PUBLIC SCHOOLS. The idea of a free public school maintained entirely at municipal or State expense and altogetier under State and secular control is a modern development, which was not realized until the 19th century. The growth of democracy in the last 100 years has been one of the chief causes of the rapid advance of the free and secularized public school system. Only in the United States, how ever, has the public school system had a de velopment such as a democratic society logically demands.
A system to be truly democratic must have the following characteristics: (1) It must be free to all; (2) it must extend over all stages of education ; (3) it must have what is called the °educational that is, pupils must be able to pass upward freely from one grade to the next higher; and (4) it must be patron ized by all classes of the community.
It may fairly be claimed that the American public school system has now reached a stage where all these ends have been attained. In Germany, France and until recently, at least, in England, public education has not been, and is not even now, generally free, since, though most of the expenses have been met from pub lic or institutional (usually religious) sources, each pupil unless a pauper has had to pay school fees. No educational ladder exists in those countries, for secondary education begins at eight or 10 years of age and always in schools parallel to the elementary schools. The pupil who completes the public school at the age of 14 must go back from four to six years if he wants to have a secondary education. In the United however, the pupil enters the high school without loss of time, since the high school begins where the elementary school ends. It naturally follows that in European countries only the children of the °lower classes° attend the elementary schools, and that it is only in exceptional cases that they ever find their way into schools of secondary and higher education. From the beginning, in those countries, the sec ondary schools, and later the universities, are patronized by the higher social classes, rein forced to some extent by the children of thrifty and ambitious members of the lower ones. In sharp contrast to this state of affairs, it is the proud boast of the American school system at its best that the public school is open to the poorest and is good enough for the highest; that in form, at least, the system is so organ ized that the road is open for every child in the republic to carry his mental development to the highest possible point; for not only are elemen tary and secondary schools free and properly articulated, but in most of the States a free education is offered also in universities. It is furthermore a matter of daily observation that all classes of our population freely patronize the public schools. The only considerable ex ception is the private religious, or parochial, school, where the motive for segregation is re ligious, not social. Nearly 90 per cent of all
children of elementary grade attend the public school.
Colonial Beginnings of Public School beginnings of the free com mon school reach back to the earliest colonial times. In New England, at least, the predomi nant motive for promoting public education was religious rather than political. The elementary school of that period quickly merged into the academy or secondary school, where the promis ing lads were prepared for college. However, the idea that the early education should be free, and in considerable degree compulsory upon all, found early expression. The General Court of Massachusetts in 1642 enjoined upon town authorities the duty of seeing that all children acquired at least the rudiments of an education. The order even went so far as to require the removal of children from those parents who persisted in bringing up their off spring in ignorance. The selectmen of every town were further required have a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors, to see that none of them shall suffer so much barbar ism in any of their families. as not to endeavor to teach, 4)y themselves or others, their children and apprentices, so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue and (obtain) a knowledge of the capital laws; upon penalty of 20 shillings for each neglect therein.' In 1635 Boston made public provision for the support of a school. The Act of 1642 was greatly strengthened by the Massachusetts School Law of 1647, which required all towns having 50 householders to one within their town to teach all such children as shall report to him, to write and read; whose wages shall be paid, either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants ingen and which further required that where any town has increased to 100 families or householders, °they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to in struct youths so far as they may be fitted for the university?' This law laid the foundations for the present free elementary and the free secondary, or high school, for though it did not insist that all school revenues should be raised by public taxation, it provided that they might be so raised, and it made the community responsible for the establishment and mainte nance of schools for all its children. In 1638 New Haven set up a school under Ezekiel Cheever, who was paid °out of the common stock of the town' Rhode Island established a public school at Newport in 1640, and Provi dence one 20 years later. In 1633 the first Dutch schoolmaster arrived at Manhattan, when the first school tax, amounting to 14, was levied and collected. By 1650 the 800 in habitants of New Amsterdam paid their school masters regularly from the public treasury.