter relating to the establishment of contact between the mind and education of Germany, on the one hand, and the mind and education of the United States, on the other, is much the most valuable portion of the chapter. Some facts are here presented to the public for the first time.

I. ENGLISH INFLUENCE.

The educational ideas and ideals that the English colonists brought to North America were those that prevailed in England in the seventeenth century. No doubt the New England Puritans, on the whole, represented these ideas and ideals in their purest form, save in a single particular. "The proportion of learned men among them in those early days," it has been said, "was extraordinary. It is probable that between the years 1630 and 1690 there were in New England as many graduates of Cambridge and Oxford as could be found in any population of similar size in the mother country." The education that these Cambridge and Oxford scholars had received was made up of Latin and Greek, Hebrew, mathematics, and rhetoric, with a little physical, mental, and moral science. The English grammar schools of the day were engaged in preparing boys to receive such a training as this at the universities. Elementary schools proper can hardly be said to have existed, at least in considerable numbers. From the days of Chaucer to the days of Shakespeare and Milton the culture of Italy deeply impressed the mind of England, but this was affected through general literature rather than through schools. There had, indeed, been a time when the English universities, like those of the Continent, had served as a strong intellectual bond among the people of western Europe, but this time had gone by. There were the best of all reasons why Englishmen should know more about France than about any other country; the best of reasons, also, why they should most dislike Frenchmen. As it was, the necessities of commerce, politics, diplomacy, and social intercourse, as well as intellectual sympathy, compelled a considerable number of Englishmen to read, speak, and write French. It must be remembered, however, that the French language had not yet become the

1 Tyler, History of American Literature, Vol. I, p. 98 (1897).

language of general intercourse in Europe, and that the influence which the literature of France exerted for the time was neither what it had once been nor what it afterwards became. English scholars and teachers knew little of educational institutions beyond the Channel or the German Ocean, or at least were little influenced by them. Continental languages, save those of antiquity, were not taught in the English schools. No real connection had ever been established between the mind of Germany and the mind of England.

Nothing could have been more natural than that the Puritans of New England should reproduce in the New World, as far as circumstances permitted, the educational institutions with which they had been familiar in the Old World. In Harvard College they did not attempt to reproduce the University of Cambridge, but only one of the colleges comprising that university. The ideals, methods, and studies of the new college were the same as those of the old colleges. The English grammar school was reproduced in the same way. When the members of the general court of Massachusetts ordered in 1647 "that when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families or householders they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth as far as they may be fitted for the University," they had Eton, St. Paul's, and Winchester in their eye. The next step brings the dark. Where the members of the general court got the idea that they expressed in the previous clause, "ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as resort to them to write and read," is far from clear. We certainly fail to find anything corresponding to this description in contemporary England. The same difficulty confronts us again in Connecticut, which from the first took an equal interest with Massachusetts in education. Nor are we able to tell with certainty who were the masters that taught William Penn to establish common schools in Pennsylvania. But here the difficulty vanishes. None of the other English colonies gave the slightest reason for questioning the thoroughness of their English character by taking any deep interest in popular education. But the difficulty is much less serious than it has sometimes been represented as being. Protestantism had familiarized the minds of men with the conception of elementary education. Comenius, who formulated the modern division of education and was a most effective champion of popular elementary schools, was well known to Milton, Hartlib, and their associates in London. He must have been well known also, by name at least, to the leading men of Massachusetts Bay, even if their representatives did not, as Cotton Mather says, offer him the presidency of Harvard College; and under these conditions, certainly, we may credit the Puritans of New England, stirred by the genius of Protestantism and the Renaissance, with originality enough to invent, or rather put in operation, common elementary schools-a possibility which some controversialists do not seem to have at all considered."

B. A. Hinsdale, Documents Illustrative of American Educational History, chap. 1, pt. 3, vol. 2, of Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1892-93, pp. 1232, 1237.

2 Ibid., pp. 1240-1255.

3 Ibid., pp. 1261–1267.

4 W. S. Monroe, Introduction to Comenius's School of Infancy, Boston, 1896, ix: David Masson, Life and Times of John Milton, Vol. III, passim.

Magnalia, vol. 2, p. 14; W. S. Monroe, Educational Review, November, 1896, Was Comenius called to Harvard?"

6 Unfortunately, this has become a moot subject. Mr. Douglass Campbell maintains that the Puritans obtained their ideas of common schools from the Dutch in Holland.-The Puritan in Holland, England, and America; New York, 1892, passim. See also A. S. Draper, "Public School Pioneering in New York and Massachusetts," Educational Review, April, 1892, October, 1892, April, 1893, and "The Inception of an American State School System," ibid., September, 1894; George H. Martin, "Public School Pioneering," ibid., June, 1892, March, 1893, and "The Evolution of the Massachu setts Public School System;" B. A. Hinsdale, Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the United States, p. 7.

What has been said of Harvard College is equally true, with a single qualification, of the six other colleges established before 1765: William and Mary, 1693; Yale, 1700; New Jersey, 1746; King's, 1754; Philadelphia, 1755; Rhode Island, 1764. These institutions all continued the English tradition, most of them, indeed, in a small way— smaller than Harvard. Nor is this all; American colleges and universities continued to be organized and conducted on the same lines until vital contact was established between the mind and scholars of the United States and the continental countries. We may repeat what has been said of schools and education when we deal with literature and the more general means of mental cultivation. The people of the colonies-or, rather, the English portion of them-found their spiritual sustenance in English books. In fact, as time went on they became more insular in character than their kin in England. They became more English than the English themselves, for their wide separation from Europe cut them off, for the most part, from immediate contact with the people of the Continent. What they knew of France, Spain, and the other countries they knew mainly through the mother country. Nor were they influenced by the French at the north or the Spaniards at the south of them. It is true enough that there were diverse elements in the thirteen colonies. Dutch, Germans, Scotch-Irish, French, and Swedes were all found in numbers larger or smaller. The Dutch established schools in New York, which continued to be conducted in the vernacular language and according to Dutch models for a century after the colony passed into English hands. The Swedes of Delaware supported schools until they ceased to be a distinct element in the population. The Germans of Pennsylvania also created schools, which have continued, of course with modifications, until our own day. And, finally, the revocation of the edict of Nantes sent large numbers of Huguenots to the colonies, and particularly to South Carolina, where they and their descendants formed a numerous and influential portion of the population. But little real influence was exerted by these nationalities upon the people of English descent, who gave name and character to the country. The New Englanders were not influenced in respect to education by the Dutch of New York, or the Virginians by the Germans of Pennsylvania. On the other hand, American education, as it existed down to the beginning of this century, was developed on the lines of the English tradition (barring, of course, the common schools of the few States that had them).

It would be a mistake to suppose that this tradition was merely a matter of hereditary transmission. The colonies were in the closest connection with the mother country. Englishmen continued to migrate to them, although in diminished numbers as compared with the earlier days. What is more, outside of New England, men who were able to do so, often sent their sons, and sometimes their daughters, to Gustav Körner, dealing with the subject of German emigration to the English colonies before the Revolution, says: The emigrants continually sought their brethren on the other side of the ocean to assist in the support of their churches and schools, and these, on the other hand, sent missionaries and teachers to spread their religious ideas. In New York, and especially in Pennsylvania, there developed an active German element, which manifested itself in the latter State in a political influence which has never since been attained. A number of distinguished statesmen and scholars sprang from this German emigration [to Pennsylvania] during the first decades of the last century. The simple fact that, shortly after the war of independence, the adoption of the German language as the language of the courts and statutes was not only agitated but voted down in the legislature only by a small majority, shows how strong the German element must have been towards the end of the last century, at least in the State which was at that time the most important in the Union." Mr. Körner then enumerates a number of families that came to exercise a large influence in different parts of the Union, and then assigns causes for the relative decline of German influence in those States where it had been strongest. Das deutsche Element in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika, 1818–48. Von Gustav Körner. New York, E. Steiger & Co., 1884. How many of the Pennsylvania Germans sent their sons to Germany to be educated, it would be hard to determine, probably not many. We know that Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg, the father of the Lutheran Church in the United States, sent his three sons to Halle to be taught in the institutious of that city, in 1763.-W. J. Mann, Life and Times of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, Chaps. XXIV, XXV.

Europe to be educated. This was the case in New York and Virginia, and particularly in South Carolina. The Catholic planters of Maryland sometimes sent their sons to the Jesuit colleges in France and the old countries. For example, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, when 11 years of age, was sent by his father to St. Omer, where he remained six years; from there he went to a college at Rheims, and from there again to the College of Louis le Grand at Paris. It was common also for young men to resort to Europe for professional study, as in theology, law, and medicine. Thus Carroll studied at the Inner Temple three or four years, but not with a professional view. He returned to his native country the year of the Stamp Act Congress, after an absence of eighteen years. John Carroll, also, a cousin of Charles, afterwards the first Catholic bishop in the United States, studied abroad.3

II. FRENCH INFLUENCE.

The Declaration of Independence involved much more than politics. The formation of the American Union, and its assumption of a separate place among the powers of the earth, brought the American people into new relations, not merely with England, but with the continental countries. Congress, having cut the bond uniting the States and the mother country, began to look about for foreign connections, and so dispatched commissioners to Europe. These steps meant some immediate enlargement of the national mind, and they led to results that were little foreseen at the time. Naturally enough, Congress found an ally in the mother country's ancient enemy. The treaties of 1778 have been properly valued in respect to commerce and political and military affairs. No doubt, too, the moral reaction of the United States upon France has been sufficiently appreciated. The same observation may be repeated in respect to French influence on American morals and religion. But the same can hardly be said of French influence on American studies, science, and learning.

(1) FRENCH OFFICERS AND TRAVELERS IN THE UNITED STATES.

At the opening of the struggle with England the army suffered a lack of officers properly educated in the science and the art of war. The representatives of the Government abroad were accordingly instructed to enlist the services of foreign officers, being competent, who might be willing to accept American commissions. So successful were these efforts that serious embarrassment was felt, both at the seat of Government and in the camp of the Commander in Chief, when the time came to redeem the promises that had been made in Europe. Steuben, who furnished the plans on which the army was reorganized in 1778, was a German; so was Kalb, although he had been trained in the French army; but a majority of these soldiers of liberty or fortune were Frenchmen. In due time the French fleets and armies, under the command of D'Estaing, Rochambeau, and De Grasse, arrived. The King of France also maintained a representative, with an appropriate staff, near Congress. Besides, numerous French travelers, men of cultivation and science, began to visit the country in the spirit of scientific observation.

The truth is that continental countries had for some time been showing something besides a mere political and commercial interest in the English colonies in North America. The country and its inhabitants had become the subjects of interest and study. Peter Kalm, professor of economy in the University of Åbo, in Swedish Finland, and member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, who made his visit in 1748-49, was one of the clearest of the early prophets of American independ

'Colyer Meriwether, History of Higher Education in South Carolina. Washington, D. C., 1889, pp. 24, 27, and Appendix II. B. A. Hinsdale, Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the United States, pp. 33–45.

*Journals of Charles Carroll of Carollton, etc. Printed for the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, 1876, p. 106.

J G. Shea, Life and Times of Archbishop Carroll, Bk. I, Chap. I.

ence.1 In 1764 the Duc de Choiseul sent M. de Pontleroy to the States as a political agent, and at a later day Kalb,3 who afterwards fell at the battle of Camden, on a similar errand. The works of Abbé Raynal, entitled A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Commerce of the Europeans in the Two Indias, first published in 1780, embraced the thirteen colonies. The Abbé also published in 1781 an account of the Revolution in two volumes. The Abbé Mably, also bred up like, Raynal in a Jesuit college, published in 1784 his observations on the Government and Laws of the United States of America. Again, the Marquis de Chastellux, a majorgeneral in Rochambeau's army, and one of the forty members of the French Academy, traveled extensively in the States in 1780-1782, and his journal, although written solely for himself and a few friends, ultimately found its way into public, both in French and in English. The Duc de Rochefoucauld-Liancourt also visited us in

'On his return home Kalm wrote an account of his travels in Swedish, which was soon translated into German, and then into English. The English translation, entitled, Travels into North America, etc., translated into English by John Reinhold Forster, F. A. S., bears the imprint Warrington, printed by William Eyers, 1770." It comprises three volumes. The book is devoted to natural history, including a circumstantial account of the plantation and agriculture of the country in general, with its civil, ecclesiastical, and commercial state, the manners of the inhabitants, and several curious and important remarks on various subjects. Kalm declared it to be of great advantage to England that the North American colonies were so near to Canada. "There is reason to believe," he says, "that the King never was in earnest in his attempt to expel the French from their possessions there, though it might have been done with little difficulty." Referring to British interference with colonial manufactures and commerce, he said: "These and some other observations occasion the inhabitants of the English colonies to grow less tender for their mother country. This coldness is kept up by the many foreigners, such as Germans, Dutch, and French settled here and living among the English, who commonly have no particular attachment to old England. I have been told by Englishmen," he continues, "and not only by such as were born in America, but even by such as came from Europe, that the English colonies in North America, in the space of thirty or fifty years, would be able to form a state by themselves entirely independent of old England. But as a whole country, which lies along the seashore is unguarded, and on the land side is harassed by the French, in times of war these dangerous neighbors are sufficient to prevent the connection of the colonies with their mother country from being quite broken off. The English Government has therefore sufficient reason to consider the French in North America as the best means of keeping the colonies in their due submission." (Vol. 1, pp. 264-265.) A letter of Kalm's to a friend in Philadelphia, describing Niagara Falls, dated at Albany, September 2, 1750, is found in "Observations on the inhabitants, climate, etc.," made by John Bartram in his Travels from Pennsylvania to Onondaga, etc., Canada. London, 1751; reprinted 1895. 2 Bancroft, History of the United States, New York, 1885, Vol. III, p. 75.

Kalb was in the colonies in 1768, nine years after Kalm's visit. His reports to the French minister are very interesting for the light they throw upon the state of colonial opinion and feeling at the time. For example, he wrote from New York February 25: "All classes of people here are imbued with such a spirit of independence and freedom from control, that, if all the provinces can be united under a common representation, an independent state will soon be formed. At all events, it will certainly come forth in time. Whatever may be done in London, this country is growing too powerful to be much longer governed at so great a distance. The population is now estimated at 3,000,000, and it is expected to double itself in less than thirty years. It is not to be denied that children swarm everywhere like ants. The people are strong and robust, and even the English officers admit that the militia are equal to the line in every particular." (Freiderick Kapp: The Life of John Kalb, Major-General in the Revolutionary Army, New York, 1884, p. 63.)

4 A philosophical and political history of the British settlements and trade in North America, from the French of Abbé Raynal, in two volumes, Edinburgh, 1775.

5 Travels in North America in the Years 1780-1781-1782. By the Marquis de Chastellux. Translated from the French by an English gentleman who resided in America at the period. Two volumes, London, 1787.

Chastellux's work contains the following curious passage: "As for the Americans, they testify more surprise than peevishness at meeting with a foreigner who did not understand English. But if they are indebted for this opinion to the prejudice of education, a sort of national pride, that pride suffered not a little from the reflection which frequently occurred of the language of the country being that of their oppressors. Accordingly, they avoided these expressions, 'You speak English,' You understand English well;' and I have often heard them say, 'You speak American well,''The American is not difficult to learn.' Nay, they have even carried it so far as seriously to propose introducing a new language; and some persons are desirous, for the convenience of the public, that the Hebrew should be substituted for the English. The proposal was that it should be taught in the schools and made use of in all public acts. You may imagine that this project went no further; but we may conclude from the mere suggestion that the Americans could not express in a more energetic manner their aversion for the English. (Vol. II, pp. 265, 266.)