[Sidenote: Constitutional provision in Pennsylvania produced only ‘poor schools.’]
[Sidenote: Public system in Philadelphia and elsewhere.]
=Development of Systems of Education in Pennsylvania and the Other Middle States.=--The rise of public systems in the other Middle states was also gradual. In Pennsylvania, the state system slowly arose through a prolonged stage of ‘poor schools.’ The new constitution (1790) of the state declared: “The legislature shall, as soon as conveniently may be, provide by law for the establishment of schools throughout the State, in such manner that the poor may be taught gratis.” Men of broad vision, like Franklin, Benjamin Rush, and Timothy Pickering, had striven hard to have popular education introduced, but the general sentiment of the times could not reach beyond providing free education for the poor. Moreover, although this moderate constitutional provision was a compromise, it was not until some years later (1802, 1804, and 1809) that the legislature passed acts to make it effective. Even then public institutions to fulfill the legislation were not established, but it was arranged that the tuition of poor children should be paid for at public expense in private, church, and neighborhood schools, and the proceeds of the sixty thousand acres of land appropriated for ‘aiding public schools’ went to subsidize private institutions. But the idea of common schools continued to develop, and governors and other prominent men constantly called attention to the need of universal education. Philadelphia was the first municipality to be converted, and in 1818, under a special act of the legislature, it became ‘the first school district of Pennsylvania,’ with the power to provide a system of education on the Lancasterian plan at public expense. After three or four years this special legislation was extended to five more ‘districts’, and in 1824 a general law permitting the establishment of free schools in any community was enacted, though soon repealed.
[Sidenote: Establishment of a state school fund and a state school system.]
[Sidenote: Effort to repeal unsuccessful.]
Finally, in 1828, ‘the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Common Schools,’ after demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the ‘pauper school’ law in a series of memorials, succeeded in having a state school fund established, and in 1834, “an act to establish a general system of education by common schools” was passed. This law established a state system of schools under the general superintendency of the secretary of state. For this system it appropriated $75,000 per annum from the income of the state school fund, and permitted the wards, townships, and boroughs, which it constituted school districts, to share in this, provided they levied local taxes for schools. The Northern counties, settled mostly by New England colonists, and the Western portion of the state, with its large element of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, ardently favored this encouragement of universal education, but the law was only ‘permissive’ and was bitterly opposed by the Quaker and German inhabitants of ‘old’ Pennsylvania, who feared that their own parochial schools would be replaced. The wealthy classes were also hostile to the new law, on the ground that they ought not to be taxed to educate other people’s children. In a vigorous campaign to repeal the act, however, the opponents of the law, largely through the eloquent speech of Thaddeus Stevens, were defeated the following year (1835), and the desire to establish public schools was greatly increased in 1836 by the passage of a new law, which enlarged the annual appropriation to $200,000, in which the school districts might participate only on condition of local taxation. Even then not more than one-half the districts took advantage of the opportunity, and it was several years before most of them claimed their share. Hence, while the battle was won by 1835, the consummation of public education in Pennsylvania did not take place until the great awakening of common schools had swept over the country.