Introduction

When people think about how public education in the United States got started, they often think of Horace Mann or perhaps a romantic vision of a one-room rural schoolhouse. The roots of public education were established long before the Antebellum period, however. In fact, it was top of mind for many of the founding fathers, who believed that a free republic was dependent upon its citizens being literate and able to knowledgeably participate in government. None other than George Washington, speaking to Congress in the final days of his presidency, said, “... a primary object…should be, the education of our Youth in the science of Government. In a Republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important?”¹ Thomas Jefferson spoke of the “two great measures” at the heart of a republic: “That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom” and “to divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it.”² These are only two famous voices, but a number of their contemporaries agreed.

This exhibit seeks to demonstrate that praise for public schooling was not just the fashionable rhetoric of politicians. It will explore the educations grounded in Enlightenment philosophy that many leaders of the Revolutionary era received, and the ways that they brought these ideas into the national conversation and into federal policy. This project will also illuminate some of the issues that prevented public education from taking off immediately in the early United States, such as lack of funding, geographical challenges, and deep regional cultural divides. Northern regions against Southern, and Republicans against Federalists clashed on the essential question, “What is the purpose of education?”³ The Revolutionary-era contributions to public education are incredibly significant, despite the lack of any immediate or wide success in establishing it. Although it took nearly a century to formalize public schooling on a national level, the ideological foundations for it were laid at the same time as the foundations of the country; the people and principles of the American revolution would establish and early framework for federal education policy, standardize the American dialect of English, and establish our cultural belief that education is necessary for a democracy to function.

¹ “From George Washington to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, 7 December 1796,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-21-02-0142. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 21, 22 September 1796–3 March 1797, ed. Adrina Garbooshian-Huggins. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2020, pp. 317–335.]
² Wagoner, Jennings L. Jefferson and Education. (The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 71.
³ Boonshoft, Mark. Aristocratic Education and the Making of the American Republic. (The University of North Carolina Press, 2020), 1-2.