Educational+Reform


 * EDUCATIONAL REFORM...**

Before the mid-1800's, a unifom educational policy never existed in the United States. Only the North really cared about their kids going to school. The South didn't really care because their kids needed to be out on the farm working. Reformers felt that everyone should be educated. At first it was just for the boys and for the wealthy. most of the schools were expensive private schools. And if you were really wealthy, you could send your girls to school. Poor children went to second-rate "pauper" or "charity" schools, but most of them didn't go at all. When they started making school manditory, Massachussets and Vermonts were the only states before the Civil War to pass a compulsory school attendance law. In the 1830's, Americans started to demand a tax supported public school system. But the wealthy tax payers didn't like that at all. They saw no reason to support schools that their children (who were mostly enrolled in private schools) would not attend. One leader of the Reform was Horace Mann. Mann declared," If we do not prepare children to become good citizens, ... if we do not enrich their minds with knowledge, then our republic must go down to destriction, as other have gone before it.". Other states soon followed Massachussets's and Pennsylvania's example and by the 1850's, every state had provided some form of publicly formed elementary schools.