JAMES RENWICK, LL.D.

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CHAPTER VI.

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Origin of the Public School Society of New-York. – It is Chartered. – Is founded on Private Contributions. – Clinton’s Agency in obtaining them. – Gift from the Corporation of New-York, and Grant from the State Legislature. – Reflections on the System of Common Schools. – Turnpike from Poughkeepsie to Kingsbridge.

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While mayor of the City of New-York, Clinton took the lead in the promotion of numerous important public objects. To the aid of these he not only brought his talents as a writer, his personal exertions, and the whole weight of his political influence, but contributed, when necessary, freely from his private purse. Among these, the Free School Association, as well from the direct and immediate benefits it produced, as from having been the first step towards that system which now includes the whole state in its beneficent influence, is most worthy of notice.

The Lancasterian method of instruction was making a great noise in Europe, and excited, in particular, the attention of the members of the Society of Friends. In the year 1804, two influential and benevolent men of this persuasion, the late John Murray, Jr., and Thomas Eddy, conceived the idea of introducing that method into the City of New-York. Clinton was immediately consulted by them, and saw at once the vast amount of benefit which might be derived from the successful introduction of this system. He therefore drew up the plan of an association, for the purpose of providing gratuitous instruction for such poor children as did not fall within the sphere of any of the charity schools then existing in the city. In the list of this association his name stands first, and he was its first presiding officer.

As a charter was necessary to ensure success, preparations were made for applying to the Legislature; and Governor Lewis made the subject a prominent feature of his message in January, 1805. With wise and liberal views, he went beyond the immediate objects of the association, and pointed out to the Legislature the value of a general system of common schools, backing his recommendation by the authority of his predecessor, George Clinton.

In consequence of this recommendation, and the personal exertions of its friends, a charter was granted in April, 1805, in the preamble to which, Clinton is named as having applied for it. No farther legislative aid was granted at the time; and it became necessary, in order to carry the objects of the association into effect, to have recourse to private contributions. In the labour of solicitation and explanation necessary for such a purpose, and in the irksome task of begging from door to door, Clinton took more than his share. In company with Frederic Depeyster, another of the associates, he called personally upon many of the citizens, and did not cease from his exertions until no more funds could be collected. The list of Depeyster and Clinton exhibited subscriptions to the amount of $4910.

His influence with the corporation of the city, over whose deliberations he then presided, was next brought into action, and a grant of an old building, formerly used as an arsenal, with a donation of $2000 in money, was obtained.

In the year 1806, Clinton, having taken his seat in the Senate of the state, was named chairman of a committee to which a petition of the Free-school Society for aid was referred. In this capacity he made a most able and conclusive report, in which the importance of the institution to the public was exhibited in so clear a light, that a bill was passed, by which an immediate appropriation of $12,000, with an annuity of $1500 per annum, was granted to the society.

This was the germ of the public schools of the city of New-York, now so flourishing, and the basis on which the great system of common schools throughout the state was founded. The success of the first public school was unexampled in training up to habits of industry and morality, youth who might otherwise have fallen into idleness and vice. At the end of twenty years from its foundation, it was the proud boast of Clinton, then governor of the state, in a message to the Legislature, that out of the many thousands who had received instruction in the public schools, none had ever been convicted of a criminal offence.

The success of the public school in New-York led to its speedy imitation in Albany and Troy; and the obvious benefits which the several establishments conferred on the community, furnished the most powerful inducements for the accumulation of such a fund as might spread similar advantages throughout the state. It is unnecessary to enter into an exhibition of the immense value which the common schools have been to the State of New-York. Their importance is admitted on all hands; and, where the right of suffrage is universal, the only security for liberty is to be found in an equally universal diffusion of the blessings of education. {The basis of the fund, which has grown to such an extend, was laid in the session of 1806, by a legislative grant of 600,000 acres of public lands; and is has accumulated from this and other sources, until it is justly doubted whether it be expedient to increase it any farther.}

The common school system has not, however, yet attained that degree of excellence of which it is capable, and there are certain obvious defects in its management which call for a remedy.

The public school of New-York was originally instituted to supply a positive want. The several religious congregations had, with great liberality, founded free-schools, erecting buildings and purchasing land. Those of the Reformed Dutch, Presbyterian, and Episcopal churches were flourishing, although far from being sufficient even for those in their respective communions. They derived their support from annual collections. The Catholics had also commenced a similar system; and, although possessed of less comparative wealth, exhibited a noble spirit of liberality. When the school fund was first applied, all these institutions received support from it in the ratio of the numbers of their respective scholars, and a generous emulation ensued to raise the character of the education they furnished, as by this alone, in most of the cases, could they obtain a preference from the scholars.

By a most unfortunate change, the whole appropriation was vested in the public schools, and the support afforded by it to those of the several Christian denominations withdrawn. The free-schools therefore fell back to their original state, or were abandoned altogether. Hundreds of active and zealous advocates of education have been withdrawn from the cause, and the public schools themselves do not appear to have derived any proportionate accession in numbers. The blow has fallen hardest upon the Catholics. The children of this numerous and, unluckily, as a mass, ignorant portion of our population, are thereby debarred, by scruples of conscience, from all access to that education for which they are taxed in proportion to their means. In mere principle, although in amount small, the hardship is as great as that which some of them have fled to avoid in the country of their nativity, that of paying for the support of a clergy whose ministry they repudiate. To say that the schools are open to their children is a repetition of the remark that the Protestant churches are open to them in Ireland; their consciences equally prevent their entering either.

It will be only when all religious feeling can be satisfied, that the great and final step of the school system can be taken, namely, to render it penal in any parent not to avail himself of the benefits it holds out to its children. Such has been the law for centuries in Switzerland, and has been the most efficient cause of the maintenance of its free institutions while in actual contact with the most powerful and absolute monarchies of Europe. They have been supported by their moral strength, long after physical resistance would have ceased to defend them.

So far, then, from withdrawing the benefits of the school fund from sectarian establishments, all denominations of Christians ought to be encouraged to found schools, and be entitled, as formerly, to a proportionate share of the fund. No denomination can except to this; for, as each is satisfied that its own tenets are correct, it ought to be pleased at the diffusion of that intelligence by which its orthodoxy may be tested.

Another obvious defect in the system is its entire separation from all the institutions for education of a higher character. It thus limits those whose parents are not possessed of competence, to the very elements of learning; shuts them out from all the learned professions; and debars them from all chance of attaining political eminence by legitimate means. Under the aspect of the purest democracy, it lays the foundation of an aristocracy of learning, into which the children of the rich alone are admitted.

Those who are conversant with the working of the two systems, are aware of the wide and impassable barrier which separates those who are educated in the common schools from those who find their elementary instruction in private seminaries, and subsequently complete their courses in colleges. Feelings of contempt on the one hand, and of envy on the other, are fostered; and, on attaining manhood, the youth of the republic are obviously arrayed in two distinct and almost hostile classes.

In order that the common school system should be perfect, it ought, as might readily be effected, to give an elementary education superior to that of any private school, and thus make it the interest even of the richest to sent their children to the public schools. It should next be brought into the closest connexion with the chartered academies and colleges, by giving, as a reward for proficiency in knowledge, the right of continuing the studies, begun in the common schools, in the higher seminaries. Some of our colleges have, with great liberality, tendered free scholarships to the trustees of the public schools; but the boon has not produced its proper result, because the intermediate academies are inaccessible.

It is only in this way that a proper supply of competent teachers for the common schools can be obtained. It unluckily happens, that the profession of a teacher does not confer a standing in society which will compensate for its trifling emolument. Teachers in the State of New-York, will alone be found among those who are preparing themselves for professions of a character more respected by the community, or who may have been unsuccessful in other professions. The youth whose talents will fit him for a teacher, will not consent that an occupation, whose professors he sees almost loaded with indignity, shall be the limit of his wishes. We therefore can anticipate no good result from the establishment of separate schools for teachers; but, if the talented and industrious members of the common schools be passed to the academies, and the most distinguished of them, in turn, to the colleges, many seeking knowledge with more ambitious views, would, in the very nature of things, fall into the body of teachers.

From the time that he became an associate and the first president of the Public School Society of New-York, Clinton was unwearied in his labours to promote the cause of education. As mayor of the city, as senator, and as governor of the state, he made every fair use of the influence of his station to increase the school fund and extend its benefits. Standing almost alone at first, he was joined in the end by such numbers, and the influence finally became so powerful, as to overleap the bounds he would himself have set to it, and to monopolize patronage, of which a part might have been extended, with greater public benefit, to institutions of more elevated character. Thus, while the school system has been so successful that one fourth of the whole numerical population is included in the lists of its pupils, the number of incorporated academies has not increased, nor that of the scholars who attend them. This has reacted upon the common schools themselves, by rendering it impossible to procure a sufficient number of competent teachers.

The communication between the cities of New-York and Albany, so easy while the Hudson River is open, is, during the winter, extremely difficult. This attracted the attention of Clinton; and a petition, drawn and headed by him, was presented to the legislature in the year 1805, for the incorporation of the Highland Turnpike Co., to make a road from Poughkeepsie to Kingsbridge. The charter was granted, and funds nearly adequate to the purpose were raised. By mismanagement on the part of the directors, they were exhausted before the most difficult part of the road was completed. Still, the travel in winter on the east side of the Hudson, which was formerly attended with great danger, has, since the passage of that act, been rendered more easy and safe. This was all that the state of the times and of the art of engineering would permit. Had Clinton been now living, and possessed of the influence he then exerted, we should probably, ere this, have seen our commercial metropolis united with the seat of government by a railroad. The same enlightened policy which dictated the construction of the Erie Canal in 1817 {original text has "1807."} would have urged the necessity of this measure at the public cost, and would not have left the southwestern tier of counties to seen an outlet to the market of New-York through the imperfect and ineffectual method of a chartered company, which, if unsuccessful, would be a total waste of capital, and if successful, an odious monopoly. The circumstances of the times in which he lived did not call for any exposition of his views on such subjects to the citizens of our own state, but the arguments he addressed to the inhabitants of New-Jersey and Ohio contain much practical wisdom, which is exactly suited to the present state of affairs in New-York.

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Transcribed from the original text and html prepared by Bill Carr, last updated 12/10/99.