Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 (American Century) [Paperback]

Carl Kaestle (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0809001543 | ISBN-13: 978-0809001545 | Publication Date: March 1, 1983 | Edition: 1st

Pillars of the Republic is a pioneering study of common-school development in the years before the Civil War. Public acceptance of state school systems, Kaestle argues, was encouraged by the people's commitment to republican government, by their trust in Protestant values, and by the development of capitalism. The author also examines the opposition to the Founding Fathers' educational ideas and shows what effects these had on our school system.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An eloquent and thoughtful essay, one of those glances back in time which shows us where we are. Kaestle leads us to understand why uniform, centralized public-school systems evolved out of haphazard educational alternatives, yet he also reflects on what has been lost, in variety, responsivenes, individual choice, and local control, as this nation has pressed on with an educational 'modernity' ever more centralized and vapid. A very wise and compassionate book."--Kenneth A. Lockridge, University of Michigan

"Extremely valuable and insightful."--Joseph F. Kett, University of Virginia

"A splendid achievement. In assessing traditional and new interpretations of pre-Civil War common schools Kaestle has given us a fresh understanding of troublesome controversies. Especially notable is the precision he brings to our awareness of the interrelationships between ideology, social and cultural change, and leadership. This exposition, often enlivened by vivid illustrations, is always readable."--Merle Curti, University of Wisconsin

About the Author

Carl F. Kaestle is University Professor of Education, History, and Public Policy at Brown University. He is the author of numerous books on the history of education, including, Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading Since 1880.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; 1st edition (March 1, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809001543
• ISBN-13: 978-0809001545
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,220 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Common Schools" Designed to Create American Identity, October 29, 2003

By 

Sarah Rose (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 (American Century) (Paperback)

Kaestle's book is an excellent review of the first hundred years of public education in America. After an introduction that covers Colonial America's mostly private or charity school systems, he outlines the forces that created the move toward public education paid for with tax money. It was a long, slow process, that in some ways was still not complete well into the 20th century, and has not been endorsed universally even now.
I would classify Kaestle's writing style as "easily readable academic" - meaning that you would have to have a more than "magazine article" amount of interest in the subject, but wouldn't be buried in mounds of jargon or statistics. I found it very interesting for someone who wants to know why American public schools are so different from the public schools of England or other developed nations.

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid book, February 5, 2011

By 

Dale - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 (American Century) (Paperback)

This book provides a solid overview of the foundations of education in the United States. It is a must need for any education course to set down the roots of education.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Nineteenth Century common school ideal, March 23, 2010

By 

not a natural "Bob Bickel" (huntington, west virginia United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 (American Century) (Paperback)

This is the best book available on the Nineteenth Century common school and the social and educational ideals that placed the common school at the forefront of public education in the U.S. The common school was an organizationally simple institution that plausibly promised a great deal: children studied the same things in the same place in the same way, with the expectation that outcomes would be the same. Since the common school was rooted in an organizationally uncomplicated, socially rural, and economically small-scale agricultural society, common schools focused on basic skills: reading, writing, and computing. Beyond that, their objectives were cultural and largely implicit: to imbue students with a common world view premised on the notion that, whatever the differences among them, they were all in the same boat. As a result, later educational practices, such as ability grouping and curriculum tracking, would have been anathema to common school reformers, who sought to emphasize likeness rather than foster differences.

Unlike early-Twentieth Century education policy makers, common school reformers were not afflicted with the notion that the we lived in a rapidly changing, science-based, technology-intensive world in which real or imagined differences in intellectual potential had to be systematically cultivated. The common school was not designed to select, sort, and allocate to changing positions in an evermore complex labor market, but to culturally homogenize students. This was expected to assure social cohesion and stability by instilling students with a common set of values and behavioral repertoires, an ethos and a complement of skills that put them in a good position to be self-sufficient and self-determining in the comparatively static and simple society of the nothern and eastern United States before the Civil War.

Common school reformers were keenly aware that immigration from southern and eastern Europe threatened the religious, linguistic, and political sameness that still characterized most of the country. They were also aware that the emergence of classes marked by substantial economic differences posed a real threat to the idea that we were all in the same boat. The essential skills and common world view insitlled by the ideal-typical common school were intended to counter these alien and insidiously divisive influences. The common school was intended to mitigate the development of an antagonistic relationship between capital and a small but emerging class of urban wage laborers. Once again, the idea that we were all in the same boat was of paramount importance.

In some instances, common schools, no doubt, were designed to foster social harmony that masked real differences among American citizens, maintaining the wealth and power of the privileged at the expense of the rest. Nevertheless, when common school reformers such as Thomas Mann argued that in the U.S. the only possible monopoly was a monopoly on cultivated talent, he believed what he said. His claim seemed to make abundant sense in a society characterized by the absence of royalty, without a class of nobles, devoid of hereditary aristocracy, and with no legally sanctioned special privileges for selected groups. The fact that blacks and native Americans did not share in this nascent meritocracy was conveniently overlooked, as if these differnces were natural and inevitable.

Whatever its limitations and failures, the Nineteenth Century common school was an institution that was built on and fostered further development of American's traditional, even if wildly unrealistic, faith in public education. Among political radicals active in the 1830's, the promise of the common school gave rise to the slogan "anarchy with a school master." In other words, education was the only governmental institution that was needed. Once people were schooled, everything else would take care of itself.

Kaestle explains all this and much more with the ease, sure-handedness, and lucid prose of an accompished historian writing for a broad-based audience of intelligent non-specialists. I learned more about American public education, both past and present, from Pillars of the Republic than from any other book I've read, with the possible exception of Rush Welter's Popular Education and Democratic Thought in America.