PILLARS OF THE REPUBLIC Pillars of the Republic



Pillars of the Republic

“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 firm pledge to republican government, by their trust in Protestant standards, and by the development of capitalism. The scribe furthermore examines the opposition to the Founding Fathers' informative concepts and shows what consequences these had on our school system. An eloquent and thoughtful essay, one of those glimpses back in time which shows us where we are. Kaestle leads us to appreciate why uniform, centralized public-school systems evolved out of haphazard educational alternatives, yet he also reflects on what has been lost, in variety, responsiveness, individual choice, and local control, as this nation has pressed on with an educational 'modernity,' ever more centralized and vapid.

Avery shrewd and compassionate book. A splendid achievement. In reviewing customary and new explanation 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 ideologies, social and cultural change, and leadership. This exposition, often enlivened by vivid illustrations, is habitually readable. 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 developed out of haphazard educational alternatives, yet he also reflects on what has been lost, in variety, responsiveness, 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 (Kaestle 1983).

Kaestle's publication is an very good review of the first hundred years of public education in America. After an introduction that wrappings Colonial America's mostly private or benevolent society school schemes, he outlines the forces that conceived the move in the direction of public education paid for with levy money. It was a long, slow method, that in some ways was still not entire well into the 20th century, and has not been endorsed unanimously even now.

This is the best publication available on the Nineteenth Century common school and the communal and educational ideals that placed the widespread school at the forefront of public learning in the U.S. The common school was an directorially simple institution that probably 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 ingrained in a managerially 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 mostly implicit: to imbue scholars with a common world outlook premised on the notion that, anything the differences amidst them, they were all in the identical boat. As a result, subsequent educational practices, such as proficiency grouping and curriculum tracking, would have ...