Compulsory public education

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Compulsory public education was a social movement in the early 20th century United States. Its denizens identified public school with patriotism but appeared to be motivated also by anti-Catholic animus. In the 1920s the movement was more grassroots and nativist, but when it was reborn after World War II it attracted more support from elites.

[edit] First Wave: 1920s

In the 1920s the idea of compulsory public education gained traction in various states, largely as a reaction against parochial (Catholic) schools. The Ku Klux Klan supported the movement.[1]

In Michigan the movement achieved a referendum on the subject in 1920, but won less than 40 percent of the vote.[2] In Oregon a similar measure passed in 1922. Campaigning for it, the Ku Klux Klan “circulated a tract that pictured a grinning, torch-wielding Catholic bishop triumphantly departing from a burning public school house whose teacher rang the school bell one last time as he lay dying in the vestibule, mourned by crying children.”[3]

In Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down Oregon's law.[4] The decision was widely hailed by progressive elites such as the presidents of Yale and the University of Texas, the Journal of Education, John Dewey, future supreme court justice Felix Frankfurter, and the National Education Association.[5]

[edit] Second Wave: 1945-60

After World War II some progressives such as The Nation editor Paul Blanshard became concerned with the power of the Catholic Church. They did not want it to receive public funds via its schools.[6] Some scholars have argued that the 1947 Supreme Court decision Everson v. Board of Education, which created the legal doctrine of separation of church and state, was motivated by anti-Catholic feelings. That opinion was written by Justice Hugo L. Black, who was a fan of Blanshard.[7]

Some progressives compared parochial education to racial segregation. "You cannot practice democratic living in segregated schools," said one Columbia professor, referring to Catholic schools.[8] At a debate at Harvard Law School a Methodist Bishop called parochial schools un-American.[9] In 1952 prominent educators openly attacked "nonpublic schools" at a convention of public school superintendents in Boston. They were following the lead of their own president and Harvard’s president, James B. Conant.[10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Philip Hamburger (2002). Separation of Church and State. Harvard University Press. 
  2. ^ William G. Ross (2001). Pierce After Seventy-Five Years: Reasons to Celebrate. University of Detroit Mercy, pp.443, 450. 
  3. ^ William G. Ross (2001). Pierce After Seventy-Five Years: Reasons to Celebrate. University of Detroit Mercy, pp. 452. 
  4. ^ (1925) Pierce v. Society of Sisters, pp. 268, 510. 
  5. ^ David B. Tyack (1968-10). The Perils of Pluralism: The Background of the Pierce Case, AM. HIST. REV., pp.74,82. 
  6. ^ Paul Blanshard (1949). American Freedom and Catholic Power, pp. 140. 
  7. ^ John T. McGreevy (2003). Catholicism and American Freedom. W.W. Norton, pp.185. 
  8. ^ John T. McGreevy (2003). Catholicism and American Freedom. W.W. Norton, pp. 186. 
  9. ^ (1951) Harvard law school forum, public aid to parochial education, pp. 32. 
  10. ^ Benjamine Fine. "Dual School Rise Is Attacked Anew", New York Times, 1952-04-09.