Ever wondered who created school? Here is the answer.

I decided to publish this post when I was trying to find an answer to my curiousity about who was responsible for the schooling which You and I now enjoy. Since childhood we have been so baffled as to why our parents needed to force us to attend school daily, sitting down and listening to some jargons that doesn't even concern us. Some of us needed to be bribed with snacks, sweets, chocolates and creamy drinks to make us stop crying just because we were going to school, and when we begin to socialize; only then do our interest begin to spike up. At a point in time most of us began to think like "who even came up with that idea of attending school in the first place?" or "where did this issue of school even started from anyway?". So I decided to answer our common question and clear our long time curiosities.

 The FAQ (frequently asked questions) of who created school is very difficult to answer with certainity because school actually had been in existence for quite a long time. School originated from the ancient Greece, ancient China, ancient Rome and ancient India.

THE CONTROVERSIAL ORIGIN OF SCHOOL.

The Byzantium, ancient eastern Roman empire was the first to begin formal primary education where the Greek philosophers disseminate knowledge to the army for the schooling was established primarily for them. More so students meet at a particular place called academy and learn from their instructors. In 425 AD the first presumed school "University of Constantinople" was also established in Byzantium empire. Here there was no diversity in studying it was more like specializing in your desired course alone.

The idea of elementary learning became widespread in Byzantium but other higher learning were only found in cities. Nevertheless, this made the Byzantine more literate than citizens of other empires. It was as well confirmed that subjects still in curriculum like arithmetics, languages, medicine, law and philosophy were also studied during this era.

Platon S. Harry

  Another man who could have been a major contributor to the invention of school was Platon .S. Harry a Greek scholar and philosopher. His method was taking into his custody any child that commits acts of indiscipline and lock them up to imbibe lesson into them. He employed grown ups to look after them for the whole day so sitting in classrooms all day seemed to emanate from this man Platon School Harry. He had his academy in a place called academia in Greece in 385 BC, this was when the word academy became popular. This method seems too crude and rugged but the parents and guardians seemed to accept this for it relieved them and the term school came from this man's name Platon School Harry. However this didn't look much like what we all know as a school but at least it can be compared to a class.

   There was also an age referred to as the Golden age of Islam between (780s to 1260s). Early school was also traced back to this age when Islamic religion made tremendous contribution to the advancement of knowledge. 

   Later on, school was more of Calvinism. (Calvinism was a system of education in which the school is supervised by the church with the belief of placing emphasis on God's superiority). The use of this word originated from a man called John Calvin who brought about the theological system of emphasising omnipotence of God and salvation by grace alone. At that time the church was in charge of adminstration in public schools.

As we can see from the multifaceted uprising of school, we can tell that school was neither actually the idea of just one man or one group or even one nation but of countless educators and people.

But ladies and gentlemen, do you know that the current learning and school system we now put into use was visioned, advocated, designed and invented by the man whose story is told below?

WHO INVENTED THE NOW SCHOOL? 

Horace Mann

 Attributing the credit to anyone in particular might be inaccurate as we have seen from a lot of tracebacks above but this man called HORACE MANN is the man I selected as the inventor of school. Oh! you're asking why? Well... that's because he's responsible for the present mode and dimension of schooling we are enjoying today.

HISTORY AND BACKGROUND OF HORACE MANN.

Horace Mann, the most appropriate inventor of the term "school" was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, USA in May 4 1796. At the age of 20 he started attending Brown university Rhodes Island and later law school. When he was graduating, he gave a speech about the advancement of human race through which education, republicanism and philantropy could combine in our favour. He was a librarian and tutor of Latin and Greek at Brown university. He afterwards became the Massachusetts educational board secretary after practising law as profession which must have been an advantage for his reformation success. He later became a politician belonging to the Whig party and was elected to serve in the US house of representatives between 1848 to 1853 While in office, he worked tirelessly to build infrastructural amenities like canals,  bridges and rail roads be also built an asylum in Worcester. During his administration as well he made different kinds of reforms and advocacies in the history of schooling which brought forth a more organised school system  and gave birth to the present mode of learning now adopted in our various schools of learning today.

He was married to Charlotte Mann who died in 1832 and Horace later remarried Mary Mann. Horace was a father of 3 children. This man can be regarded as an undisputable inventor of school due to his commitment to refining and building concrete schooling standards across the world. 

Charlotte Mann

Mary Mann

   From 1852 till his death, he served as the president of Antioch college and died on August 2 1859 at yellow spring, Ohio, USA. He was buried at Rhode Island, North Burial ground. Historians now regard this man as the Father of common school movement and few more advocates like Barnard Henry and Catherine Beecher also deserves some laudable credit.

Barnard Henry

 Catherine Beecher 

HORACE'S COMMON SCHOOL MOVEMENT.

Horace Mann

In 1837, the first ever board of education was created when a reform party for education arose and a well disciplined and committed official was demanded to lead the board. Horace Mann who was already prepared for this task volunteered to take up the seat of the secretary of the first educational board in the US. In 1838 he started writing a journal titled COMMON SCHOOL JOURNAL. He also started lecturing some teachers who shew interest on education. Later on, he discovered he needed to know more, then he set out to Europe to broaden his horizon on established principles of education. How impressive!

Common school journal .1838

Below is a brief summary of the theory that revealed what Horace believed to be education and schooling: 

1. Citizens cannot maintain both ignorance and freedom 

2. This education should be paid for, controlled and maintained by the public

3. This education should be provided in schools that embrace children from various backgrounds

4. This education must be non sectarian

5. This education must be taught using tenets of a free society and

6. This education must be provided by well-trained and professional teachers.

Horace Mann among his moves to reproduce education built a lot of public schools in the United States of America, as a result of his great contribution, a number of school were even named after him. He made sure that school was not funded or administered by religious bodies or any other independent body but by the public. That is, each child receives primary education with just local taxes.

This move of his boomeranged controversy. Religious, cultural and some private individuals were so much against the motion. The dominance of Religious bodies will be greatly reduced and politicians were lamenting about the over involvement and so they strongly opposed the movement pushed forward by Horace. Eventually, Horace prevailed over all opposition and in 1839, Massachusetts state established it's first government normal school in Lexington.

With time, the idea spread beyond just Massachusetts and all over US and now all over the world.

The common school movement also made it possible for people of diverse races, tribes, languages, religions and cultures to get access to basic education. Status was no longer a barrier for people of no recognition, money was no longer an hindrance for the less privileged and poor. Everyone started getting equal learning experience, every child started enjoying easy access to literacy up till today.

One of the great change as a result of Horace Mann's reform was the professionalism of teachers. Horace Mann himself started lecturing teachers so as not to put the students to be taught at risk of poor lessons. Institutions for teachers were also established to train teachers intensely for according to Horace teaching was more than impacting knowledge.

By 1870 all states in United States already have public owned elementary schools and they were able to come out to the world and brag of one of the most literate countries in the world. Private schools were prominent in urban areas but the rural areas lack in enough number of academies Proceeding the 1800s. At the close of the 19th century, public owned schools started to outperform private ones in terms of number. This is where we call it a success.

What was the common school like?

The common school as we've earlier discussed was the idea of the great educator of all time Horace Mann. The earlier common school was a one room class and of course public school in the US and Canada earlier. The name common school was defined by Horace Mann himself. Children of ages 6 and above were eligible to study in the common school and the duration of a grade was one year. Since the school was made from the common children, He structured the year of study to be determined by the planting seasons of the year. Why this was so was because the children had to work on their family farms in some particular seasons of the year, so Horace made sure the time scheduled for holiday corresponds with the farming season as well. Perfecto!

The common school was free of charge and was totally funded with common people's taxes. This helped children of differing status share same atmosphere of learning. This in turn started giving hopeless kids dreams to nurse and many children started advancing intellectually. 

The school became a very organised body, as districts were headed by an elected local school board. A superintendent or otherwise a district director was selected to see that every operations goes just as it should; that is to supervise all activities.

No success story without hardships and challenges, recall that there were oppositions when he wanted to implement the movement of the common school, yes, he was opposed by the Calvinists who were initially controlling the educational system over some issues like making use of positive reinforcement rather than punishment on kids. Another opposition to his movement and invention was the Boston schoolmasters; they were against it because of the cutting out of the social and religious hands from the now school system of Horace Mann.

Learning material used earlier was the Noah Webster's blue backed speller; this Blue-backed Speller taught four to five generations of the American children to spell and read, the McGuffey readers which were a series of primers from grade 1 up to grade 6. It became high in demand in the 19th century which means the reform of school in this  same century made great use of these textbooks. These are just among others that assisted students in reading, writing, spelling and this undoubtedly was the desired and attained literacy Horace Mann fought for with utmost commitment. Immigrants from other nations like Germany started building on this foundation with the introduction of kindergartens and Gymnastics.

Noah Webster's blue backed speller

McGuffey's reader

Gradually, the movement became widely accepted throughout Massachusetts, United states and the world today. Before his death again, he stood up for what was called the Prussian kind of school it was the method of grouping students according to their ages into the respective grades. Each student that met up to requirements would be promoted to the next grade till they have completed all courses for all grades and are afterwards certificated on completion.

NOTABLE PROGRESS OF THE COMMON SCHOOL MOVEMENT.

• In 1857, a bill known as the Morrill land grant was pushed for the granting of land for schools. Prior to this, in 1862 Abraham Lincoln signed-approved the bill into law that 30,000 acres of land should be granted to each state for 20 years which was either within or beyond their state boundaries. This helped in the success of agricultural education which gave the world engineers and agricultural scientists. This made the government a realise the first technology based economy.
•  After the civil war, over 1000 schools were made available in the south by the Freedmen bureau and for the Black Americans. Freedman bureau spent heavy amount of 5 million dollars to achieve this and by 1870, more than 90,000 black children were enrolled. 
• And lastly to be added is the 2nd Morrill act of the 1890 that disqualified the criterion of colour or race as a requirement for admission in every states.

     All these advancements can only be traced back to the foundation lay down by Horace Mann in his reform journey. School never was originated by one man but there surely were people whose tremendousness in education preached reformation to schooling.  

     Here is the word of Horace man few weeks before his death:

  “I beseech you to treasure up in your        hearts 
    these my parting words: 
    Be ashamed to die 
    until you have won 
    some victory for humanity. ”

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