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In: History - American·History - Schools & Universities·Teaching & Education
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #70630.
Bessie Louise Pierce’s scholarly dissertation, a Ph.D. thesis catalogued under E151, offers a meticulous survey of how American statutes have shaped the teaching of history from the colonial era to the early twentieth century. Opening with a chronological framework, Pierce delineates four distinct legislative periods, early statutes that first singled out history as a school subject, the post‑Civil War era of 1860‑1900, the socially conscious reforms of 1900‑1917, and the patriotic surge following World War I. She then expands the inquiry to include the “propagandist influences” of religious, racial, and patriotic groups on textbook production, and even examines disloyalty charges against teachers after 1917. The work is anchored in extensive documentary research, drawing on correspondence with school superintendents, textbook authors, and scholars such as Arthur M. Schlesinger, and is organized into two parts that trace statutory regulation and the activities of propagandist agencies, complete with appendices, bibliography, and index.
The prose reflects the formal academic style of early‑mid‑20th‑century scholarship, combining exhaustive footnoted detail with a measured, almost detached narrative voice. Pierce’s careful avoidance of overt bias and her reliance on legislative records and contemporary commentary give the study a tone of measured objectivity. Readers with an interest in the history of education, legal historians, or scholars of American civic culture will find the book’s systematic approach and rich primary‑source citations especially rewarding, while those seeking a more narrative or interpretive history of pedagogy may prefer a more contemporary synthesis.
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Such statutory control falls into fairly definite periods. The first embraces the earliest statutes relating to public education. During this period history was introduced into the school curriculum as a separate subject specified by law. The next stage, 1860 to 1900, was characterized by the influences set in motion by the Civil War and the Economic Revolution. In the years from 1900 to 1917, the history curriculum reflected the new interest of the American people in the social and economic conditions that had developed. From 1917 to the present, the dominant note has been a dynamic patriotism growing out of the World War.
Besides the legislative aspects of the subject, I have endeavored to set forth the propagandist influences on textbook-making exerted by religious, patriotic, racial and other organized groups. Within the last five years attention to an unprecedented degree has been focused upon history and its allied subjects. Although much interest has been attached to the agitation carried on since the World War, similar movements marked earlier periods. A chapter on Disloyalty Charges against Teachers since 1917 has been included as pertinent to the discussion in general.
Because of their kinship with history, the other social studies have been considered. The term social studies has been used to embrace history, economics, government and sociology. Geography has not been included, because it but recently acquired a place in the curriculum as a social study. More attention, furthermore, has been paid to the subject of history, since it has been the chief social study in the public school curriculum. There has been no attempt to portray the extent to which laws have been enforced. Throughout it has been my desire to narrate without partiality or prejudice the facts relating to the subject under discussion.
In the preparation of this volume I am indebted to many friends for advice and coöperation in obtaining material. In the search for present-day conditions I have drawn heavily upon many correspondents including school superintendents, textbook authors and publishers, as well as those engaged in criticising school histories. To all who have aided, I would here express my sincere gratitude. I have particularly profited by the guidance and constructive criticism of Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger of Harvard University, who first called the subject to my attention, and who is chiefly responsible for whatever merit there is in this study. I am indebted for many helpful suggestions to Professor Ernest Horn of the University of Iowa, to Professor Carl Wittke of Ohio State University, and to Dr. Richard J. Purcell of the Catholic University of America. These acknowledgments would not be complete without mentioning my obligation to my sister, Anne E. Pierce, for assistance at all stages in the preparation of the manuscript, and to my mother, whose spirit of coöperation has proved a constant source of inspiration.
B. L. P.
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